BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! / Ave Mujica

A first-year at Haneoka Girls' Academy who can barely talk to people let alone perform in front of them, Tomori Takamatsu writes songs in notebooks she'll never show anyone — until Anon Chihaya, a transfer student fresh from England, basically drags her into forming a band. Anon has this infectious energy about wanting to make music happen, but what makes this interesting is that the group she assembles — Soyo, Taki, Rāna — aren't exactly instant best friends. There's friction, awkwardness, and the kind of unspoken tension that feels uncomfortably real. This is a BanG Dream spinoff, but you don't need to know anything about the franchise going in. The tone here is way heavier than you'd expect from something with five exclamation marks in its name. Think less K-On! hangout vibes and more Given-style emotional gut punches, where the drama between band members hits harder than the actual performances. The relationships are messy and layered in ways that most music anime don't bother with. The animation blends 2D and 3D in a way that actually works, especially during the musical sequences, and the original songs carry genuine weight — they're not just background filler. If you liked Love Live but wished it would stop being so relentlessly upbeat and dig into how complicated it is when people who don't fully trust each other try to create something together, this is the one. It's quiet devastation dressed up as a band anime.