Before watching this, I had no prior experience with anything to do with Show by Rock or Sanrio which I'm sure will either surprise or trigger people but I had to mention that to establish my pov here. With that said, let's talk sb69 Mashumairesh!! Howan was apparently the mascot to some kind of a Sanrio store in real life until someone decided to feature her properly in a show of her own, coupled with a new voice to boot. She's a fairly basic country girl with dreams of stardom in the big city, pretty classic tropey stuff. So she travels to Midi City and byhappenstance runs into the other three main characters of Himeko, Delmin and Ruhuyu.

As with most music shows, it's a pretty easy thing to digest. You get your arc of struggling, founding the band with a bit of drama mixed in. I wanna say it's nothing too deep so your enjoyment will depend on how much you enjoy the interactions of the cast members. Luckily I had a good time with that.

Delmin and Ruhuyu are fun too but I really enjoyed the relationship between Howan and Himeko. Bluntly speaking, those two have some crazy lesbian energy and I found myself very invested in observing them. Going into the show I already knew Himeko was gonna be my favorite because of her being a queen with beautiful, blonde, giga drill hair but I was happier when I found out I liked her and Howan together too. For what feels like a kid friendly show, it was surprisingly intimate at times. Bottom line is, inject this couple into my veins.

Now I do wanna comment about my personal elephant in the room. The side groups. We have the usual rival group in REIJINGSIGNAL who I thought did a pretty good job with their role. They didn't feel like a total plot device to push Mashumairesh!! forward since they also had agendas and personalities of their own.

However.. Then we have DOKONJOFINGER. It's not like I hated them but it just felt weird to me when suddenly we had big segments or even full episodes dedicated to them. Whenever the focus was on them, in my head I was just going "This is okay but I'd rather be watching Mashumairesh!!". Supposedly they are a discount version of another beloved dude group from a previous sb69 entry, so that didn't help in trying to enjoy them more.

Being a music show I should definitely comment on the songs too. You regularly get new songs performed, be it from Mashumairesh!! or from the other featured side groups. I will have a few songs on my playlist (at least for now) but besides that, I didn't really find myself loving most of the songs on first impression. It's pretty basic pop rock stuff. REIJINGSIGNAL at least brought some electronic elements to mix things up a bit.

Music aside the performances I had a bit of grievances with. To reiterate, this is my first experience with Sanrio so seeing the instant transition from these cutesy, 2d animal girls to full on CGI chibi furry designs was tough to get used to and I wanna say I never got fully used to them by the end either. Transitions aside the CGI performances were also lacking punch and were a bit too static for my liking.

But just for Himeko x Howan and the short journey of Mashumairesh!! the show was definitely worth the watch. Chances are I will be checking out the earlier entries and Stars in the future too which might spring some newfound appreciation for this show retroactively too, who knows.