Bakuten!! – 04

I’m at the point with Bakuten now where certain elements are starting to grate on me.  The comedy doesn’t work.  Kamiya Hiroshi is truly insufferable – as he almost always is in these sorts of roles.  Murase Ayumu – who I generally like – rubs me the wrong way as Mashiro.  And this usual suspects casting from Ikebukuro sports anime – it’s all so depressingly on the nose.  I wish this show was at least trying to hide its calculations, and I wish it was trying a lot less hard to push all the expected buttons.  Ease off the gas and let the story tell itself, because it has real appeal.

I can’t overstate how much less contrived this show would be if it had cast a bunch of relative unknowns (as, for example, Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu LOVE! did).  But that ship has sailed, and it is what it is.  So why don’t I just drop it?  I may well do that to be sure, but I can’t quite cut the cord yet – there’s something here I still like, in spite of my reservations.  The gymnastics side of this is really very good, both in terms of visuals and presentation.  I think the overall arc of Shoutarou and the Ao club’s struggle is pretty realistic.  And Tsuchiya Shimba has an authenticity as Shoutarou that Bakuten would be totally lost without.

Still – we’re at the “one more week” stage, to be sure.  The overall direction isn’t positive and if Episode 5 doesn’t change the momentum, I think it’s time to cut bait and leave the fishing to someone else.

Shakunetsu Kabaddi – 05

As I’ve noted, Shakunetsu Kabaddi is eclipsing Bakuten in this season’s sports anime derby for me.  It’s certainly not as slick or flashy, but this series is a grinder.  It’s got a weird sport (or at least exotic, which is probably a better term) for most of us at its center, but in most respects this is a pretty traditional sports series.  The talented but iconoclastic protagonist starting from the bottom in a new sport isn’t a rarity in manga, but it’s a good premise when handled well.  As indeed it’s being handled here.

Oujou and Yoigoshi’s relationship seems likely to be the most crucial one in Burning Kabaddi, despite the former not appearing until the fourth episode.  He’s the one who can teach Yoigoshi the tricks he needs to know to level up as a kabaddi neophyte.  But Oujou knows that Yoigoshi can teach him, too – he’s an elite athlete who’s tasted success, even if he walked away from the sport where he tasted it.

What the show has been missing up to this point is actual competition.  But that’s rectified here in the form of the inevitable practice match.  The opponent is Souwa High School, whose captain (Rokugen) was a teammate of Oujou on the national (!) team.  In addition to him the ace of the team is Takaya Ren, an ex-swimmer (who actually did reach the top spot in nationals, unlike Yoigoshi in soccer).  Takaya-kun’s swimming background explains why he’s able to cant for a full 90 seconds, which is obviously a huge advantage.  He’s a second-year and Tatsuya a first-year, but they have the makings of natural rivals.

I would certainly expect Souwa to win this match, especially with Oujou sitting out for at least most of it.  But it’s nevertheless a good level check to see how far Yoigoshi-kun (who’s already employing some of the captain’s tricks) and his teammates have come.  But for me the key question is – how come Azemichi has that bandage on his head?