The memorable T-shirts from Girls Band Cry‘s fifth episode are now actual shirts that are being sold by anime clothing and accessory company COSPA under its Nijigen COSPA brand.
These clothes were originally donned by the characters Nina Iseri, Momoka Kawaragi, and Subaru Awa in their Episode 5 live performance, which can be viewed on the official Girls Band Cry YouTube channel. Each of the frontal text designs represents a part of the respective wearer’s background — “Futoukou” (“Absenteeism”/”Truancy”) for high school dropout Nina; “Dattai” (“Withdrawal”/”Resignation”) for Momoko, a former member of the Diamond Dust band; and “Usotsuki” (“Liar”) for Subaru, who is hiding a secret from her grandmother.
Each T-shirt costs 3,300 yen (~US$21.22, tax-included) and has S, M, L, and XL size options. The pre-order period for them ends on June 2 JST (or when the supply is exhausted), and they’ll go on sale in mid-July. COSPA suggests using third-party forwarding services for international purchases as it doesn’t ship outside Japan.
The anime itself is similarly not readily available to those who are overseas; at the time of writing, it’s only being streamed on France’s Animation Digital Network and South Korean’s Aniplus.
Girls Band Cry had its premiere on April 5 (effectively April 6 at 12:30 AM JST). The music and youth drama is part of the project of the same name, which was announced in April 2023 and includes animated music videos, singles, live performances, and merchandise.
Toei Animation describes Girls Band Cry‘s story as:
The main character drops out of high school in her second year, and aims at entering a university while working alone in Tokyo. A girl is betrayed by her friends and doesn’t know what to do. Another girl is abandoned by her parents, and tries to survive in the city by doing part-time jobs. This world lets us down all the time. Nothing goes as planned. But we want something that we can continue to like. We believe there’s a place where we belong. That’s why we sing.
Staff
• Director: Kazuo Sakai (Love Live! Sunshine!!)
• Character designer: Nari Teshima (VTuber Hoshimachi Suisei‘s character designer)
• CG director: Jaehoon Jung
• Series composition: Jukki Hanada (The Dangers in My Heart, Love Live! Superstar!!)
• Original story: Toei Animation
Cast (Togenashi Togeari band)
• Rina as vocalist Nina Iseri
• Yuuri as guitarist Momoka Kawaragi
• Mirei as drummer Subaru Awa
• Nagito as keyboardist Tomo Ebizuka
• Shuuri as bassist Rupa
Source: @cospa_inc
