Girls Band Bandwidth: How BanG Dream! YUME∞MITA's Use of Streamers and Social Media Brings Its Story Into the Future

The internet. It's a cornerstone of the modern entertainment complex. Creators wanting to get their work out cannot merely be adept in their craft—they must also be able to navigate the multiplicitous lanes and uncertain signage of the information superhighway. So it must go as well for the girls bands in the BanG Dream! franchise, with this season's YUME∞MITA being heavily based in that space. Directly, even, as the MewType band find themselves positioned as a "virtual" band, streaming with digital avatars and delivering their performances directly online. They take after the now-hallowed tradition of streamers and contend with their audience via social media. It's a bold new era for the girls band, and a fitting one for this group of the future to occupy.

Logging On

To be sure, MewType aren't the first BanG Dream! band to contend with the connective issues of the internet. Over in the BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! mobile game, idol group Pastel＊Palettes were introduced with a storyline wherein major issues with their debut performance led to them accumulating a huge amount of negativity on their socials. More recently, in the It's MyGO!!!!! anime, a key early moment in Tomori's arc comes when she sees unthinkingly cruel comments about her performance, and fixates on how she's perceived. As described, the internet simply is part of performing culture now—it's naturally going to come up in these sorts of stories (and does, in other mobile game plots and anime entries). 

MewType in BanG Dream! YUME∞MITA, however, takes things to a much more focused level. Even before the group was formed, the characters had found their performing space online. Nonoka was an accomplished streaming musician, while Arale was part of the video-producing group La La La Girls. The manager who has recruited them to be part of MewType has done so on account of their online-performance acumen, positioning them as a virtual, internet-first band.

This is reflected in the band's presentation and the Vtuber-styled online avatars they utilize for their virtual performances. It remains to be seen how the story of YUME∞MITA will continue the arc of MewType's presentation, but for now, their look and ability to perform under their "stage" personas can only happen in a streamed, online, virtual reality. This is a boon, in some cases, as it allows Arale who has trauma from her past experiences of getting backlashes to overcome her fears and attempt singing without worrying about fully compromising her identity. As well, being able to immediately gather in cyberspace from the comfort of their own homes makes it easier for the girls to quickly come together for rehearsals or meetings without a need for renting space like live houses. It truly feels like a vision of the ease-of-access promised by the online virtual future.

In terms of aspects that impact our own reality, the virtual framing allows the YUME∞MITA anime to push its animation qualities to levels beyond what the BanG Dream! series had already accomplished. The 3D CGI animation gets to animate the characters with outlandish, cartoony abandon when they're in the online virtual space. It shows off the evolved sensibilities of the production while creating a strong stylistic contrast with the somewhat more grounded sections taking place in the "real world." Here it illustrates the appeal of the internet—a space where the characters can cut loose or simply freely float about, uncompromised by the pressures of the physical realm. But as tempting as it is to wholly appreciate that freedom, YUME∞MITA also makes clear that the internet is so inundated in our world today that it still very much makes an impact.

The Other Side of the Screen

To start, being expected to practice and present online "from the comfort of your own home" precludes an ongoing effort from these virtual performers. The rapid regular schedule afforded by this format has already shown itself in the second episode of YUME∞MITA, where Miyako struggles under the weights of being an online musician and illustrator. Being a streamer can be a fun activity, but it can also be a job, and the need for an effective manager and supportive teammates underscores that. However, internet interactions as a job also precludes a need to content with commenters and other online audience members in a professional capacity. This is the lesson that Nonoka learns in that same second episode, when her poorly considered reply in a stream is taken to task by those commentators. The eye of the internet can be an intimidating, judgemental one—and it can also be manipulated.

To some degree, the artifice of online presentation can be a benefit for performers. As I mentioned earlier, it allows the girls of MewType to perform as alternated virtual versions of themselves that can embody more idealized qualities. Arale can find a way to sing without fear. Miyako can put up the front of the friendly, personable girl she struggles to remain in real life. This is an element of online self-presentation that has been with the space since the beginning, when people were able to couch themselves in a screenname and an avatar of their favorite anime character.

However, even that veneer of anonymity does not provide shielding against antagonism. The MewType girls are dressed up in virtual avatars, but they're still a public performing group, and so issues like Nonoka's comment conundrum directly impact the show-business careers the band is trying to cultivate. Pushed too far, and the people in this position can see themselves threatened to be "canceled"—made a target of mass dislike in the court of public opinion that results in their fanbase and fortunes drying up. This too shows how YUME∞MITA is bringing BanG Dream! stories into the virtual age. Previously cited band plots may have interfaced with internet comments, but the struggles of MewType are borne directly out of online actions.

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Compared to some of those previous BanG Dream! stories dealing with the digital age, which mostly used internet comments as a vector for illustrating audience displeasure or meanness, YUME∞MITA's depictions genuinely deal in the disconnect that can come with interacting through a screen. Nonoka's problem in the second episode comes not from her actually saying something inappropriate, but from viewers (willfully or not) misinterpreting her comment as disingenuous. Context is everything in conversation, but with a digital wall between things it can fail to communicate.

As mentioned, this can also be weaponized. Arale's previous cancellation from La La La Girls came about because a leaked video painted her as malicious and even abusive toward her former groupmates. But as the third episode of the anime reveals, that video was crafted by the vindictive Viola, who cut out the context and manipulated the material to make Arale look worse than she actually was. And she makes clear that she can conspire to do it again, in the context of Arale's new group, MewType. BanG Dream!'s turn toward more heavily dramatic storytelling since It's MyGO!!!!! has let it introduce more characters who engage in outright villainy, and Viola's actions dovetail with the power of the internet to obliterate context from people's actions to make her a unique addition who could only be deployed in an anime like this. She's not just a fresh new character, she represents another evolution of the series' storytelling that comes from its embracing of virtual settings.

Viola even fits in as a dark flipside of the other themes already discussed. Obviously she too is hiding her real face behind a facade, but the nature of that true self and what she does on the other side of the internet are more dark and cruel than the performances the MewType girls are delivering. Viola also uses here awareness of the crossover between the "real world" and virtual one to get what she wants in both—she manipulatively calls out Ritsu's "model student" persona to craft it into a cage she can keep her in, away from the virtual antics of Arale and MewType. Cruel, but it also highlights that alternate world of free-wheeling personas as one that Ritsu might be able to escape to if she and Arale can come to re-understand each other in real life.

Logging Off

The girls of MewType have grappled with the issues of the internet, though they haven't quite had to break out the metaphorical ukulele for an apology video yet. There are ups and downs to YUME∞MITA's story, but the appeal thus far is in showing the ways characters navigate the unique challenges of being online performers—not just punishing them for existing in view of the comment panopticon.

The theme of BanG Dream! across all its entries has always been the value, the fun that comes from performing in a band with friends. Arale and the rest of MewType are still discovering that only a few episodes in YUME∞MITA, but within the narrative, the specific ways that being streamers and online musicians can make its own specific kind of fun is apparent. Here, performers can truly be who they want to be, and can cut loose on their own terms. Yes, some context can be lost and there are different concerns than with contending with a real-life audience, but that challenge too is part of the experience. YUME∞MITA is a BanG Dream! story through and through, now connected to the future of entertainment through the power of the internet.