Now here is a series with some spirit! Masaru Yokoyama’s soundtrack is completely out of the norm than what I’ve been used to with Shigatsu Kimi no Uso‘s score. It’s heavily mixed with guitar strumming in the light-hearted scenes whereas the action-packed sequences contain rock guitar riffs with a lot of energy!  I’m enjoying this guy’s works this season quite a bit!

There are so many things going on especially with this episode that keeps this story from being a generic idol anime.  While there are the songs that play a vital role in bringing these four girls closer together but its how they are developing that really makes for some awesome scenes.  Kuranosuke is collecting the stones for Chiaya’s mother and here is where we get the inkling that he’s Hinayo’s father.  I like how the writers tossed this in here while trying to figure out how to get the stone back from ThunderRoad Aki.  What’s even better here is that members of Higashi Murayama have setup a new bomb building up some nice tension between a regretful otaku-obsessed Aki wanting to maintain her promise of protecting the town and losing the stone.  It’s not until you lose something how much you really need it.

These girls are traveling all for the Moonlight Stones and for very different reasons–  Ai’s desire to have strength reflects this quite a bit and how they all want to find Chiaya’s stone before the bomb goes off.  So far from what has been gathered the villains of this series have been touched on briefly–  Higashi Murayama.  More notably it’s the group Takumi that will probably dismantle all the fantastical elements of this show out the window. It’s this charming style and why I like Rolling Girls so much.  The evil isn’t shown however, it’s these acts that these clans pull off ridiculously well–  without Drom Beserker Aki is just a cosplaying girl, the Murakami members frantic about the real bomb inside a cleaning robot they were sent and what the results would be.  Everything came together nicely here and why like I’ve said before this is that both kids and adults can enjoy!

Nozomi still admires Maccha Green stone or not should provide some interesting developments with her later on.  Another aspect of this episode that uses this same idea is Noriko becoming ThunderRoad and earning Chiaya’s stone as punishment for secretly being the inventor of the Dynamite Bombers.  That scene where Ai was holding up the stone and looking intently at it was this foreshadow that she might become swayed by a stone just for power later on?

The ending provides a nice start to these girls journey.  Chiaya was able to establish her own resolve to her mother on the phone–  she’s got friends, she’s going to be traveling to different cities and towns and since its for these stones perhaps she’s lashing out in order for her mother to take notice of her.  Great contrast between her family relationship and the two girls of Always Comima, Noriko and Aki by revealing that Kuranosuke is Rick&Shaw, the very anime series that Aki idolizes.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 9/10

—