First of all, let me start off by expressing how delighted I am to be blogging this series once again! Season one of this series was one of the richest seasonal efforts I have encountered thus far in trying to blog, and the first episode of season two has once again shown itself to be ridiculously rich in content. But I got to hand it to the opening moments of the first episode: it engaged me enough to really, REALLY dislike the main villain (and who appears to be, at least) and wanted Cyan to return immediately, go into white gothloli mode and nuke the entire star fleet in space in one shot. Eat THAT you pychotic Devilukian Sleeping Beauty Witch succubus space empress mishmash ripoff!

Ahem.

Anyway, as I was saying the opening moments introduce the viewer to a … disturbing scene. A humongous fleet of space ships are approaching what we quickly (and correctly) guess to be Sound Planet, and the fleet flagship carrying the “Queen of Darkness” (as we later find her title to be) aboard in writhing in ecstasy at the imminent destruction of Sound World via her ship’s “Black Hole Canon”. Just … well … just “because”, right? Because she can for whatever reason? Because that’s what super powerful, bored and idle unhappy and sadistic rulers do in their spare time? (Maybe we will find out more about why she engineered this whole debacle in later episodes.)

Anyway, next thing we know, yes – the canon is fired, the world is thrashed something horrible, the melodisian stones of the various lead bands from season one are yanked out and defiled with red light (we even get a glimpse of Dagger Morse at work too) and everyone is in despair as a trio of hooded robe wearing cat people seem to be exalting and thrilled at this turn of events as Midi City is burning and explosions continue to go off.

From the brief glimpses we get of the hooded robe wearing individuals overjoyed at the city’s destruction and deaths and so on, we suddenly recognize them as they decide to play a song onstage in celebration (I guess) and find out that the name of the band is “BudVirginLogic” (gotta love the names of these groups!), and the lead singer is grinning gleefully and disturbingly as the other bands’ member’s melodisian stones are all yanked out and tainted with dark energy – likely thanks to Dagger’s work. Meanwhile, we suddenly get a view of the backs of another trio of people – people who are dressed like (and even speak like in anime fashion, ending their sentences with “de gozaru” and the like) ninjas. These ninjas appear to be accompanied by some kind of large’ish mecha or robot looking thing as well. Understandably they are all showing concern and talk about the bad state of affairs and how everything seems to be lost unless they do something.

However one notable thing that comes to mind in the midst of all this is that we never catch a glimpse of Cyan. I could not help but wondering where she was while all this was going on?

One thing that was emphasized and driven home for certain in this first episode of the second season, and that is the reconfirmation that the entire setting is an alternate universe, not just a teeny planet. Last season’s villain was interested to take over Sound World mainly. This season’s “last boss” (it would be interesting if Dagger’s activity earlier were encouraged and supported by her behind the scenes and the reason she came to Sound Planet personally was because of his defeat) is interested in the entire Sound Galaxy, and sees Sound World as a step, and perhaps an important one, in its acquisition.

Spaceship travel is common (we see Trichronika leisurely traveling through space in one, for example) and Moa being from another world and other civilizations having developed space travel technology as well (never mind spaceship warfare – planet destroying “black hole canons”?! O_o ) also seem par for the course. Although for the moment, while starships seem to have high tech weaponry the people of Sound Planet either do not seem to have such things, whether because of disinterest or lack of availability is hard to say. We did not see any military or civic order based forces in season one (at least in Midi City) that I can remember being mentioned or shown.

While I was watching all this and was wondering how in the world things were going to turn out and what in the world was going on … all of the sudden we were informed that what happened onscreen up to then was something that took place much later on in the future. Time skip. Grrrr. Well, okay, I can deal with that. In any event we are redirected to Banding Rock Records to the old familiar crew of Maple, Angela, a Cyan’less Plasmagica, Shingan CrimsonZ (these guys are so over the top! XD) and … surprise, surprise, it looks like Criticrista has decided to join BRR records as well! Hey, they had to go somewhere after Cyan did Dagger in and prolly anyplace was better than where they were before – but despite Rosia’s constant teasing and trolling of Chuchu it does seem like they all get along fairly well in a rival’ish kinda way.

While the various bands are carrying on and talking to one another abut upcoming performances, and so on and so forth (normal stuff, including Maple going overboard in his enthusiasm and getting reigned in by Angela by yet another S&M session -_- ) we are suddenly informed that BRR records has apparently planned a promotion concert for all three of the bands on its label (have they actually sold any albums yet? I forget). Apparently Plasmagica has not yet had a public performance since Cyan went back to earth, and it is pretty clear that they all miss her … and I’d be willing to bet my boots that Rosia actually misses Cyan as well. ^^

In any event the concert begins with the opening act of Shingan CrimsonZ going wild and raucously as usual (much to the glee and delight of the crowds who beg Crow to “ship them out” again while another new male band was eyeing them in an unfriendly way as they performed), and just as Plasmagica is about to go on stage suddenly everything changes. Chuchu, Retoree and Moa all are paralyzed and levitated in a very familiar way, and out from nowhere comes the stone faced lead singer of BudVirginLogic (we met them at the beginning of the episode) with a tiny Dagger Morse on her shoulder. Dagger seems to have received a power up somehow (perhaps from the Queen or her minions) and is able to do at least some of the things he was doing in season one, and as revenge he is just about to yank out Plasmagica’s melodisian stones and possess them with dark energy when out of nowhere a giant shuriken crashes into the floor near him.

Sure enough, the three ninjas pop up, save the Plasmagica members and confront the members of BudVirginLogic and Dagger, who decide to teleport away for the moment. It turns out that the three ninjas are actually the members of the band Ninjinriot (season one viewers may remember them as the band that was attacked by a dark monster in episode five but got away), and they have time traveled (?!) from the future to the present in the hopes of preventing the Queen of Darkness from destroying Sound World! That’s certainly … a lot to process, but the bands take it in stride, especially after Dagger has returned and all. One curious note to mention, though, is that when Ninjanriot show up this time it appears that the robot mecha thing is not around.

After this Bones studio decides to stick a knife in the heart of the Show by Rock fans and show Cyan back on earth being her normal kind hearted and fretful self, missing the other members of Plasmagica terribly (to the point of crying) and we are shown a sparkly, shoujo bubble filled scene of all the members of the band missing each other and singing the same song in a very slow, heart rending manner. Yes Bones … keep twisting that blade and make it all the more painful and frustrating! Well, again – kudos to them, because it worked very effectively.

We soon discover why the robot thingee was not around when Ninjinriot saved the other members of Plasmagica in Midi City. After singing a bit Cyan is suddenly “visited” by the robot in her bedroom (needless to say she is very surprised and baffled) who after successfully identifying her forcefully teleports her to back to Sound World, much to Cyan’s discomfiture as she takes yet another ride like she did in the first episode of season one. Hopefully … well … we will see what happens next episode. XD

Once again I have to admit that I am positively delighted to be blogging the Show by Rock series again in general, but more specifically was really engaged in the first episode. I was a big fan of season one, and last season series of shorts (appropriately titled Show by Rock!! Short!) were a terrible tease in whetting my appetite for season two, so I am not a good person to be able to discuss how the series felt to someone who came into season two fresh and new, with no other exposure to the franchise. But whatever the case is for those reading this post I can only say that if you enjoyed this episode and season two is anything near what season one was like – you are in for a treat, and I look forward to going through the episodes along with you! See you next week!

And off she goes to Sound World again …