Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I announce with great trepidation that we are returning to BanG Dream! Ave Mujica, as our various forlorn mujicians all wallow in their own forms of mental illness. Well, except for Nyamu, she’s thriving, but you know there’s no keeping a good Nyamu down. And of course, Umiri spent the last episode studiously avoiding giving a shit about anything beyond her twenty-nine remaining bands. But the rest of our girls? Hoo boy.
Having attempted through Ave Mujica to foment a rebellion against a life of dependency and self-hatred, Sakiko has retreated in shame, returning to her grandfather’s home and accepting that she may well always hate herself. She is surrounded by reminders of the mother she lost and father who abandoned her, seeing herself as little different from her treasured porcelain doll. Having abandoned Uika and broken Mutsumi, she now accepts what she sees as her destined punishment, a life of staring through the glass at the vitality embodied by those who are truly free.
Uika is a false smile stretched thin over a shuddering doll, still obsessed with Sakiko, and increasingly incapable of maintaining her professional affectation. And Mutsumi has left the building, having retreated so far inside herself that even Mortis seems worried about her, begging her other self to please come home. With our heroines in such dire straits, it now apparently falls to the MyGO girls to rescue them, as the Anon/Tomori combo interrogates Sakiko and friggin’ Soyo of all people reaches out to Mutsumi. Will this collaboration make Ave Mujica better, or only make MyGO worse? I’m terrified to find out, but here we go!
Episode 6
Our episode title is “Animum reges,” meaning to govern or rule the mind. A title with obvious immediate significance for Mutsumi, who has abdicated governance of her own mind to Mortis, but which also applies more generally to our overall gallery of mentally harried heroines. From the outside looking in, the experience of depression is invisible, and thus often downplayed as solvable with something as simple as a “change in attitude” or renewed commitment to daily responsibilities. To those suffering from mental illness, the idea that we rule our own mind is a preposterous fantasy; often, it seems our mind is our jailer, the antagonist determined to keep us isolated and miserable
We open on Tomori again asking Sakiko to be in a band with her, expressing her desire for intimacy and a sharing of burdens in the only language she has found for doing so
“What do you even understand about me?” Sakiko bitterly guards her secrets, and then rages at others for not understanding her. It’s an understandable posture, but also a hopeless, self-defeating one
Feels like their character modeling and expression work are getting better all the time. A real soft vulnerability in Tomori’s expression as she waits back at the train station, holding her sorrow in like she’ll burst if she doesn’t
Alone, we can see Sakiko is actually collecting and treasuring Tomori’s sticky note messages. She can barely admit her feelings to herself, of course she can’t tell Tomori how she feels
The stickers are even collected in a bug notebook, another symbol of her kinship with Tomori. From Sakiko’s perspective, I’m sure Tomori was initially an inspiration, someone who could express her lonely thoughts so bravely through lyrics. In contrast, when Sakiko tries to express her feelings, they all get contorted into evasive gothic prose
Thus she sits alone at a moonlit table, the only doll left at the tea party
“Tell me, what is happiness?” “Live performance. Guitar, playing with cats, matcha.” Raana has life entirely figured out. Find what makes you happy, and pursue it – it doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that (granted, this is easier if you possess a cat’s brain)
Anon arrives late to practice, and is relieved Soyo isn’t there yet to scold her. God those two
Taki’s position on this whole affair is as straightforward as you’d expect: Sakiko causes Tomori pain, therefore Tomori has no obligation to spend time with Sakiko
Soyo apparently spent the night keeping Mortis company
We cut to a tray of cake and tea left outside her door. Quite the indictment of Mutsumi’s parents, that they seem indifferent to the fact their daughter has quit school and assumed a new identity
Mortis swerving wildly between affectations is a neat trick; not only does it naturally make her seem unnerving and desperate, it also emphasizes her underlying connection to Mutsumi. Neither of them are confident in their identities, so Mutsumi just retreats into silence, while Mortis cycles between masks
“She only cares about herself and always ruins the mood. Even Mutsumi couldn’t handle her.” Harsh but kinda fair. Even at her most desperate, Tomori was always sensitive to the feelings of others – in contrast, Sakiko’s feelings loom so large in her world that there isn’t really room for considering the feelings of others
“I think experiencing new things would be good for Mutsumi-chan.” Soyo’s really trying here, indulging Mortis’ fantasy and reaching towards the Mutsumi underneath
“I’ll go with you too, okay?” Mutsumi really does need to experience the world beyond Sakiko, to find new sources of pride and companionship. Her love of guitar is a laudable passion, she just needs to detether that passion from Sakiko’s approval
“This is definitely one of those times. Soyorin is depressed all by herself again.” Anon actually puts in the work of ensuring her friends are happy and healthy. She’s such a great exercise in contrast – all the obvious trappings of a self-absorbed, superficial person, but actually the most considerate and emotionally sensitive among them
“She always sinks so deep when she’s down.” Even Taki is starting to worry about her
Soyo brings Mortis to RING, where Anon of course starts fawning over her like she’s a tiny dog
Somehow, Raana immediately deduces that Mutsumi is sleeping within Mortis. I suppose cats are unusually good at perceiving ghosts
“I gotta go. Bye-bye.” And then she just wanders out of the room. Always a pleasure, Raana
On this episode of Ave Mujica, Mortis chases a stray cat
Soyo takes the rest of the group up to her Scheming Roof to explain the situation, the same place where she previously plotted to reunite with Sakiko
“She likes Mortis.” Raana is the first person to acknowledge the value of Mortis specifically. In truth, Mortis embodies a great number of Mutsumi’s true feelings, or at least her bravest attempt at expressing those feelings. Mutsumi learned to compartmentalize her feelings and push them to the back of her mind, but all those feelings eventually coalesced into Mortis. As such, restoring Mutsumi does not require abandoning Mortis – it must be an act of synthesis, as Mutsumi learns to accept and proudly display her Mortis-assigned feelings
God damnit, Sakiko! In spite of lashing out at Tomori, her hesitance approaching her shoe locker demonstrates she still holds out hope Tomori will keep writing to her. Desperate for someone to find her, yet too proud and bitter to accept help
Taki corners Umiri, and replies to her disinterested summary of the breakup with “were you really in Mujica?” Umiri seems to see her bands the same way Nyamu does, but would she really be happy with that comparison?
“She made friends with that stray cat.” “Even though I stayed with her for three days and nights.” This seems to be your fate, Soyo – no one will ever appreciate how much work you put into your toxic relationships
Raana’s guitar briefly wakes Mutsumi, leading us into a delightfully warped mental debate, as Mortis lectures doll-Mutsumi about all the trouble she’s put Mortis through
Mutsumi sits surrounded by monitors displaying her worst moments, an easy representation of how she is overwhelmed and trapped by regrets
Mutsumi goes into full Gollum argument mode as she begs Mortis to let her see Sakiko. I can appreciate Mortis’ perspective; meeting Sakiko has basically never been good for the mental health of anyone
As she rages against herself, it falls to Soyo to defend her from the gawking crowd. This season has been sorta unintentionally flattering to Soyo, as it’s been forcing her to demonstrate how much she actually cares about her companions, which is the last thing she’d ever willingly do
Meanwhile, Nyamu appears to be subjecting herself to a streamer version of Hot Ones. Love her intense cowpoke accent coming out the moment she returns to the limo
She sees the video of Mutsumi’s breakdown online, and is of course incensed by this professional broadside. The fuck is she doing appearing on Hot Ones when her rival is collapsing into split personality chaos!? She needs to up her game!
“Is that a solo performance of Ave Mujica’s show?” Even worse, Mutsumi’s outburst is taken as a stealth comeback, a stealthy implication of Ave Mujica’s reunion. Mutsumi’s airing of Sakiko’s dirty laundry has now become a promotional venture
Sakiko collapses outside the classroom, overcome with guilt regarding Mutsumi’s fate. And at her lowest point, literally down on her hands and knees, Tomori calls out to her – a lifeline emphasized all the more through the layout here, with Tomori and Anon framed as up a staircase and surrounded by light, like angels coming to relieve her
But in spite of being visited by angels, Sakiko does not want to be saved. She flees their concern, claiming she knows nothing, least of all Mutsumi
After a season and a half, Soyo only learns Sakiko’s address when she is visiting for the sake of Mutsumi, rather than herself. But there is no Sakiko to be found there – only the revelation of what Sakiko is running from
Soyo reveals the reason Sakiko left CRYCHIC to the rest of MyGO, which Anon supplements with a sympathetic read on what Sakiko and Mutsumi mean by seeking oblivion, by stating they do not know themselves or their bands. But Soyo doesn’t feel nearly as forgiving; after all, she was one of the toys that Sakiko so carelessly discarded, heedless of how her actions would hurt those who cared about her
And Done
My god what a mess! Mutsumi’s accidental outburst outside of the club seems to have actually made things even worse, though at least we now have the MyGO girls doing their best to run some emotional interference here. Between Soyo, Tomori, Anon, and a thoroughly unexpected guest therapy session by Raana, it seems the crew is slowly drawing Mutsumi back out of Mortis’ shadow – but of course, that process is running parallel to Sakiko’s descent into even greater self-hatred, as she wrestles with the guilt of all the damage she’s done to Mutsumi. Halfway through Ave Mujica, it only seems all the more unlikely that any of these girls have a healthy, productive role to play in each other’s lives. Keep streaming Nyamu, Ave Mujica is a goddamn warzone.
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