The first KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle was held on 27 September 2025 at KAORI Nusantara’s Discord server. The event had a total of 9 participants, with 2 serving as duelists. The participants consist of the Indonesian Anime Times staff, KAORI Nusantara Newsline staff, and KAORI Nusantara Discord members.
The type of media selected to recommend for the first-ever KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle was anime (in general). Still, surprisingly, the duelists came up with quite similar entries, namely Rock is a Lady’s Modesty and Healer Girl.
The bibliobattle session started with an introduction to what a bibliobattle is, then proceeded to the battle of recommendations from the duelists in the form of a 3-minute presentation from each duelists. After the presentations, the participants entered a Q&A session with the duelists and proceeded to vote on which anime to watch. The participants then do a watch-along of the selected anime for about 1 hour. The participants were encouraged to engage in the Discord voice channel chatroom during the watch-along. Following the 1-hour mark, the session changed into a discussion session, and the participants were requested to express their impressions about the anime. With this, the bibliobattle session came to an end.
But far before the actual KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle session, the duelist entries were gathered via Google Form as preparation. The entries cover a short commentary as to why the anime was recommended. At a later date, KAORI Nusantara hyped up the event with social media posts introducing the bibliobattle and teasing the entries.
So, what is a bibliobattle? Bibliobattle is a social book review game. Invented by Kyoto University, this game aims to develop presentation skills. There are a few steps on how to do a bibliobattle:
- The presenters join with their recommended book,
- The presenters introduce their book for a set amount of time to the audience,
- Both the presenters and the audience then entered a discussion session,
- The audience votes for which they’re most interested.
However, the bibliobattle presented by The Indonesian Anime Times is a bit different. The media selection for KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle is not limited to books, but also anime, manga, film, J-drama, Light Novels and stories, video essays, and even journalistic writings like interviews, reviews, and essays. This event was divided into 2 main processes, which are the preparation and the main event. For the preparation event, the organiser (who is me) introduces the concept of bibliobattle to the participant and explains how the bibliobattle in KAORI Nusantara would go. Next, the duelists pick their choice of media to recommend according to the selected theme (this time was anime), then the duelists write a short text elaborating their recommendation. Lastly, for documentation purposes, the duelists submit their entry of participation and their recommendation in a form. The duelists are limited to 2 persons each time.
The event on 27 September successfully gathered 2 entries, namely Rock is a Lady’s Modesty from Duelist Shay and Healer Girl from Duelist Bek. Each person also submitted their comments on the recommended anime. Here are the entries:
“A group of students from an elite all-girls school, which demands that all students always behave like elegant aristocrats, gather to form a fierce, snappy, and completely unladylike rock band. From the initial premise alone, it’s clear that this work will play heavily with contrasting imagery, or perhaps what we could describe as a “character gap”. This concept is what drew me to Rock is a Lady’s Modesty, especially since I naturally enjoy the rock music genre.
The characters that frequently appear in Rock is a Lady’s Modesty are depicted as having two sides to themselves that could be considered opposites, and both sides of each character are presented engagingly, with a balance of comedy and seriousness. Perhaps one of the anime’s shortcomings for me is the writing style, which often feels a bit too repetitive (most noticeable in Lilisa, who constantly struggles to hide her unladylike side), but overall, the anime is quite entertaining to watch. While the songs are primarily instrumental and not vocal-driven like many other girl band productions, they’re still enjoyable to listen to. The anime’s art style is also quite beautiful. I also love the use of 3D animation when the characters play their instruments, which blends seamlessly with the 2D.” (Shay, The Indonesian Anime Times)
“Why do I recommend this anime? Well, I feel that even though musical anime remains a popular genre enjoyed by many, from rock and classical music fans to idol music fans, I feel there’s one gap that hasn’t been filled by anime in this genre: musicals.
By musicals, I mean Broadway-style musicals, where each character sings and dances throughout the story, speaks through singing and humming, and even engages in self-talk through their singing. While there have been several anime films like Belle and Sing a Bit of Harmony that use songs to drive the story, I don’t think any anime has offered an experience quite like watching a musical on stage.
Well, I think “Healer Girl” fills this gap. There are many scenes where the characters converse with each other through song, even when they’re just doing “normal” activities, like cleaning the bathroom, sweeping, running a relay race at school, or just chatting. Furthermore, the main scenes where the characters perform healing on their patients are accompanied by insert songs that are not only pleasant to listen to but also have lyrics that perfectly match the setting; just like a stage musical.
While not a full-fledged sung-through like the stage musicals I’m used to, I found “Healer Girl” to be a unique and refreshing viewing experience for a musical anime. To date, there hasn’t been an anime as musical as “Healer Girl,” and I hope other anime in the future will take inspiration from stage musicals like this.” (Bek, The Indonesian Anime Times)
For the main event, after the entries were documented and the “invitation” was sent via KAORI Nusantara social media, all participants gathered in the Bibliobattle voice channel at KAORI Nusantara Discord server at 1930. The session started with a short introduction to the KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle event, followed by 3-minute presentations from each duelists. The participants then entered a Q&A session, which lasted for around 5 minutes. In the Q&A session, the duelists were asked several questions by the participants.
One of the participants, Dany, asked if there was a romance element in both anime. Shay and Bek answered that romance is not the main theme of the anime, so rather than a full romance element in the entire show, romance or love interests only showed in several specific characters. From Shay, the romance element showed in the visual imagery of the characters, while Bek said there was only one character who actually showed their romantic affection.
Another question was raised when Shay stated that she rarely watches music-themed anime. At the time, she was asked when the last time she watched music-themed anime was before Rock is a Lady’s Modesty. She said her last music-themed anime was Given, and she remarked that her love for session/the seasons song from Given was what made her enjoy the recommended anime, besides already liking rock music. As for Bek, when asked how he knew about Healer Girl, he replied that the anime was recommended to him when he asked why there was no musical-themed anime on his social media. Bek was also asked for his opinion on the vocal characteristics in the insert songs from the anime compared to those in other music-themed anime. In his opinion, the musical theme Healer Girl brought was quite close to the actual musical. Bek also informed the participants that the voice actresses were actually experienced in singing musicals.
After the Q&A session ended, the participants proceeded to vote on which anime they would watch in the next 1 hour. Healer Girl won with 5 votes, and Rock is a Lady’s Modesty has 2 votes. In about 1 hour, the participants managed to watch 3 episodes of Healer Girl. While the watch-along was in progress, participants in the chatroom discussed various topics, including potential romance plot, voice actress talk (who voiced this character and which character was voiced by the same actress in another anime), and references to the uniform the characters wear.
The discussion became more intense when the watch-along was finished. For the participants who watched for the first time, they were really impressed with how Healer Girl gives a refreshing theme with their musical and carried out a beautifully produced work as a music-themed anime. While a 3-minute presentation might not be enough to communicate all of the appeal this anime has in store, the 3 episodes gave the starting idea of what this anime has in store. The participants expressed that they’re excited to watch the rest of the episodes. One of the participants stated that the style this anime showed reminded them of the Petualangan Sherina film and Disney films.
The participants also discussed the logic behind the “science of healing through hearing” presented in the anime. Even though the act of “singing to heal” itself sounds like magic, the anime showed the science behind the act, making it all make sense, and even delivered the spiritual aspect to show how deep the concept is in the world of Healer Girl.
Thus, the first KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle event was successfully held. With all the active engagement from both the duelist and the participants, the session was pleasant. Bibliobattle aims to train presentation skills, but in KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle, the activity not only trains presentation skills but also makes argumentative text, nourishes the discussion culture, and helps find new recommendations to check out. KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle is planned to be a monthly community activity in KAORI Nusantara Discord server held around the 25th of each month at 1930 West Indonesian Time (GMT+7). So definitely check it out!
The Indonesian Anime Times ┃Article by Vina Nurziani
