Exploring the Character Dynamics Between Ritsu and the Band in BanG Dream! YUME∞MITA – Advertorial

It’s official! As of the sixth episode of BanG Dream! YUME∞MITA, Ritsu will be joining her childhood friend Arale and the other members of MewType in the band. It was a rocky road to get here, and as this is written there’s still plenty of anime left to go and lead to challenges ahead for the girls. Ritsu is, after all, leaving behind an extremely dangerous dynamic with her previous group Fairy Bouquet and chief series antagonist Viola. This can and will inform the conflict going forward, but it means that Ritsu has a whole new group of decidedly more accommodating associates. It also makes this stage in the story a good place to take stock of these characters, their personalities, and how they engage in connections with their cohorts—with their potential relationship dynamics with Ritsu a rich lens to perform this analysis through.

Ritsu and Arale’s relationship is the obvious place to start. The pair have a pre-existing connection, and rekindling that friendship was what incited Ritsu to leave her distressing situation with Fairy Bouquet and wind up welcomed into MewType. The duo are inspirational to each other. Bonding over Magilulu and the songs therein are what led to both of them becoming performers together, putting both girls on the career trajectory that has once again reunited them. Ideally, coming back together would lead to each girl reembracing her role as the other’s muse.

However, YUME∞MITA is a story where things haven’t always been ideal for these girls. Ritsu and Arale had been kept apart by the machinations of Viola. That wedge the villain drew limited the communication between them, and both girls have been working to bridge that gap before arriving at this point. Ritsu couldn’t bring herself to tell Arale about Viola’s true nature for so long, even as she saw her friend suffering under the judgmental eyes of the public she had turned on her. Part of this was propped up by Arale putting on a brave face—not knowing that Viola had set her up and was also acting as Ritsu’s tormenter, Arale couldn’t bring herself to make her true anguish known. This boiled over in the fifth episode of the anime, which did ultimately result in the net good of Ritsu’s rescue. But it also speaks to the built-up communication gaps the childhood friends still need to get to work covering. A broken relationship can always be fixed, but like any repair job, it takes work. It means that even as Arale and Ritsu have had their heartfelt reunion, they still have a strong potential arc between them ahead in the story.

Ritsu might be able to get some immediate assistance from the most supportive member of MewType, Nonoka. Ritsu has thus far had the least direct interaction with Nonoka compared to the other members of the band, but that hardly rules out any connective reading. Indeed, Nonoka’s nature makes her the easiest to analyze a dynamic with someone like Ritsu. Nonoka has already been all too happy to throw herself on the line in support of fellow members Arale and Miyako through their own tribulations. She’s like the caring big sister of the group, and  seems perfectly happy to welcome a new member into the family. Nonoka also has a very practiced attitude when it comes to dealing with the issues brought on by online attention and fame. She’s unfazed by oppressive remarks from streaming commentators and even seems like she would bear the brunt of that frustration for the more sensitive members like Ritsu. This might be important in the group’s near future, as the antagonist behind Ritsu’s issues still has her machinations on the move.

Indeed, Ritsu might have had less direct interaction with Miyako so far, but the two of them now find themselves, if unknowingly, occupying pointedly parallel paths. With Ritsu out of her clutches, Viola has set her sights on Miyako to manipulate in order to inflict harm on MewType, and thus Arale and Ritsu themselves, as revenge. Miyako specifically isn’t exactly like Ritsu, save for both of them being driven by their dedication to their work—and perhaps that tunnel-vision focus is what makes it harder for them to pick up problematic points in the periphery. The real difference is that while Ritsu seemingly had herself bullied into Viola’s manipulations and coercion, Miyako got hit with a one-shot of charm aimed directly at her personal strike zone. Again, that lack of communication, particularly with Ritsu refraining from opening up about who Viola is and warning the others about her experiences, has created a broken bridge between her and another band-mate that could be exploited for drama moving forward.

Speculatively, this does also mean that Ritsu and Miyako have something to connect over as this plot unfolds. Miyako barely has enough reason to trust Ritsu over anyone at this point, but Miyako herself is a seasoned expert in showing one face professionally to the public while hiding her true personality for her own purposes. She might have something to learn from the more earnest, trust-forward Ritsu. On the other hand, both girls having experience being manipulated by Viola—that’s something they could mutually bond over. The situation could also give the full MewType group a new, unified purpose in supporting each other. The possibilities that could spin out of these relationships really are endless! 

It helps that Ritsu does already have prior experience bonding with MewType members and receiving assistance with her issues. Arale aside, one of Ritsu’s first intersections with one of the girls was with Yuno, whom she rescued from inadvertent malnutrition and, as a reward, received some salient relationship advice. This scene served as an early, revelatory moment for Yuno, who previously (and still does, to be sure) went out of her way to eschew connections with her band-mates—perhaps owing to her own issues with groups in the past. Despite this, Yuno helped put Ritsu on the right emotional track, crystalizing how important her relationship with Arale was to her. With the line “If you don’t want it to end, who cares about the facts?” touching Ritsu’s heart, it allowed her to believe that her connection to Arale hadn’t yet ended. All thanks to the surprisingly low-key advice of “the girl with the bone-in meat!”

With the way these relationships and connections have cascaded, it’s arguable that Ritsu wouldn’t have been positioned to run off with Arale into the haven of MewType had she not crossed connective paths with Yuno that day, and Yuno herself would not have been out there had she not been drafted into working with the band in the first place. Yuno very noticeably was not a people person at this point, going so far as to turn to chatbots to write her messaging answers to her cohorts. Yet upon seeing Ritsu join the group and realizing who she was, she’s started to get a broader idea of the greater connective context between all these girls. 

There are still walls of connective complications around these girls. As of the sixth episode, Ritsu has not formally joined the group in their virtual gatherings, and they haven’t fully opened up about the webs of circumstances that intertwine all of them. Miyako’s keeping her relationship with Viola a secret, after all, and that alone sets up several separate shoes that could drop on these budding connections between the new band members. However, the fact that they can be set up so tellingly between the established members and the new entry in Ritsu speaks to the relationship-based character writing and dynamics that have powered YUME∞MITA so far. 

The girls of MewType have had their own personalities defined and developed on display through the whole of the anime to this point. But being a band requires working in concert, and that’s why the connective dynamics between the characters is so much fun to speculate on in a series like YUME∞MITA. It’s been apparent already between characters like Arale and Miyako bonding over their own love of anime, manga, and limited-edition goods. And Nonoka’s dedication to her cohorts has both defined her and shown how she relates to others and her role as a performer. While Yuno has mostly been defined by her standoffish nature and not engaging as deeply with the other members of the band, that is itself a dynamic, and one that’s quickly thrown into relief by the interactions she’s already had with Ritsu. With Ritsu now officially joining the group, being able to assess the dynamics she has with all of them makes apparent how fully formed they’ve been made over the course of this anime. 

As well, as any good group addition should, Ritsu shifts the established dynamic to show new sides of everyone—while her lingering threads tied to her past problems with Viola threaten to upend the group even more before all is said and done. Not all connections can be constructive, of course. But Ritsu arriving here and discovering a far more appreciative support network that can help each other through these impending issues demonstrates the power of positive relationships between performers. Plus it propels the broader theme of BanG Dream! as a whole: that being in a band with people you like is fun, positive, and worthwhile.