You might remember that Crystal had a band.  Two, actually.

I actually have quite a bit to say about Crystal.  There’s a reason why, other than Lily, she may have been my favorite character in the story.  But I want to specifically talk about her musical pursuits.

At some point in the story, about halfway through, Crystal got in her mind that she wanted to learn how to play electric guitar, and she turned out to be really good at it, and also a pretty decent lyricist too.  She wrote most of the music for her band, and even when it reformed with new members she met from her school, she still was a very strong creative driver in her new band.  I don’t think she ever became great at the guitar, at least not in the story, but she became good.  Good enough that she could play lead.

As with several plots in this story, this came from an anime (the Idols, as I mentioned, were another).  Bocchi the Rock, to be specific.

Bocchi the Rock was one of the first anime I ever watched.  I don’t remember if it was first or second (It was either just before or after Akebi’s Sailor Uniform), but it was definitely one of the first two or so.  And I loved it.  I still think it’s one of the best anime, even though looking back at it with a more critical eye there were certainly things that could be improved.

But, even then, I couldn’t exactly just take the plot of Bocchi the Rock and turn it into a plot point for this story.  It had to have its own twist.

The twist was that in Bocchi, all of the band members wanted a band.  In this story, only Crystal did, and Lily and her sisters only started a band so they could help Crystal succeed.  In fact, after a while, the band broke up and Crystal had to find bandmates on her own.  Crystal was so driven to succeed because she remembered being homeless and wanted to have something to fall back on if the worst happened.

This was actually a little similar to Bocchi’s motivation for being in Kessoku Band, but it also kind of mirrors some of my feelings on things too.  I try to keep my skills up in multiple ways because I don’t ever want to be near-homeless again – like I was, once.

But there were things I rather liked about the whole thing.  I liked coming up with band names.   “The Rockingest Rockers that ever Rocked in Round Rock” was pretty creative, I thought, but I agree with Lily that “Crystal Refractions” was actually really good.  The song she wrote for Lily was sweet and full of feeling, but I deliberately didn’t write it as well as I could have.  Girl was sixteen, after all.  It’s not like she’s going to write a Mozart symphony.  And, I think I mentioned this in one of the author notes, I really want to hear “I love you, you pink frilly bitch” someday.  That sounds like a really fun one.

The song she wrote for Lily, by the way…  there were some clues to how she feels about Lily.  When she said she would marry Lily?  She really wasn’t kidding.  I mean, yes, she discovered she likes guys better in that way, but every other way?  If she could spend the rest of her life with Lily, she would in a heartbeat.  She said “The Moon is Beautiful” – Lily wondered if she knew what she was saying.  Spoiler:  She absolutely did.  It was, at least of sorts, a confession of love. which Crystal admitted herself.  I actually don’t think there was any character, maybe excluding Dave and Sabby, that loved Lily more deeply than Crystal did.

I was inspired in a lot of ways by Bocchi the Rock, but the most inspiring part was in Episode 8, when she said “I refuse to let it stay this way” and Bocchi’d all over the stage.  In fact, I think Lily recounted that herself, in the same way.  I kind of took that into myself as phrase I say sometimes when things are at their worst.  And Lily kind of did that too.

Anime can be awful – but it can also be a great inspiration.  Some of it was for me, like Bocchi the Rock, Sound! Euphonium, reLife, and a few others.  And others…  don’t get me started.  Lily and I both agree that Nagatoro is nasty.

Crystal will go far.  She’s off doing music school now, or at least preparing to start, and maybe in ten years we’ll have the next Lady Gaga.  Dang, I hope not.  But if anyone can do it, it’ll be Crystal.  What’ll probably happen is, she’ll graduate from music school, find some boring corporate job where she doesn’t use her degree at all, and play in odd dives on weekends and weeknights.  And…  I bet she’d be really happy that way.

Or she’ll end up using Lily’s connections, going to Japan, and making some weird j-pop and a-pop fusion, become a star touring around Japan, and having the time of her life.

I guess time will tell.  Because she could just end up getting married and being a housewife, too.  You’d think Crystal would be a bit wild for that…  but all she’s ever been looking for is stability, and you can’t really get a more stable life than that… with the right person.

Anyway, enough rambling.  I changed February 25, 2024 tonight.  There were two errors.  One of the errors was Lily said “Beth” where she should have said Crystal.  The other is that Lily stated Beth slapped Crystal.  She didn’t.  She almost did, but didn’t.  I actually think the story would have been better if she did, but I try to reserve slapping for when people really deserve it.  And, well…  maybe Crystal actually did, but Beth was more interested in just venting, I guess.