Bakuten!!

Title:Bakuten!!
Backflip!!
バクテン!!
Overall:Unevaluated
Keywords: , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Zexcs
ISHIKAWA Kaito
KAMIYA Hiroshi
KONDO Takashi
ONO Daisuke
SHIMONO Hiro
TSUCHIYA Shimba
Shotaro Futaba is a minor player on his middle school's baseball team, typically a bench-warmer. One day after a game he stumbles across a high school Rhythmic Gymnastics tournament, a sport he had never previously heard of being played by boys but now finds 'incredible'. After watching the performance of the squad from Ao High School he is driven to enroll there and join the team.

12 episodes
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Unevaluated Stretch [series:4299#628]
(At least three episodes watched):

Early on, I got the impression that this might be a show which was more about the sport than about the characters. Even at the end of the episode, Futaba remains largely a stranger; yes, he's clearly entranced by Rhythmic Gymnastics, but why? The characters (with their brightly colored hair) in general are kind of stereotypical--the enthusiastic newcomer, the fiery guy, the genius who somehow falls into their laps--etc. I can't help comparing it to last season's best sports anime (IMO), 2.43. There the characters expressed anger and jealousy, had secrets to hide, and there were major setbacks, which made it all more engaging. Here the sport is probably more interesting than the characters, which is the wrong way to do it. The jokes weren't all that good either. On the other hand, the animation of the performance was pretty good--RG seems like a combination of acrobatics and dancing. Also, the fact that a well-defined set of goals have been set forward--expand this team enough for it to compete seriously in major events, and make Futaba good at it--sort of compensates for the problems. So, after episode one I had mixed feelings about this show, and decided I would probably watch another episode to get a better idea of whether it really appealed to me. Episode two left me feeling that this was pretty much an average sports oriented anime. I can't get terribly excited about the fortunes of this team when the characters are as simple as they are. Watching a person who is largely a stranger struggle to master backflips isn't exactly engaging. On the other hand, RG is sort of interesting and I wonder how such an impressive routine can be put together and performed. But probably not so much that I'm prepared to watch an entire anime to find out, especially when there are so many other neat shows this season competing for my time and attention. In the end I decided to save the remaining episodes just in case I ever become seriously intrigued by RG.

Last updated Friday, June 25 2021. Created Saturday, April 10 2021.

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