When I first read the synopsis for Ghost Concert – missing songs, I thought we were getting some sort of anime Footloose:

In 2045, when singing is forbidden, a high school girl hears the ghostly voice that possesses her and grants great power.

You can still have music. You just have to let AI create a song for you. You’re not allowed to sing or compose music yourself. So when the episode kicked off with an idol concert, I figured I could go for the low-hanging fruit: if you’re going to lambast generative AI, please try and come up with something a little more substantive than idol slop. But no, Ghost Concert isn’t that simple. In fact, Ghost Concert seemingly wants to be everything and anything all at once.

Anime characters keep stumbling down dark, empty alleyways, and our heroine Seria is no different. She soon gets possessed by… something. When we see her again, she becomes extremely flirtatious. She even does this with complete strangers. Is this why music has been banned? It makes women loose?! Then the truth comes out: Seria has been possessed by none other than Cleopatra. Could Cleopatra sing? I don’t remember that from history class. I knew she was a sex symbol for the time, but I don’t remember Cleopatra being a succubus either.

Kaede, another important character, shows up and summons the spirit of… someone. I can only presume he is a historical figure. I don’t know enough about Japan’s history to know who Nasu is. In my head, I’m thinking Fire Emblem Engage ’cause I just played that trainwreck (decent gameplay, shit story) earlier this year. In that game, you summon characters from previous games to help you in battle. But we’re summoning historical figures, so I guess Fate stay/night would be a more apt comparison.

And now we’re a battle anime. With Julius Caesar and Marc Antony appearing outta nowhere to lend Cleopatra a hand. Apparently, Caesar has yellow fever. Wait, is Seria even old enough for this? Well, I suppose age has never stopped people from being creeps. I also don’t remember Cleopatra being able to dual-wield daggers. More importantly, I thought this was about bringing music back to a music-less world? So it’s a battle anime, right? No, it’s still about music, ’cause Seria takes her body back out of nowhere and breaks out into a song. Riiiiight.

In the aftermath, Seria tries to explain to her friends what had happened today. At first, they don’t believe her, because who would? Ghosts of historical figures possessing people and making them harlots? Girl, quit trippin’. But when they realize Seria is telling the truth, they completely shun her. Okay, a bit of an overreaction from my point of view, but this is a world that bans the human production of music. As a result, Seria’s troubles don’t end there. Drones start showing en masse, presumably to apprehend Seria. So this is like anime Footloose, but also Fate/stay night, but also some dystopian, authoritarian future…? And then our heroine will throw an idol concert? Multiple concerts? Man, just pick a lane.

For me, the historical figures and “flashy” battles don’t add anything. The time we wasted on those two elements could’ve been better used elsewhere, like fleshing out these characters or the dystopian world they live in. For instance, Seria losing her friends don’t hit as hard as it should, because we don’t know how close they really were. Moreover, if this is a show about appreciating the art of music, I really think we should start with the basics, and not just dive headfirst into a certain brand of music, i.e. idol pop. But that could just be my bias speaking. Alright, let’s just finish this with one of the stranger advices anyone has given:

Huh?

The other show on the docket today is Nippon Sangoku. In the near future, various factors have caused Japan to revert back to “early Meiji era levels.” Feudalism, essentially. Our main character Aoteru is a well-read man — if you can consider quoting Sun Tzu’s “How to wage war for dummies” to be well-read — but he doesn’t like to stick his neck out. He just wants to live a simple, agrarian life with his wife Saki. She, on the other hand, has a short fuse for injustice. She can’t stand it when corrupt government officials mistreat straight up murder people for the tiniest of slights. One man literally gets dismembered by wheel because he dropped some potatoes and caused a self-important man to trip and fall. No trial, no nothing.

Well, one day, Saki has seen enough and decides to intervene. Seeing her take action and speak up, I can’t help but wonder why she isn’t the protagonist instead. Why can’t she be the one to unify the country? Fine, you can argue that it’s dumb to pick a fight against an organization disproportionately stronger than you. I’m not saying it was smart of her to jump in without a plan. They have both the manpower and weapons. You’re not even organized. You need to build yourself an army first before you can mount a credible resistance. But why not have the married couple continue working together as a team? She’s the emotional one whereas he’s the rational one. You can quibble with automatically characterizing the woman as emotional, but let’s put that aside for now. The point is, the couple balance each other out. Her willingness to fight combined with his book smarts could accomplish a lot. I would’ve preferred to see where their teamwork could take them.

Unfortunately, we can’t have that. Or rather, men in fiction can never simply be motivated to do the right thing until their poor wives or sisters get fridged, which is exactly what happens. The next day, Aoteru wakes up to find his partner beheaded. I was actually fearing the worst; I thought they would do more to Saki than just kill her. Nevertheless, her all-too-predictable and gruesome death finally puts Aoteru down the path that his wife has always wanted for him. I can’t lie, though. I’m completely turned off by the fridged trope. I like the show’s distinctive art style, and I’m all for sticking it to the man. But the fact that we have to murder a potentially strong female character to achieve this result leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Is that the only reason why Saki is even in this story? To motivate a gormless fuck? Man…