To be honest, I’ve been saving this post for Anime News Network, but it’s getting so close to the debut of Rhyme Anima+ (that debut is scheduled for October 6th for both Crunchyroll and Japanese streaming/terrestrial broadcast, by the way) that it’s starting to not look like it’s worth saving for then.

(It goes without saying, but there are spoilers for Rhyme Anima and HypMic in general here.)

Introduction

What we know so far is Rhyme Anima+ is set after the 2nd division rap battle. The 1st season of Rhyme Anima was based on the 1st battle season, so obviously a lot happened between seasons 1 and 2.

Hypnosis Mic: Before the 2nd DRB

In the drama tracks/music which constitute Hypnosis Mic canon, Dotsuitare Honpo (sometimes the “Honpo” is spelt “Hompo”) and Bad Ass Temple are introduced in the phase of the story known as “before the 2nd division rap battle”. I didn’t write an intro for these guys in the previous post because they never showed up, but now I can introduce them because they are in this season:

• Dotsuitare Honpo is the Osaka division. It consists of Sasara (the comedian I keep using as a fountain of jokes and Samatoki’s old buddy – the two used to be a duo called “Mad Comic Dialogue” shortly before the rise of The Dirty Dawg), Rosho (his former manzai partner and currently a math teacher) and Rei (…yep, that guy who showed up at the end of season 1 as being in league with the Party of Words – he’s a conman).
• Bad Ass Temple is the Nagoya division. It consists of Kuko (a monk-in-training and Ichiro’s old buddy from before The Dirty Dawg was a thing – they used to be a duo called “Naughty Busters” which was based out of Ikebukuro, then Naughty Busters joined forces with Mad Comic Dialogue to create a 4 man team under the “Mad Comic Dialogue” name for a brief period), Jyushi (a crybaby visual-kei artist and one of my personal favourite characters) and Hitoya, a lawyer who is very picky about food, drink and all sorts of things and is commonly hailed as the “dad” of the trio, much like Jakurai is the “dad” of Matenrou. (However, since Doppo and Hifumi are in their late 20s while Kuko and Jyushi are in their late teens, that would explain the difference in dynamic.)

During the 2nd DRB, Dotsuitare Honpo goes against Buster Bros because Jiro and Saburo find out Ichiro’s been lying to them – their father isn’t dead and in true “Luke, I am your father” fashion, it turns out their old man is Rei. Likewise, Hitoya is childhood friends with Jakurai (and also one-sided rivals, although Jakurai doesn’t see their relationship that way), so Matenrou and Bad Ass Temple face off.

The final round is Fling Posse versing Mad Trigger Crew – although Dice and Riou don’t have bad blood with each other and Gentaro is actually rather respected by Jyuto (Jyuto is a reader of Gentaro’s books), Ramuda’s life is under threat. See, one of the biggest Hypnosis Mic plot twists is Ramuda’s a clone – genetically engineered by Rei, no less – and the loss of the first DRB meant the Central Ward – that’s the ladies – had no use for Ramuda, now they had the True Hypnosis Mic. It’s around this time Samatoki learns about how Ramuda is under Chuohku’s command and since Nemu – his sister, and the last living close relative he has – joined Chuohku under the spell of the True Hypnosis Mic (this was hinted at in season 1 of the anime), this gives Samatoki the motive to face Ramuda.

The three matches lead to wins for Buster Bros, Matenrou and Fling Posse, with a three-way battle culminating in Fling Posse being the winners.

As for what this Underground Division Rap Battle thing is (from the trailer shown at the 6th anniversary event), as of writing this part of the post on September 10th (JST), I have not much clue. I suspect there may be ties to stuff mentioned in the mobile game, as that talks about charms and has some characters that don’t appear elsewhere in the media mix, but it’s possible it could just be like cage fighting, where the mics have all their effects but the consequences are toned down. Freestyle Gladiator, from the drama track Mixed Up, plays a similar role though.

Conclusion

…This sounds like a lot, and it really is. It’s a lot more fun to see this stuff play out in the media it’s originally told in, rather than a recap like this post, so I’ll direct you to the Spotify playlist of the drama tracks.

It’s also fun to observe differences between the media adaptions, such as how in the Bad Ass Temple versus Matenrou stage play, Kuko gets tied up by Matenrou but then Matenrou feel bad for him, leading to Kuko learning how good Hifumi’s cooking is and wanting more. (To memory, different performances of the stage play have him eat different things.) For one thing, if you like Secret Aliens, then they’re probably not coming back – they haven’t been announced to appear at all, this late in the game – and for another, the microphone invocation scenes involve much less CGI this time (thank goodness…?).

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So was there anything that wasn’t clear? One of the reasons why this post came out so late is because there is a guidebook coming out on September 20th (JST, so that’ll be next week from the day this post goes out if you’re looking at this post in real time) which may or may not answer any questions which are still yet to be answered.