Show By Rock is affiliated with Sanrio. That alone should tell you a lot about what to expect from the character designs, but the plot itself is far from the usual Hello Kitty afairs. As it is aimed more at older males than their usual demographic, and while the series is relatively light-hearted, it does deal with a few darker elements over the course of it including depression and trust. It should also be noted that this is based on a smartphone rhythm game, so that's why character designs and backstories are completely and totally all over the place.

The anime series begins with a shy human girl, Cyan, wanting to join her school's band / music club. She simply cannot work up the courage to do so, and ends up playing the game itself on her smartphone sitting around at home. While playing, she is sucked into the game world, and turned into a cat among a 3D world. While most of the first episode will take place with the 3D fully-furry representations of the characters, it has occasional splicings of the anime-styled kemonomimi versions of the characters. You'll have to get used to this, as the 3D versions will only appear during the concert scenes. There are little mini-furries drawn in 2D and that makes the crowd scenes extra adorable. All denizens of this world are called Myumons; sometimes you can tell their species, sometimes it's completely undefined.

Cyan is gifted with a guitar called Strawberry Heart, and this guitar is part of what has caused her to be transported to the world in the first place. Oh, and it talks to her through most of the series, driving the main plot forward. Once there, she's almost immediately pitted against a dark beast and after busting out a killer solo, she banishes it and saves the very colorful canine and his two cohorts from its clutches. Shortly after returning to the kemonomimi segments, she's scouted by a low-end band and, simply happy to have been asked to be a part of things, quickly joins up.

A large portion of this series will deal with her bonds with the band, and their growth and journey to the Battle of the Bands. They also have another band within the same company that is all males, so there's some definite variety in the music that you get exposed to. I personally rather like the Shingan Crimsonz' music, myself.

The other portion of the anime will deal with the dark beasts, and their creator / source, Dagger Morse, the jellyfish based bad guy in charge of Unicorn Music. He sets out to turn everyone's "Melodisian Stones" dark which drives them into being the dark beasts, by causing them to be depressed or other negative overwhelming emotions.

The series eventually reaches a climax at the Battle of the Bands with its myraid of characters, the bad guy is defeated, and Cyan returns to her own world. It's nice to have an anime that reaches a fairly solid conclusion. Cyan even manages to work up the confidence to join that band at her school.

Overall, this series has some nice variety, some great music, and some very unique character designs. It can drag on a little bit at some points, and it's by no means an amazing series, but if you're looking for something that's still cutesy but has a more serious tone to it, it can be a good stepping stone. I went into this series not expecting much, but I left feeling satisfied.