Show by Rock!! The Complete Series

Inspired by a Japanese music video game, this shrill action-fantasy anime series features characters designed in the super-cute “moe” style who occasionally become 3D CGI. Schoolgirl Cyan dreams of rock-music fame but is too shy to audition. Suddenly, she is sucked by her cell-phone video game into the amazing Midi City, a place of folkloric Japanese spirit-creatures unrecognizably morphed into pop-music archetypes. After her guitar heroics destroy a marauding monster at a concert, Cyan (now sporting catlike features) becomes the fourth member of the girl group Plasmagica, who sign with a small-but-honorable indie record label that is run by an egg-shaped promoter. Along with fierce battle-of-the-bands rivalries with other divas and drama involving a handsome boy-band of poseurs, there is also background menace in the form of the demonic Dagger, who through the power of rock is able to manipulate performer egos and enslave a top songwriter in his scheme to conquer Midi City (or something). While for otaku this may chart higher (real-life Japanese bands guest star on the soundtrack), general anime viewers may want to pump down the volume, even with the occasionally amusing riffs on teen idols, fans, and A&R men. Presenting all 12 episodes from 2015 in a dual-language Blu-ray/DVD Combo set, rated TV-14, extras include episode commentaries. Optional. (C. Cassady)