I should’ve made some popcorn for this.
Having covered and enjoyed MyGO earlier this year, I decided to open the door for watching and covering its direct sequel, Ave Mujica – The Die is Cast – (why the international title ditches the BanG Dream! label is beyond me). That being said, I must confess that I was a little hesitant to dive into the second series. MyGO is solid but it also is a very dramatic series. Blogging about it was sometimes an exhausting experience. Knowing that, I fully expected Ave Mujica to be just as heavy, if not more since that’s often the temptation when creating a sequel. That said, I try to be as complete as possible with the episode reviews so I’ll tackle this series and see how it goes.
So sometime between this first episode of Ave Mujica and the final episode of MyGO, Ave Mujica has grown a lot in popularity. They’re now scheduled to perform at Budokan which, for those who don’t know, is a very prestigious venue to perform at in Japan. I know they already performed to a full house in their debut concert but it is kind of crazy how this band caught on so quickly, especially considering that they’re not using their identities to leverage their fame.
Speaking of which, Nyamu (Akane Yonezawa) appears to be very keen about unmasking and revealing her identity to gain more fame for the band. Sakiko (Kanon Takao) is of course against it, not wanting the band to reveal themselves at all or at least until the time is right. Something that confused me about Ave Mujica when they were first established is their anonymity. Like, I get Sakiko wanting to maintain her privacy and grow the band on their own terms but it is a little puzzling of her to recruit such talented and famous people only to then not capitalize on any of that prestige. I’m glad that the story is actually acknowledging in some way. While chatting with Uika (Rico Sasaki), Sakiko asks if balancing between Ave Mujica and sumimi is working out. I have a feeling that’ll get brought up again in the future. The conversation is cut short when Sakiko has to bail her drunk father Kiyotsugu (Atsushi Kisaichi) out of jail.
We then get treated to a sequence of flashbacks that finally explains what the deal is with Sakiko. This was something that Bandori really needed to get around to. Sakiko is a really interesting character in MyGO but that show largely left shrouded her situation in mystery. It may have offered some intrigue but I can also see it being a little frustrating. Kind of crazy that it took an entire first series and one episode to finally learn Sakiko’s exact character. And if you were following MyGO at the time, that meant you had to wait a little over a year for this too. But you know, better late than never!
So basically, Sakiko is a member of the Togawa family, which runs a prestigious conglomerate called the Togawa Group, hence her originally living in a mansion. Parallel to this, Sakiko becomes inspired to form a band after watching the Morfonica two-parter, leading to the creatin of CRYCHIC. Things go south when her mother Mizuho (Sayaka Ohara) passed away and her grandfather Sadaharu disowned Kiyotsugu (who married into the family) after his involvement in a fraud case. Sadaharu still offers a home to Sakiko but Sakiko wants to stay with her father. An understandable choice but obviously, this unfortunately might’ve been the worse one of the two. Kiyotsugu has become the alcoholic that we know in the present, forcing Sakiko to work part-time to pay the bills. Eventually, Sakiko realizes that she has no longer has any time for CRYCHIC, thus resulting in her quitting the band.
For the most part, this fully explains Sakiko’s situation and it sheds light on her complicated feelings towards CRYCHIC and, by extension, MyGO. One thing that does puzzle me is Sakiko’s decision to not explain what’s going on to any other member of CRYCHIC aside from Mutsumi. I guess since Sakiko is so tight lipped about her current life, she doesn’t want the others to know and she instead chooses to burn some bridges. But I don’t know, I think if Sakiko explained everything, the rest of CRYCHIC would be sympathetic. At the very least, they’d understand her decision to quit a lot more.
Back in the present, we see Anon (Rin Tateishi) secure two tickets for Ave Mujica’s performance at the Budokan, having recently become a fan of the band. Soyo (Mika Kohinata) reluctantly agrees to accompany her, either because she has nothing better than to do or because the Anon and Soyo ship gained traction after MyGO and Ave Mujica wants to capitalize on it. I’m really glad to see MyGO returning in a supportive capacity. As silly as it sounds, I honestly wasn’t sure what role they might play going forward. In my head, it was entirely possible that they might just be a bunch of cameos, as is the case with all of their senpais. After this episode however, it’s clear that they’ll have a bigger role than that.
Right before the concert, a drunk Kiyotsugu lashes out at Sakiko, finally convincing his daughter to leave him behind. This is maybe the most sympathetic I’ve ever felt towards Sakiko. For about a year, she tolerated her father’s alcoholism and worked to make ends meets and in the end, her father is ungrateful. It’s especially frustrating how Kiyotsugu talks about how guilty he feels about himself when he sees how well Sakiko is doing by comparison. I know it’d be hard for him to overcome his addiction but you’d think this would be a wake up call for him. I’m stunned that Sakiko stayed with her father for long as she did.
One would maybe hope for Sakiko’s sake that the Budokan event will help her take her mind off of things. Well, she certainly gets preoccupied with something else, albeit not in the way she intends. As the beginning of the episode foreshadowed it, Nyamu finally has enough with staying anonymous and she decides to go off script and unmask herself in front of her audience. She then unmasks Mutsumi (Yuzuki Watase) and Umiri (Mei Okada) without their permission, forcing Sakiko and Uika to do the same. You know, foreshadowing aside, it makes way too much sense that Nyamu would rat out the band’s identities. She’s a content creator who revels on fame. Of course, she’d pull a stunt like this. I figured Sakiko would get shaken up about revealing herself, she’s certainly the most begrudged to do so, but Mutsumi actually looks more scared than her. Mutsumi seems introverted in general but I can see her being the daughter of a famous actress being another reason why she really did not want to reveal her identity. Also important to note is the fact that Anon and Soyo witness this stunt. I know Soyo wants nothing to do with Sakiko or (especially) Mutsumi but I can’t imagine she’s going to do nothing after this revelation. Also, Tomori (Hina Yōmiya) will definitely find about this. It’ll be really interesting when she does.
Watch Ave Mujica – The Die is Cast – on Crunchyroll
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