Hayasaka Yukari is a final year high schooler who has her hands full working hard to graduate and do well on her university entrance exams. She isn’t concerned about where exactly it is she goes, as long as she gets too leave the town in which she’s lived her entire life. One day while walking down the street, Yukari is approached by a suspicious man with multiple piercings and bleached hair and she attempts to escape but only ends up meeting the guy’s friends. It turns out that they’re final year design students from a fancy art school who would like Yukari to be their model for their final project. Yukari initially thinks it is a waste of her time, but the more she gets to know them, the more she grows to adore and admire them for pursuing their goals. Will modelling for this group of eccentrics give Yukari the inspiration she needs to pursue her own goals? Or will it blossom into something else entirely?

One of the individuals Yukari meets when she first arrives at the Paradise Kiss atelier is Nagase Arashi. Sporting blonde-hair and several piercings, Arashi gives off the quintessential badass look – except he’s quite the emotional softie. This is especially evident in his interactions with his girlfriend Miwako. After one of their arguments, Arashi picks up a guitar, plucking away at his feelings of insecurity and singing away his guilt and we must say, the higher-ups at the fictional Honey’s Records want strumming in a band no later than yesterday!

After suffering a terrible accident, Tada Banri is left amnesiac, completely divorced from any memories from his past. He befriends Yanagisawa Mitsuo and starts a new life going to law school in Tokyo. Just as he is getting settled in, Banri gains a dramatic addition to his life in the form of the beautiful rich girl, Kaga Kouko. With his new college life, Banri finds his current self a place where can belong. However, as he slowly comes to learn about the person he used to be, he grows even more attached to the life he has now, wanting to never forget the times he is currently experiencing.

Throwing out a fantastic Easter Egg in the form of the supporting character Nana, who many will quickly notice, is a direct and deliberate reference to the character Osaki Nana from the series, Nana. Yes, yes, that is a lot of sevens, but you can keep up – just like this Nana can keep up rhythmically. Not only does Nana look like Osaki Nana, she bears the same demeanour and is also a musician! Her musical prowess aside, Nana’s good-naturedness makes her an important personality to have in any team undertaking.

Hunters are people who exist to do some of life’s most dangerous and challenging activities. Twelve-year-old Gon Freecss is determined to become the best Hunter there is in order to find his father, who has a Hunter himself and disappeared from Gon’s life when he was much younger. While on the way to achieving his goal of becoming a Hunter, Gon makes many friends including the doctor-in-training, Leorio, the red-eyed Kurapika, and the ex-assassin Killua. Together, they attempt to navigate the dangerous Hunter Exam which has claimed several lives before and throughout, they are tested like they have never been tested before.

Melody is a short and stocky elderly woman with buck teeth and some balding on the crown of her head. She is a Music Hunter, having gained supernatural hearing from her tragic backstory which involves hearing a piece of music composed by Satan himself. Her friend who played the piece died a gruesome death, while Melody was left deformed by the Sonata of Darkness. Now capable of hearing even the minute changes in people’s heartbeats, Melody is the perfect individual a band would need not only to kill it on the keys or strings, but also to make sure everything is pitch perfect!

Hikigaya Hachiman is an apathetic high school student with intense narcissistic and nihilistic tendencies. His extreme pessimism makes him believe that joyful youth is nothing more than just a delusion. As punishment for writing an essay mocking social relationships, Hachiman’s teacher forces him to join the Volunteer Service Club, a club dedicated to helping any student who asks for their help. With the cold Yukinoshita Yukino being the only other club member, Hachiman ends up being the frontman of the club, having to listen to other people’s problems. Can Hachiman’s pessimistic view of human beings be useful in his new environment?

Yukinoshita Yukino, the school’s resident ice queen, is someone who leads to a lot of people feel very insecure about themselves because she’s just so perfect at most of the stuff she does. Music included – given her rich background (we don’t mean money this time), Yukino can play bass and piano, in addition to being able to sing really well in front of crowds despite hating crowds. Put her in the band as lead singer or as a bassist, you’ve still got yourself a beast of a band member.

It is a beautiful morning in 2008 and high school student Minamoto Sakura is headed on her way to school when she is tragically killed in a traffic accident. Ten years pass and Sakura finds herself, along with six other girls from various epochs in Japanese history, resurrected as zombies by Tatsumi Kotarou. His plan is to enlist zombie idols to save the Saga Prefecture in a plan he calls the “Zombieland Saga Project”. Having assembled his zombie idols, Kotarou establishes the all-zombie idol group known as Franchouchou.

Tatsumi Kotarou is an extremely eccentric yet mysterious man who is behind the revival of seven girls from different Japanese time periods. Not much is known about him apart from the fact that he can resurrect the dead and turn them into superstars! Who thinks of doing such unfathomable things and actually gets them to work? This guy! What would a successful band be without a capable manager like this one? Oh we know – it’d be dead.

Ichinomiya Kou is the son of a wealthy businessman. The Ichinomiya family motto is to never be indebted to anyone, so when Kou falls from the Arakawa Bridge and a random stranger saves him from drowning in the Arakawa River, he finds himself owing his entire life to a stranger. He insists on paying her back; however, the blonde, stoic, tracksuit-clad homeless girl known as Nino lives under the bridge and wants nothing more than to fall in love. When Nino asks Kou to be her boyfriend, he has no choice but to accept – so Kou moves in with Nino under Arakawa Bridge!

Not to be mistaken for the person who wrote this article. Self-proclaimed musician and Nino’s Romeo, Hoshi is one of the funnier characters in Arakawa Under the Bridge. Named Hoshi because of his star-shaped head (it’s a mask of some kind), Hoshi is the Arakawa resident responsible for their music and, honestly, he’s not that great at all! However, Hoshi has immense personality and his self-assuredness is sure to rub off on anyone he works with!

Komatsu Nana is a naïve 20-year-old who is quick to fall in love and is dependent on the people around her. Despite having her own ambition and desire to leave her home town, she ends up heading to Tokyo for the sole reason of chasing her boyfriend, Endo Shouji. Through a stroke of fate or luck, Nana meets Osaki Nana, a proud and enigmatic punk rock vocalist looking to go pro. Putting her time with a fairly successful band and a steamy romance behind her, Nana boards the same train as Nana. When it turns out that the two will be sharing an apartment, their friendship slowly deepens as their lives become more and more intertwined and they stick together through it all.

It may feel like you’re seeing double on this list and that is because you are! Osaki Nana is the basis of the Nana character in Golden Time, but that’s not why she’s here. Osaki Nana has the spunk, the badass aura and the talent to become a massive star – she just needs to be in the right company; or is it rather that everyone else in the band is in the right company with her?

Gol D. Roger was the most infamous individual to have sailed the Grand Line and earned himself the title of “Pirate King”. However, when the World Government captured and executed him, the world was changed forever as his last words revealed the existence of the One Piece, the greatest treasure in the world. This brought about the age of pirates as people around the world wanted to be crowned with the glory of finding the mysterious treasure and become Pirate King. 17-year-old Monkey D. Luffy decided at a young age that he would become a pirate out of a strong sense of adventure and aims to one day find the One Piece, travelling across the Grand Line with his own pirate crew. However, the journey will be long and there will be many, many dark mysteries and powerful enemies along the way.

Soul King Brook is a Devil Fruit user who ate the Yomi Yomi no Mi (Revive-Revive Fruit), which rendered him undead upon resurrecting him when he died. As a result, he is essentially a living skeleton with a great wardrobe. Brook is the musician of the Strawhat Pirates crew, meaning that music is his main contribution to the journey of finding the One Piece is to provide an intensely enjoyable soundtrack for it all. Sorry Luffy, we’re going to be borrowing Brook for a while.

A young girl wearing a mask stands by the beach and sings a melody every single day. After going through two heart-breaking childhood separations, Arisugawa Nino has been singing to the ocean, bound by promises she made to her first love, Sakaki Momo, and her friend, the music-composing Yuzuriha “Yuzu” Kanade. The two boys have never met, but what they have in common is the promises they make with Nino: if they were ever separated from her, her voice would be what brings them together again. After six years, they are reunited when it turns out that they all go to the same high school, but things have changed after all that time. Nino is desperately trying to reconcile while Yuzu’s pent up feelings for her begin to surface and Momo tries his level best to avoid a reunion. Will music be the answer to this complicated yet melodic conundrum?

Arisugawa “Alice” Nino is an extremely capable singer. Her voice is an absolute marvel and her ability to memorise lyrics is uncanny. Truly one of the more motivated characters on this list, Alice’s voice is the type that would be perfect in a band and it doesn’t take too long for the series itself to highlight this. Alice’s voice is the kind of voice that draws people towards a performance and as a result, her input would be invaluable in a band.

Hirasawa Yui is a carefree high school freshman who is instantly entranced when she sees a poster advertising her school’s Light Music Club. Yui quickly signs up but soon realises her fatal problem: she can’t play any instruments! Heading over to the clubroom to introduce herself and explain her predicament, Yui meets the other members: Ritsu, Mio and Tsumugi. Initially disappointed at the fact that Yui is a novice, the other members convince her to stay to prevent the club from being disbanded and after playing a quick piece for her, Yui finds herself inspired yet again. Introducing their new guitarist, Hirasawa Yui! Excitement aside, Yui has her work cut out for her as she learns to play the guitar alongside juggling the other aspects of her life. With the school festival not too far away, will the Light Music Club be ready in time to debut?

The super energetic drummer of the Light Music Club, Ritsu, is the ultimate addition to any anime band. A great band or musical act sounds even more amazing when the percussion is on point! With Ri-chan, we’ve got ourselves a big ball of enthusiasm, potential and beats that slap! Not to mention the fact that she’s already been in a band before, so Ritsu also boasts quite the valuable level of experience. Given her time with Afterschool Teatime, Ritsu is also bound to inspire the hypothetical band manager to get snacks for everyone – who wouldn’t want that?