Accidental Innuendo: The name itself, SB69; the "69" is read as "ro-ku," but, well... y'know. Lampshaded by a member of Shirorakurosuka's tie-up band, A Crow Is White, in a livestream Q&A once.
Common Crossover: It's not unusual to see some SB69 fans wish for fellow Sanrio character Aggretsuko to be in the game or anime as a cameo. Having an outlet for her screamo meltdowns would be interesting to see.
Fans love referring to Rosia as Roger, because of how her name can be romanized.
After he got a UR, the Japanese fanbase took to calling Turtle BIG Turtle SEX.
Viewer Species Confusion: A from Tsuresurenaru Ayatsuri Mugenan tends to be mistaken as a fox by viewers, but she's actually a dog, namely a Shiba Inu.
Downplayed: While there is some crude humor that might go over kids' heads, split-second moments of alcohol consumption, and some super mild fanservice, there really isn't anything about the show that's truly objectionable for children. It could easily be aired on kids' TV with minimal cuts.
The game, on the other hand, has a song, NAKED, that is blatantly about sex, along with some borderline bromides, including one with Chuchu doing gravure modeling.
The boy bands in the series are marketed towards girls, just older than Sanrio's usual demographic.
Game:
Fake Difficulty: The inability to change the note scrolling speed can cause this, almost always because the predetermined scrolling speed is uncomfortably slow; シリウスと老人, Inside of Snowdome, and ダイニング are particularly bad offenders, as they scroll so slowly that it's difficult to tell where the notes are supposed to fall at all.
Likewise, a few of the more difficult songs in the game (such as ハツコイノオト and サヨナラ！フラッシュバック！) are arguably easier to get through in the event-only Godspeed Mode, which makes the notes scroll faster as a supposed challenge.
Game-Breaker: Demon Bat's LR is the first card in the game to combine an overall multiplier (1.3x) with a fever multiplier (3x) passive skill; having both skills on the same card allows a player to combine it with a fever gauge boost passive skill from a support card, giving them a whopping 3.9x multiplier for, in almost all cases, most of the song. It tries to mitigate its power by narrowing the timing window and lacking any score boost skills, but in the end, depending on the player's teams, it's usually the best lead/support choice for scoring even in non-dark songs.
Mood Whiplash: Sunday's light/dark event roulette is subject to this, as light element songs tend to be lighthearted or energetic pop songs and dark element songs are, as one would expect, the darkest and heaviest songs in the game.
Within light element roulette, getting Swan Song by Spectrenotes is a glaring case; the music alone is gloomy enough, but the lyrics depict mutual suicide, going so far as to directly name-drop Romeo and Juliet.
That One Attack: Be prepared to start the track again if the following appears on any track that you play, especially if it is at 6 stars or above:
Rapid alternating notes. Shimonogurui's "わかんないのはいやだ" 8 is particularly brutal that the song starts with this pattern normally reserved at the middle or the end of other songs featuring this type of notes.
Tap notes that overlap with hold notes, if you want to max out combos.
Most songs on 7 and 8 stars are pretty hard, but special mention goes to Last Flower 8, Unicorn in the Blue 8, KOI 8, 真・アドベンチャー 8, あの娘を返せ 8, Now here No where 8, and all of Ninjinriot's songs on 7 and 8.
Luckily, Ninjinriot's song "手裏修羅雷" subverts this and is pretty easy.
The renewal update in July 2016 replaced a lot of the 8 star charts that qualified as this to make 8 star difficulty more even as a whole; however, ハツコイノオト 8, one of the harder charts pre-renewal, remained as-is. Some songs added post-renewal such as 秘密 8, プラズマism 8, and 断罪のソリテュード 8 are a notch tougher than the rest of the songs in the game, though they're not quite as hard as the scrapped charts were.
Anime:
Angst? What Angst?: Though it shows up a little in the early episodes, Cyan doesn't look all that concerned about being Trapped in Another World. In fact, it's sometimes really hard to tell that she ever was from Earth in the first place.
This is taken to a logical conclusion in the final scene of Season 2, where we see Cyan, playing Strawberry Heart, being watched by an audience of Myuumon... Human Cyan!
When she appears in the Fes A Live era seasons, she never appears as a human at all.
Season 2's Plot in general. Fans are split about whether it was a huge improvement over the previous season thanks to focusing more on expanding the backstories of the other bandmates from not just Plasmagica, but also Shingan Crimsonz and Criticrista, or if it was a huge letdown due to how much filler there was in comparison to the first season's plot, as well as the main villain being seen as a disappointment.
The Fes A Live era seasons, Mashumairesh and Stars, get this conflict too. While there are plenty of fans who find it refreshing for focusing on a new set of bands and enjoy the less actiony atmosphere, others criticize it for the focus bands being too similar to those of Seasons 1 and 2, while also disliking the changes to the 3D segments.
Shingan Crimsonz as a whole have become even more popular than Plasmagica, ranking second in Sanrio's official 2015 popularity poll (Plasmagica ranked 6th, while Trichronika and Tsurezurenaru Ayatsuri Mugenan, the other two most popular bands, ranked eighth and tenth respectively ).
Rom quickly became one of the most popular characters in the series after he debuted in the anime.
Of the band members introduced in the second season, a lot of fans quickly warmed up to Titan of Arcareafact due to his less than ideal circumstances and his brotherly moments with Nickel and Balt.
Crow is classified as a hedgehog, but he has small, mouse-like ears and a long, thin, mouse-like tail. Wouldn't it make more sense if he was classified as a mouse, a rat, or even a panther? Plus, hedgehogs don't have long tails like mice.
That, and his name and the fact that milk, his favorite drink, is very unhealthy for hedgehogs.
Less Fridge logic when you realize his color scheme is meant to be a reference to Shadow the Hedgehog.
Plenty between Rom and Shuu☆zo. The game takes it further by constantly implying that they were in some sort of relationship, and that Shuu☆zo really misses Rom.
Listen closely to the lyrics of the "Seishun wa NON-STOP!" at the moment they smile at each other during the finale: "The boy I like. His feelings for me increased suddenly. Push or Pull, which should I do?"
Crow and Aion get their fair share of Ho Yay in episode 8.
Les Yay:
A lot between Retoree and Cyan.
Masmairesh!! has Les Yay you could cut with a knife. Howa and Himeko supply most of the season's Pseudo-Romantic Friendship, and while Delmin and Ruhuyu don't have nearly as much, they still get their moments. Funny enough, in Stars, Retoree and Himeko bond over their affection for their leaders.
I Knew It!: Most fans completely called the reveal that Aion and Ailane were siblings long before season 2 even started, due to their similar motifs and color schemes. They even share the same species!
Rararin criticizes Howan for her desire to be in a band for fun rather than to take the profession seriously. Later on she is shown changing her mind upon seeing that Mashumairesh can both perform well and have fun doing it. However, Howan agreed to the Battle of Bands for fun without discussing it with the other members, despite UiUi warning her that she signed a contract which will force her to join ReijinSignal should Mashumairesh lose. Himeko too was about to decline before Howan butted in and agreed to the contest. Rararin is meant to come off as an arrogant elitist in thos confrontation, but she is proven correct in how carefree Howan can be even compared to her teammates.
The reason Howan even ended up with the contract is due to her signing it to be employed as a member of ReijinSignal. Howan at this point was looking for work so she wouldn't mooch off Himeko. She later declines to join because she wants to stay in Mashumairesh. The conclusion of this part of her character arc paints Howan as carefree and flighty, turning down a high-paying job so she could have fun in a band that had little to no notoriety, and the actual cause of her initial agreement (her guilt about mooching) remained unaddressed.
Mashumairesh is portrayed as in the wrong for not being able to give ReijinSignal a proper challenge. While a rookie group becoming on par with their peers is not uncommon for music stories, Rararin is, at the end of the day, challenging newbies with little to no experience or success and giving them a very small window to even practice for the event. This is lampshaded by UiUi, who finds it unfair and even frightening for Rararin to do such a thing.
ChuChu is meant to seem selfish and traitorous for joining Unicorn Music Inc. While she was motivated by envy for Cyan stealing her spotlight as the face of Plasmagica, her actions in context aren't as selfish as seems. It is established Cyan will one day return to her world, leaving Plasmagica a member short and missing the face of their band. Cyan has also been shown to leave during important concerts. While saving the world is more important, Cyan's actions make her unreliable as a band member and the frontman, which could jeopardize the band's credibility should Plasmagica fail to perform in her absence.
Memetic Mutation: Demolition D's rant about Yuri Undertones in the show instead of having actual Yuri was turned into a copypasta.
Ships That Pass in the Night: You'd be surprised at how much fan art there is of Cyan and Crow together when they've barely interacted or even said two words to each other.
Even though it's not as extreme as Cyan x Crow, the other Plasmagica girls are paired up with Shingancrimsonz members as well. They seem to be based on the instrument they're playing as the most common ships are Chuchu x Aion, Retoree x Yaiba and Moa x Rom. However, as for Chuchu and Aion you could say they have some traits in common, same goes for Retoree and Yaiba. Due to the things that happened in the anime Chuchu x Aion got slightly more popular as they were both victims of Dagger Morse and the black monster.
Superlative Dubbing: Funimation really pulled out all the stops with this dub, as not only are most of the roles perfectly cast (sans Moa and Retoree with odd voices, but they're not bad by any means), everyone puts their all into bringing their characters to life, through thick and thin, comedic and dramatic. Also props to the funny script, ChuChu's countryism, and Uwasanopetals's rural accents.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In the grand scheme of things, some of the plot elements or character elements that were introduced during the early stages of the show are either skipped over or outright ignored later on.
Moa's homesickness and mission aren't truly elaborated on aside from the 2 episodes in which it was brought up.
Averted in Show by Rock!!# (Season 2) where there is an episode featuring this, completely focused on Moa and her world.
Shuu☆zo and Rom's backstory is addressed, but the finale shows the two to be on somewhat friendly terms even before they all tried to work together to stop Dagger, so the audience doesn't get to see whatever sort of reconciliation took place between the last time they spoke and before arriving at Boo Doo Kan.
The finale sets up all the main bands (Plasmagica, Shingan Crimsonz, Trichronika, and Tsurezurenaru Ayatsuri Mugenan) taking part in the final battle against Dagger Morse, the CEO of Unicorn Virtual Music and the real reason why Cyan was taken into Music World... and for the most part they really don't do much. Daru Dayu provided some excellent cover when trying to take down the Dark Monster they'd been summoned to fight, and Plasmagica does get to stop it once and for all and save Criticrista in the process, but after those admittedly good victories the other bands don't truly have a chance to shine because Dagger incapacitates all but Shuu☆zo, Daru Dayu, and Cyan. In the end, only Cyan is able to make any sort of dent in Dagger's offensive and is able to one-shot him. However, when the situation was repeated for the final battle in Season 2, all of the bands present got their chance to shine and collaborate on a song together.
It's a small concern, but ChuChu mentions that her most influential inspiration for becoming a musician was in Grateful King, and that his performances helped her realize what kind of musician she wanted to be. So it's a little weird when he actually shows up to help the others defeat Dagger, and she has little to no reaction to it. Even if one can make the assumption that it was because she had more pressing things to think about at the moment, she didn't even make a peep when the festival they were all attending continues as planned.
Many people expected that MIDI-city was some sort of parallel universe to Cyan's world, where the Myumon versions of actual human live. This misunderstanding came to be because of the schoolgirls shown in episode one. They looked like human versions of the Plasmagica members (except for the fact that there was one extra girl with a ponytail). So a bunch of fans that followed the series predicted the ending to be like this: Dagger Morse will be defeated and Cyan will return to her world. At first she'll be sad. Who wouldn't? You made friends and you have to leave them all behind. On top of that you won't see them ever again and no living soul will believe your story that you were stuck in a game. However, when she finally finds the courage to enter the music club, she realizes that the people in her school are the same as in MIDI-city. Except for the fact that they are human of course. This way Cyan dares to approach them and the story of her band, friendship, ... will be repeated in the human world.
Bud Virgin Logic's ultimate role in the conflict. After episode 8, they're hardly even enemies anymore, and those who thought that they'd have a bigger stake in the story are going to be disappointed.
The Season 2 plot in general. Despite the filler episodes expanding on the personalities and motivations of the cast, ultimately it did nothing but pad for time and, when time came for the final battle, made the villain look more one dimensional than Dagger did.
Unpopular Popular Character: Shingan Crimsonz is consistently portrayed as struggling to have any sort of strong fanbase in the series and is rarely ever described as being on the same level musically or status-wise as almost every other band. In real life, they're one of if not the most popular group in the franchise.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The CGI segments in the first two seasons. Though the characters don't have mouths during these segments, their movements sync up perfectly with their dialogue and are incredibly expressive, given how CGI in anime usually looks. When it comes down to showing the bands play their instruments, their hand movements even match the corresponding chords!
