BanG Dream! Episode 6 Review – “I Made It!”

Finally we get some insight into Saaya, the mysterious girl who has been with Kasumi since episode 1.

(Spoilers in this review)

The prologue takes place a year prior to the current setting and shows Saaya as a drummer for a band. Something must have happened for Saaya to quit – but we don’t have the pleasure of finding out before the OP plays.

It turns out that Kasumi is the class president for the cultural festival and she nominates Saaya to be her vice-president. Everyone is in agreement because they all know that Saaya wears the pants in this relationship knows how to handle Kasumi well.

During lunchtime, Tae plays a melody she came up with in the bath (or so she says, but it sounds like a rendition to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to me). Kasumi immediately decides to play this song during their cultural festival performance. Now they just need lyrics and the other instruments’ parts. Oh, and they also gotta finish the song…

Saaya stays behind a bit to help Kasumi with paperwork after school. She also translates what Kasumi was trying to say to the class the following day. The class would be doomed without Saaya!

wear the pants in this relationship.

And now, a little montage showing the girls working and going at it. Everyone’s pretty excited for the cultural festival, one way or another. Except for Arisa, but you all know she’s kind of looking forward to it despite her protests.

Saaya’s parents support their daughter’s classmates’ decision and decide to go with these cute bite-sized goods for the festival. A line that caught my attention was Saaya’s mom saying that she’s doing fine now. Perhaps Saaya’s mom wasn’t doing well in the past and that’s what caused Saaya to quit? Saaya has always been shown as the dutiful daughter and diligent worker at the bakery so far, too. Maybe she’s trying to make things up to her mom? I’m just guessing here as usual.

And look! Arisa is trying to come up with names for their band. She really does care (well, she claims it’s because she doesn’t want Kasumi naming their band “Sparkle-bang” or something. That’s a valid fear, to be honest). Too bad we don’t get any sorta backstory for any of these days.

Saaya runs into her and they start talking. We haven’t seen this combination very often so far and it shows since Arisa addresses Saaya by her last name. At any rate, Saaya says she thinks Poppin is a cute band name.

The girls visit Saaya’s place and Kasumi ends up staying the night to finish paperwork. Jun, Saaya’s younger brother, gets no respect and gets called Jun-Jun by both Kasumi and Tae. Arisa also demonstrates how sheltered (and cute) she is.

The following day has the girls hanging up posters for the band. Thanks to Saaya’s input, the girls are going to go with “Poppin’ Party” for their band name. Kasumi also puts Saaya’s name in without asking her.

The episode ends with Kasumi running into a former bandmate. It turns out the girl is named Natsu. Probably short for Natsuki and is probably the same girl who wrote Saaya the note we saw in episode 1.

So I personally think that Saaya had some sort of personal problem that caused her to leave the band. After all, Natsuki seemed incredibly happy that Saaya found a band, only for Saaya to say that Kasumi wrote her name by mistake. Saaya even apologizes afterwards. We’ll find out next episode, I guess!