D4DJ All Mix: r/anime Awards 2023 Thoughts
This is the first in a series, reworking my casual writing from the r/anime Awards about the various shortlists and nominees into posts. I do a lot of writing for the awards which never gets released outside of awards, so I figured I’d try bringing those posts out. They’re not meant to be anything too serious or in-depth, just reworking my thoughts as I posted them in the awards server to here. This isn’t representative of the awards themselves or anyone other than myself involved in the awards. I’ll make a larger post with all the shortlisted shows from each category in the Write-Up Collections tab after I’ve posted all of the individual write-ups for that category here.
Of the categories I was juror for in the 2023 r/anime Awards, D4DJ All Mix was shortlisted in both Anime of the Year and Slice of Life, and so those were the categories where I discussed it.
Watch Links: Crunchyroll | YouTube
The show this season has a somewhat bloated cast, so the focus is a bit diluted, and we don't quite get as much individual development as in the previous season, but the core is still there, in particular in terms of dynamics between groups and within groups. There's no competition looming over them this time, so it's just a year of chill SoL vibes while they all work on this project (each episode being focused on 1 month out of a year). The D4DJ groups display their passion for DJing, each in their own way. They also connect with each other through their mutual passion, helping each other train or write songs, learning from others' perspectives, or pushing each other to improve. I find Lyrical Lily to be the perfect center for this, not only due to their easy placement as a philanthropic group, but also because of their mix of earnestness and playfulness. It balances well to keep things lively and fun, but also keeps things moving forward in an organized manner. Different groups approach the project differently and have certain challenges to overcome (RONDO with their venue, Photon Maiden with their producers, Merm4id with the overseas guest, etc etc), usually on an episodic basis, but the lessons and connections are lasting. Just generally a feelsgood time created by the cast coming together to get something done with passion and creativity.
The Lyrical Lily girls being the main characters of this season was initially a premise I very much was behind. They have a really fun chemistry with each other, and I liked how they interacted with other groups too. We've obviously missed the event all these groups met at (and I haven't actually read a ton of the game story, so I don't actually have more context), but I still got a good feel for how these groups connect. Unfortunately, the season being “All Mix” intends to focus on all the groups in this one season, and so we don’t get as much focus on Lyrical Lily as I would have liked, them being my favorites. The episodes are kind of all focused on specific characters or dynamics, and they're not always the characters which are my favorite even if I like their spotlight episode. That isn’t to say the episodes focused on characters I dislike. The Happy Around and Peaky P-key characters I already like from First Mix. They're not huge here, but I do think Muni continues to carry for some episodes, and Maho had a strong episode as well. Peaky felt kinda weak this season. Half of Peaky (Esora and Yuka) still feels underdeveloped. I've never been too big on Photon Maiden, but they had a good episode with Lyrical Lily which made me like Saki more. I really liked the Saori episode for the Merm4id-centric content, although Rika is my favorite for that group. Rondo episodes weren't my favorite, but were fine. In Rondo I really only like Tsubaki... I dunno, the whole cast is pretty fine, but plenty of the characters don't have highlight episodes, and weren't in the previous seasons, so we don't really have much reason to grow attached to them, but I don't see that as a huge problem since they're not the ones we're focusing on.
Every episode this season kinda had its own thing going on. Probably the thematic throughline would be struggling to improving one's art. At least there are a few episodes focused on that. And I think it does pretty good in doing that, not stellar but it's a neat thematic throughline. I dunno, not a huge selling point for me, but solid enough that it justifies the show existing probably.
I think D4DJ is really good at doing this whole 3D TV anime thing. The expressions are fun to kinda combat some regular issues with this kind of style, they use the camera in ways which take good advantage of the 3D, the show moves well for the most part, everything comes together pretty well. I like how it looks! But even more, I like how it sounds. Some bopping music, and hot damn the sound design is solid. It’s pretty instrumental for an anime focused on music to get the music right, and D4DJ does succeed in this. I don’t like the music this season as much as the first season’s music, but there’s still good stuff. All around well made show.
