The first season in the BanG Dream series is certainly an interesting series of television, which I have divided into parts that I thought were good and parts that I thought were less stellar.

The Good:

The group dynamic in this show is excellent. It really makes sense that the five main characters would form a band together because the bond between each of them feels so real. Whether its hanging out at Arisa's place to practice for their audition or preparing for their exams, the bond they share is palpable in each and every moment of the show. It makes sense that there is relatively little drama that takes place between the five of them because in the end, they are all doing this for fun and aren't taking themselves too seriously.

The characters are certainly the main appeal for the anime, and it's a good thing that they are all incredible to watch. Each member of the band gets a decent amount of time given to them and their stories before the band is actually formed and its incredibly rewarding to watch Kasumi and her friends deal with the things that made them hesitate to join the band initially. Kasumi is like the glue that gives them the strength to move past their issues, such as Arisa's struggle with her tsundere-like nature and struggle to make friends or Saya's fear of something bad happening to her family.

Each and every one of them has their own struggle and watching them deal with their problems in the first half is one of the personal highlights of the show. Hell, even Kasumi who, initially, doesn't seem to have much of a personal struggle, does end up having issues that her friends, the very people who she helped, assist her in overcoming. It's incredibly sweet and makes episode 12 one of the best episodes of the whole show.

Even outside of PoPiPa, the characters are great. Tsuzuki Shifune, the owner of SPACE is incredible because she initially comes off as incredibly critical and harsh, however the audience grows to learn that she only acts that way because of how passionate she is about music. Hell, even Natsuki from CHiSPA and almost every member of Glitter*Green are memorable or lovable for one reason or another.

The music is also incredibly solid which is pretty much a given for band girl series but I will always take the opportunity to point it out when given the chance.

The artstyle is incredibly cute and when the show does 3D, it looks REALLY good. If anything, my biggest issue with the animation is that it doesn't do it MORE, because when it does it looks incredible.

The Bad:

The characters are pretty cliché even after all of their development. Kasumi is the bubbly one, Arisa is the tsundere, Rimi is the shy one, etc. While it personally didn't turn me off of the series, it definitely does not attempt to reinvent the wheel for characters.

Once the band gets together, the plot and general direction also gets pretty predictable. Again, I didn't find this to be a massive issue because I think BanG Dream! is more about the characters than the "plot", but if for some reason you want a series that will keep you on your toes, this might not be the rough choice.

Finally, I think the animation is largely fine, but is largely underwhelming for what we get hints of. It's pretty disappointing how many of the shots during performances just focus on stills or shots of people in the crowd with relatively few things happening (although there are some cool cameos from members of other bands). As I said, when they do the 3D-style animation it looks great, but they do it very few times throughout the show.

Summary:

BanG Dream! is all about the characters, and it absolutely nails them, even though they are a bit cliché. The music is excellent and the animation during some of the later performances also looks great when they do the 3D-style animation. The plot is pretty predictable and outside of those later performances, the animation is pretty "meh", but the show is an incredible time regardless of its flaws.