Ave Mujica as a series entry is a bit hard for me to come to a solid conclusion of. Upon this season's beginning, I was thoroughly prepared for an absolute trainwreck from beginning to end based on my perception of MyGO. I thought MyGO had a very strong beginning but just continued to fall apart more and more until we were left with the unrecognizable mess that was episodes 12 and 13. Where the story was once strong, I felt MyGO began to struggle over time in being able to take advantage of what made it good in the first place. It made the series thematic collapse all the more disappointing to me as a result. Despite this, I was extremely curious about what Ave Mujica would be able to create with this foundation I found to be oh so shaky and I've been eagerly awaiting Ave Mujica for the past year or so. Now that Ave Mujica has concluded, I can say without hesitation that “yes, indeed, this is the sequel to MyGo…” while at the same time, I want to make it plainly clear that Ave Mujica is without a doubt a step up from MyGO in just about every conceivable way. The series is able to strike this balance of being constantly fascinatingly in depth and interesting while sometimes being completely incomprehensible, making me thoroughly question my sanity (ironically very on-brand for Ave Mujica). I think what they have here had quite a lot of the workings to have been something truly next level when it comes to band anime but these issues that seem to constantly popup over the course of its run length proves that regardless of how good the setup and presentation is, its very tough to truly remove all the unpleasant thorny issues that would have allowed this anime to fully flourish. It makes it very challenging to define just how good or bad exactly Ave Mujica truly is, but I can certainly take an objective look at what I believe the show's most critical aspects are and how they form this show I became so addicted to watching for 13 weeks.
Just like last time, I will discuss what I thought was good and bad with Ave Mujica without spoilers followed up by a section containing spoilers where I'll go into a little more depth with what I think made this show the way it is.
Moving away from production aspects, Ave Mujica had some seriously impressive character writing that I was not expecting at all after watching MyGO. Again, without going into too many details, Mutsumi stands out as a prime example of a character that completely defied my expectations and became a very interesting character to see develop over the course of the season. Seeing her drastic mental change from how she was in MyGO to how she ended up at the end of Ave Mujica unfold in real time, Mutsumi is almost completely unrecognizable. While maybe not to the same extent, numerous other characters of the main cast saw similar levels of in depth character development that kept me thoroughly invested. Speaking of keeping me invested, I found the plot to be so much more thoughtful and deep than that of MyGO. They really expanded upon the idea of the fight between the desire for belonging in a group and the joy that can come from playing music together to the the amount of pain and strife the group can experience through the fragile aspects of the human relationships formed within. The road to get here was far from painless, but the accumulation of these difficult moments create such a fantastic product. Putting aside the more thoughtful aspects of the story, the plot of Ave Mujica is blatantly SUPER juicy. Off rip in episode 1, there was so much absolutely crazy stuff happening that would leave me completely shocked in just about every episode. Finally, of course, I gotta talk about the music. MyGO had some pretty good songs and after the preview into this band in MyGO’s 13th episode, I was a little skeptical about what we would receive here and I couldn't be more happy to be wrong. The opening theme of Ave Mujica is ridiculously catchy and paired with its super exciting visuals, it quickly became one of my favorite music anime opening themes. In regards to its ending theme, like MyGO, Ave Mujica’s ending theme has pretty simple visuals, but the theme’s super dramatic ending song really felt befitting of the show and really worked to tie the episodes together. The insert songs also proved to be interesting. To be honest, in hearing the songs in the episodes themselves, I wasn't that impressed by the songs, but after re listening to some of them, they really are pretty great within the context of the craziness happening in the show. Quite a few of them have really worked their way into my head lately. All this musical prowess accumulated into the awesome experience that was episode 13 where we could actively see MyGO and Ave Mujica’s very different performances side by side with an abundance of excellent songs!
To start, just like MyGO, I felt that after the halfway point, some characters began to act in very bizarre ways which acted completely against their defined character up until that point. It led to a couple of scenes that came across as being very blatantly strange to me which led to some very frustrating character interactions. I think the strange disconnect created by these moments began to take away from some of the more important later scenes of the show. I think a prime example of this is Umiri, the band's bass player. For nearly the whole first half of this show, I felt like she was completely indifferent about Ave Mujica then suddenly on a dime, Ave Mujica is now the most important thing to her. Uh??? Hello??? Where did that come from??? Did I skip a page??? That may be a bit of hyperbole but to an extent, it really did kinda feel like her character just completely does a 180 and I found it extremely strange. In addition to Umiri, I noticed similar moments with Nyamu which went on to prove to me at least that this is more of a pattern and not a one off. These very rapid shifts in characters illustrates a pattern of uneven character writing depth that I feel can also be seen in MyGO. While I think its fine that some characters get more development over others, I felt like there were a few episodes in the middle that reserve quite a lot of time for Umiri and Nyamu only to have their character arcs be wrapped up very swiftly as the greater story line reaches its climax. It makes the development of these characters feel very rushed, forced and under developed in comparison to characters like Sakiko, Uika and Mutsumi.
The second thing I wanted to bring up is a bit more abstract and hard to describe without going into spoilers so bare with me. MyGO definitely had this issue too but I think it got that much worse in Ave Mujica. Simply put, I feel like Ave Mujica at least partially fails to handle the tying together of its thematic elements when it comes to its story and characters. Or, at the very least, I could say that when it came to what they were trying to get across, I atleast was partially not convinced. Ave Mujica follows a similar plot to MyGO in a broad sense. There were numerous interactions and decisions that were made along this bumpy road that to me atleast just felt like they went way too smoothly. Characters make up after episodes with very little resistance. Characters making amends against significant obstacles which seemed far too easy to overcome. Just why this is is hard to exactly pinpoint but one reason that I think could be the issue here is the show's misuse and poor handling of responsibility. Without going into specific moments, there were times where some characters' sense of responsibility was so out of whack it genuinely made my head hurt. Now, of course leading into it, there were many moments where characters, whilst confused and struggling to navigate life struggle with their relationships which I felt were handled pretty well. It's more in the later half of the show where characters upon facing and realizing their flaws exercise this completely warped sense of responsibility. Some of these people make such strange decisions and like I said above, things just somehow magically work, it left me feeling kinda ambivalent about what had been pretty solid earlier moments in the show that lead to us getting here. At its worst, it really made me feel like the show just completely missed the point of its own message in a similar sense to MyGO. Did these characters actually learn anything along this tough journey, or is this all just being tied together to allow the show to end in a happy way? Making such irresponsible decisions to make it out completely without harm at the show's end, it really made me question to a certain extent what was even the point? Like I said, It's very tough to explain what exactly I mean by this without going into specifics so if you haven't watched this show yet and plan to, I urge you to just keep it in mind while you watch and I hope what I've said here will become more clear to see.
Now, In fully transparency, I wrote a large portion of this review before episode 13 of Ave Mujica aired and by extension, the announcement of what seems to be a sequel 3rd season to tie up not only Ave Mujica but MyGO as well, so maybe this new season will take a harder look at the areas that I took issue with and finally break it down and improve upon it? We can only wait and find out but to a certain extent, similarly to how I feel about MyGO, I feel like a show like Ave Mujica can't just entirely do its own thing while pushing all these larger issues aside to be examined by a future entry. I think it needs to take more time to confront these issues right here and now where the bulk of the actual interactions are taking place. Of course, this is just how I feel though and I know lots of people are fine with this but I felt like it should at least be said.
Spoiler, click to view
Before I get into the controversial stuff, I wanted to share some specific moments that I really enjoyed in Ave Mujica. I mentioned it earlier but seeing Mutsumi’s characterization and her transformation into Mortis was extremely interesting to see. I think it was in episode 4, the moment where Mutsumi finally breaks, turns into Mortis and admonishes Sakiko for her manipulative behavior up until that point was the moment that first fully grabbed my interest for this show. It was really great to finally see some direct confrontation between these characters. After everything that went down in MyGO, I was itching for some conversion just like that and it made that moment really stand out as being a major turning point in Ave Mujica’s story. Moving forward from there, while I felt like it might have stretched out for a bit to long, being able to see the ongoing battle between Mutsumi’s split personality was consistently very interesting to see and ended up creating some excellent moments where we could see Mutsumi’s character change in a very powerful way thematically and visually. Similarly, while I thought the whole Uika and Sakiko being related twist was way too out of nowhere for my liking, the way Uika's story portions in the show's later episodes were presented also proved to be quite special. Episode 11 for instance, where Uika performs a solo “performance” about her backstory and her involvement with the Togawa family made what I thought was going to be a painfully generic flashback backstory episode into something that felt so much more powerful and truly unique. I can't think of any other anime that has anything similar to that stage performance scene that is used the way Ave Mujica does. It really became such a great instance of unique and powerful visual story presentation that was able to innovate and really elevate what would have normally been a boring episode into one of the season’s most memorable. I think that episode will remain in my mind as a prime example of visual storytelling that can completely transform a show into something so much more. There were plenty of other moments of this show that I really enjoyed but these were the two things that really stuck out in my mind and I really wanted to share just how much I enjoyed them.Ok, now for the meat of this review and the part I feel will get me some disdain again. I can't believe I have to say this but after my MyGO review, I want to make it plainly clear that everything I'm about to say is purely my opinion and how I viewed the show and its characters. I fully recognize that I am in the minority when it comes to the way I see some things, but I find it completely baffling how I seem to have a completely different viewing experience when it comes to some aspects of this show than the majority of other people. So please, just hear me out.
What ended up being Ave Mujica’s biggest problem, which may be unsurprising to those who have read my MyGO review, is this show's main character, the one and only Sakiko Togawa, though more specifically, the long chain of events that Sakiko played a center role in that led us up to this point. When I was talking about the misuse of responsibility earlier, I mainly meant it in regards to Sakiko. I think it’ll probably be best to illustrate how I feel just by going through the general events of the show. To start off MyGO, Sakiko has a rough life with no shortage of struggles. Evidently shown in MyGO, the collapse of CHRYCHIC is what led this entire story to happen and it all resulted from Sakiko not having time any more for activities given her sudden need to support herself. Later on, Ave Mujica is formed from what I understand in an effort in longing for what was lost with CHRYCHIC. But it's not quite that simple. The members of Ave Mujica are not really friends in the same way the CHRYCHIC group was and it's extremely difficult to form relationships as a group with all of the responsibilities that its members have. It made the collapse of Ave Mujica unavoidable from the start. This is where it gets messy for me though. In both instances, Sakiko is the main reason why both of these groups broke up in the first place and at its root, she was also the reason why they formed in the first place. Upon the collapse of these groups, it leads to a lot of unhealthy behavior from various characters. Whether its Soyo’s toxicity in the second half of MyGO in regards to Raana and Anon’s inclusion to Mutumi’s mental collapse here in Ave Mujica, I feel like in many instances, its Sakiko’s manipulation of these characters to form the bands, these groups of belonging for her, which lead these characters to exhibit as much problematic behavior as they do. As a result, It makes it hard for me then when it feels like nearly every time these relationships are developed and examined that she somehow almost always is able to skirt the majority of the responsibility for her involvement. I feel like throughout MyGO and Ave Mujica, we’ve seen instance after instance of Sakiko being blatantly two-faced when it comes to how she treats her friends with plenty of moments where it seemed to me at least where she was all too willing to throw everything away at the drop of a hat regardless of consequences to be all too willing to patch things up later when it seemed to be convenient for her. This along side her strongly manipulative behaviors creates a perfect storm for her to be very unlikable to me despite this show trying to present her in a sympathetic light. They can make me feel bad for her all they want but if she just continues this behavior like she has up until this point, its going to be very tough for them to make Sakiko a likeable character I could get behind. Maybe this is just how I saw her characterization but it was an aspect that was at the forefront of my mind while many of these events unfolded.
A good example of the effect this trend seems to have on the series can be said with Mutsumi/Mortis. I think the way Sakiko treated Mutsumi in MyGO and the early parts of Ave Mujica were pretty terrible. In episode 4 when Mortis finally comes out, she forces Sakiko to confront her treatment of Mustumi and how much she and Ave Mujica have broken her so far beyond repair. After this though, moving forward into the season, I frequently found myself asking myself, “did she actually learn anything?”. Back to Mutsumi, given what we saw at least where she questions her on why she isn't just on her side anymore like she had been before unquestioningly, it kinda didn't feel like it. I feel like this feeling is more or less persistent regarding Sakiko’s decisions throughout the series. In the end, she eventually does take responsibility upon Uika’s leaving and it feels like just like that, everyone is happy again and the band is back together. It just felt far too convenient to me. Maybe I'm just too much of a pessimist but I wasn't convinced. While I feel like it made a satisfying and happy reconciliation for Sakiko and her bandmates, it felt like it just all worked out due to it now being the end of the show and that they need to get together in the end. This brings me back to my initial point, responsibility. Now that we've made it to the end, we've seen all these messy relationships between Sakiko and all her bandmates, the formation and breakup and sometimes reunion of numerous of her bands. Have we truly seen Sakiko take responsibility for the “messes” she's made regardless of whether she did it out of malicious intent or not? I don't think the answer is a well defined yes or no. I do feel like Sakiko has been moving in the right direction as of late, but it's still far too early for me to fully believe that she is willing to go the full distance. It is through this view that makes the story of Ave Mujica troubled in regards to its thematic elements. It just felt way too “ideal” in a way that took away from some of the message the show was trying to present.
Again, this is just how I saw Ave Mujica. I get that most people don't feel this way and that maybe I'm just being too cynical, but this feeling regarding Sakiko that formed and grew in MyGO just didn't really go away for me while watching Ave Mujica. Now that I know there will be a season 3, who knows? Maybe they will take the necessary time to get into this fundamental issue? No one can say for sure and only time will tell.
