DGFischer

With Fever!, the BanG Dream! franchise has equaled the number of seasons between the regular series and the BanG Dream! Girls Band Party chibi-shorts collections of 26 mini-exercises into what nonsense those rocker girls can get.  And with Fever!, I would guess that Sanzigen had pushed the formula one too many times.  Between Pico! and Pico Ohmori!, Fever! did not measure up.

As these were meant to be unconnected story lines focusing on trivial pieces about the seven girls' bands of the BD! enterprise (RAS has more scenes than Ohmori! and Morfonica is featured in a couple of episodes).  Because of this, there is a disjointed feeling to the plotline.  If there is one, it is developed in three episodes, #13 and the final two.  Here, Livehouse CiRCLE is not crumbling or inexplicitly lost.  CiRCLE manager Marina has simply overbooked the place, leading to the prospects of a seven-band concert at the end of the season.  Around this flimsy storyline, the girls are showcased.  Often as individual units.  Poppin' Party's mountain hike is threatened by rain ... and kung fu Michelle.  Yukina and a cat swap bodies before a Roselia practice; the cat allows Yukina to flash a kittenish smile before things go back to normal.  Hello, Happy World! frolic at the beach, allowing Misaki to shed her Michelle costume, only to try to rescue the costume when the tide sweeps it away ... before air-headed Kokoro learns the truth!  Quick two and one-half minute bits of whimsy (thirty seconds of credits make for the so-called three minute episode).

But the best episodes involved a blending of characters to engage in parodies.  Mashiro (Morfonica) is accused of stealing Rimi's (Poppin' Party) chocolate cornets.  Aya (Pastel Pallettes) is the witness who offers damning testimony, but indicting who?  Some episodes form mini-arcs, as the horror show themed epi. 14-15, the Morfonica epi 10-11,, and the big concert epi. 25-26.

The animation and sound are adequate to the task, but much is lost in the area of music.  What can you do in 150 seconds?  The seven-band concert was a fractured mess of sound, and the only music was the opening-closing theme, swift, lively, and done too soon.

Great fun and tremendous energy, but one could sense a lag in equaling the quality of the first two projects.  Granted the ending is 'out of this world.'  What else can you do with a livehouse?