(Video includes audio. Be sure to unmute)

BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! has its characters start at the lowest point imaginable – a band having broken up, friendships fractured, and feelings hurt. Togawa Saki rubbed salt on a wound so quickly and ruthlessly that any chance at repairing things reads as nonexistent. Considering how much the franchise up to this point has relied on its sense of communal fun, it seems like the most-antithetical, experimental, and sure-to-fail approach that could have been taken. To be sure, the franchise has never been afraid to dip its toe into the more-dramatic aspects of its universe; the two-part Episode of Roselia film series and the arcs from seasons two and three certainly showed that. But to start at the absolute bottom and with that melancholic overhang? It’s making a sincere ask of its audience by doing so.

And it’s not the only gamble it took, either. After 2022’s BanG Dream! Poppin’ Dream film, the animated franchise as we knew it was over. For three seasons, many specials and MVs, and that most-recent outing, the series had well and truly run its course. The final performance seemed to encapsulate everything that the series had been blooming at that point in time, relying upon both its fun music and its fun characters to create something that meant smiles and “kira-kira-doki-doki” were never in short supply. But what was also present was the finality of it all; the performance within the context of that film clearly indicated that if things were to continue onward, it would not be in the same way. A change was needed to inject some life into a franchise that, while not old or long overstaying its welcome, had to create something new. You can only rely on the same seven bands up to a certain point.

Even though only one band is featured in the course of BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!!, it’s really a story of two separate(?) bands. Left in the wake of CRYCHIC’s breakup, the cast is left socially and spiritually adrift, made all the easier by them attending three different schools. The breakup haunts the characters like a ghost, dogging them and their motivations nearly every step of the way. Some of the lingering relationships, such as the one between Takamatsu Tomori and Shiina Taki, are more stable than others, while Nagasaki Soyo cannot seem to stop trying to talk to Saki, the breaker of CRYCHIC. Kaname Raana is disparagingly referred to as a “stray cat” by Taki, coming and going to RiNG whenever she feels like shredding on her guitar. And all the while, a new girl named Chihaya Anon enrolls at one of the schools and wants to form a band of her own, not realizing the emotional tempest she’s wandered into and how it will clash with the emotional baggage she has brought herself.

(The series has the characters failing, arguing, or metaphorically stumbling woven into its fabric more tightly than in previous installments, which helps distinguish them from their predecessors as a narrative and presents genuine obstacles for them to overcome)

Everyone presented has their own reasons for wanting to form the band, yet the result is that BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! allows all its main characters to assume the antagonist role—either directly or indirectly—at some point or another, with their own fixations and motivations steering the ship. Bossiness, assuming too many responsibilities, and a sense that the band is boring are recurring and longstanding. These are not situations that are resolved via quick gags or in one-episode spans; temporary respites or patchwork solutions might stop the bleeding, but the lingering wound remains. Abandonment and being effectively “lost in the wilderness” stains all the CRYCHIC members, Anon, and Raana, whether that came in the form of it being imposed on them or them carrying that weight long after the fact. It creates a deliberately infused disharmony, with everyone operating on separate wavelengths that only happen to align with each other every once in a while. It’s not until the final few episodes that the familiar mold of BanG Dream! starts to manifest, but the shape and color therein are distinctly MyGO!!!!!’s own, never to be confused with any of the prior bands or seasons. As such, its sense of communal atmosphere is also wholly unique to itself.

(Despite being the person who broke CRYCHIC, Saki is not hastily written out of the story, creating an ever-looming throughline for some of the band members to reconcile in their own way. And that’s not even getting into what Saki has been up to in the meanwhile…)

Most surprisingly in this respect however is its humor; the jokes (both one-off and running) throughout, while not on the same wavelength as the previous installments, still are unmistakably BanG Dream!-esque. However, they also utilize the inherent disharmony I alluded to before as one of the central ingredients to making the drama work as well. Of note here is Raana; since she functions as the show’s wild card in terms of personality, she’s more or less off in her own world, moving wherever her whims take her. That comedic chaotic energy acts as a rather effective bridge to lead into BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!!’s more dramatic moments. The comedy therefore acts as an orientation for the next phase of the drama, or a simple little indulgence for a moment. It’s not a crutch, but a part of its integrated whole. In that spirit, it’s the most experimental that the franchise has been in this respect, which makes even its not-really-that-funny gags feel funnier than they might have been otherwise.

(BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! resides more within the dramatic than before, but takes great care not to drown within its own melancholy. Raana is the most-prevalent form of comedic levity the show has, with her fickleness and propensity to be chaotic a most-welcome presence)

I used the word “experimental” before when describing both the show’s comedy and drama. In using that word though, I don’t want to be misunderstood. This is not anime arthouse, but in the context of the rest of the franchise, it certainly feels experimental. BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! made the effort to avoid stagnancy, and in so doing, breathed new life into the franchise. It dared to bring the dramatic to the fore, to have its characters argue while musically sucking and getting on each other’s nerves, and SANZIGEN made its 2D and 3D animations smoother than ever. It did all of that while not betraying the franchise’s communal spirit. It asserted its right to exist by having it come together, and ranks as one of the more unusual, yet somehow still bizarrely magnetic, installments BanG Dream! has had yet.