(Give me a second while I glaze the art style as a 3D artist...)

This show honestly blew me away. I was expecting not that much from it but it was honestly one of the best like- SHOWS on my list. The animation and visuals in this show is great, the 3D medium translates into the artstyle really well. It also allows the animators to afford more tiny details in character animation that you don't really see in other anime normally animated in 2D from little mannerisms and gestures to big expressive motions- as well as being able to animate the action of playing instruments more concisely than usual rotoscoping.

**[ ! ] Do not be mistaken, this show is not an example of bad anime CGI at all. Please, just have an open mind ~~though I do understand where the stigma towards 3D animation in anime comes from~~- this is just not that what so ever. PLEASE- *JUST LOOK WITH YOUR EYES!!***

We are finally at the point where stylized 3D animation is blossoming in to this amazing medium and I'm glad that- at the very least- Toei is producing some really great 3D animation in anime among others. There are moments where they just use a 2D artstyle, namely for the intro, characters that appear for one or two shots, and an entire flashback segment- and it's pretty obvious for those instances why (other than the intro, where I assume that the show was planned to be animated in 2D but was further realized to be 3D after the intro was made). It's a little bit jarring but I didn't really mind it too much, the artstyle of the 3D animated things don't stand out too much against 2D assets- but I can imagine it probably would have paid off better if they just fully leaned into the 3D artstyle.

(Okay now to talking about the actual show...)

This show has really good character writing. I specifically really like and partially resonated with the main character, Nina Iseri. Her characterization is just so... real. The other characters are just so nicely written too- and when combined with that lively character animation I was just talking about- everyone just feels realized and I personally was just more attached to them because of that. It just makes the drama in this show hit so much harder too, just really interesting stuff that honestly had me hooked the whole time.

The music in this show is pretty nice too. I found myself listening to a little bit of the songs outside of the show and they really do a good job of projecting the characters' (Mainly Nina's) thoughts and struggles. (Obvious comparisons to Bocchi...) I feel like Bocchi's music just hits harder- both musically and then inherently emotionally too- but that's waay more opinion based than anything else, lol...

Overall, I really love this show. I NEED a season 2 and I think it's absolutely insane that no one in the west officially picked this show up for at-least subtitling- I was only able to watch it due to fan subs- specifically 'SubsPlease' (under the name 'SobsPlease' specifically for this show, lmao). I also really hope the new 'meta' is girls in a band because we're 2 for 2 on those right now!!