BanG Dream! Episode 4 Review – “I Got Angry!”

This episode actually broke away from the pattern the previous episodes established. Imagine that!

(Spoilers in this episode) 

What do I mean by that? Well, Kasumi actually ends up not recruiting Tae (or O-Tae, as Kasumi calls her) into the band. She does end up spending a lot of time with Tae, though, since these two crazy girls both wanted to make bags for their guitar cases in home-ec, which is quite ambitious considering everyone else made these tiny bags just to complete the assignment.

The girls kind of neglect working on the bags in order to practing playing guitar, however. As a result, we learn that Kasumi actually knows very little about guitars (well, I guess this was obvious already) since she had no idea what chords are. In fact, Kasumi doesn’t really know that much music terminology in general. And I hope you all aren’t tried of hearing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” because that’s the only song Kasumi plays while practicing with and learning from Tae.

Since she keeps spending her time after school playing guitar with O-Tae instead of finishing her assignment, Kasumi is forced to continue to work after school and, as a result, neglects her “pact” with Arisa (she’s supposed to eat lunch with Arisa and play with her at the warehouse after school). She and Rimi did try to hint at Arisa’s frustration, too, but Kasumi is just too dense. Four episodes in and girls are already feeling neglected? Either Arisa is really clingy or Kasumi is a heartless playgirl (probably the former). Thankfully the whole situation is resolved at the end.

But yes, Arisa seems rather into forming a band with Kasumi considering how she sold her old keyboard and bought a new one. She’s just putting up a front of protest, after all. Arisa even has Rimi-rin there for company, but she was so pouty over how she wasn’t getting her fill of Kasumi. What a tsundere!

The episode ends with Kasumi telling Tae about how she, Rimi, and Arisa are performing at the cultural festival (somehow Kasumi did not know about the term “three-piece,” which means a three-person band). Kasumi also tries to get Tae to join the band, to which she vaguely agreed (Tae is not an official member yet, in other words, which means Kasumi will have to brute force her way into Tae’s heart some other time).

And then Kasumi mentions that she plans on auditioning in front of the owner of Space, the place where the girl bands usually perform, after the cultural festival. Tae grows silent before telling her it’s impossible. What’s impossible? Maybe the chance of Kasumi passsing the audition is too low? Sure, Kasumi sucks at guitar, but she could get better. There’s probably another reason behind Tae’s reaction.

I kind of weaved my thoughts on the episode into the paragraphs that are supposed to summarize the episode (so there won’t be an ugly THOUGHT ON THIS EPISODE section for this post), but I have to admit that I really like Tae as a character. Her deadpan retorts and comedic timing are quite refreshing compared to how everyone (namely Arisa and Kasumi) overreacts.

I only had a bit of an issue with one specific moment in the episode where she and Kasumi freaks out over a non-existent bug for no reason. I just thought it was poor script-writing (why would you ask if Kasumi saw a bug when it’s extremely obvious that the reason why Kasumi yelled out loug is because she didn’t see you sneak up on her???) but it’s a minor nit-pick, I guess. Whatever it takes to pad out the episode, right?