When life gives you rap battle boys…savour the opportunity, amirite?

Honestly, after thinking about how Paradox Live (henceforth “ParaLive“) and Hypnosis Mic (henceforth “HypMic“) are inevitably going to be compared, I think I need to air out some thoughts about how they match up.

First of all, HypMic came first. It started in 2017, while ParaLive started in 2019. HypMic was already starting its “2nd season” (read: 2nd division rap battle) when ParaLive started.

That said, the two aren’t exact copies of each other. For example, while HypMic and ParaLive both have 14 year olds in their main cast, ParaLive‘s BAE are college students (20 – 21 years old) while two of three of HypMic‘s Buster Bros are high school age (14, 17 and 19 in ascending age order). However, HypMic also skews older, with its eldest member of the main 18 characters (Rei) at 46 and, out of the side characters, Otome at 49. That’s why the average age of HypMic is higher than ParaLive‘s.

Furthermore, there is a camp that says it’s unfair to compare HypMic and ParaLive because they have different priorities. (For an example of where these priorities are, ParaLive has some emphasis on their artists being “masters of their particular musical style”. HypMic has everyone be a rapper, but the “musical style” is a lot more vague and likely to shift – just look at how Matenrou moved from being “dark and angsty” in Aural Medicine, their debut album, to being “those guys who do lo-fi rap” post-Enter the Hypnosis Microphone!) However, as someone who’s come to ParaLive from HypMic, I will inevitably see everything ParaLive through a HypMic lens.

That’s why I like what I’ve seen of ParaAni (<-the anime of ParaLive) so far as of writing this post (i.e. just the first episode), but I will pause it for fall 2023 so I don’t get affected by all the talk while it’s hot, plus all the comparisons between the series that inevitably result when they go head to head in a season like this. HypMic I have to stick with – my fandom presence in relevant spaces requires it – but ParaLive I can detach from and come back to later.

Simply put, the paradox of ParaLive is that it’s exactly the same to HypMic in some ways…but different in others.

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Well, it’s not all bad – basic economics (remember, these guys make music that conquers the Oricon charts!) and the sheer need for choice says having rap battle series which have unique selling points like this is good to have. I might have to come back to this topic later, because I feel like this is not the end of what I have to say…I just need a different angle from which to talk about it.

Also, writing all this out means – hopefully – I don’t have to get into fights with myself anymore over this. I’m well aware I can be a fan of both (basically everything I know about ParaLive is either through cursory research or through fans of both it and HypMic), but I only have so much energy this season and most of that is already directed at HypMic, so something’s gotta go… *sweatdrops*