Bakegyamon

Gekifu Bakegyamon, one of anime that I watched when I was 13. It made me nostalgia so I planned to rewatch again. I simply watch only to remember some awesome moments in it, however, after understanding the anime a little deeper, it made me somehow impressed.. Story: 9/10 The story wasn't that promising at the first, people may accuse it like a generic game match, which the MC goes along and eventually win the tournament and his wishes will be granted. It involves the existence of Ayakashi, one of Japanese's mythical creatures being sealed as Gekifu in order to be used in a game called "Bakegyamon". Maybe we will think: "What's the reason of Bakegyamon? Why they seal Ayakashi in order to make children happy playing game?" After some explanation, I found that it's not just a generic game tournament using Ayakashi as tool in order to win and get your wish granted. It's more than it, and the backstory was quite sad and touching. Also the last episode, was also sad because they have to say farewell so they can't play together again.. Sound: 8/10 I really love the opening song, Mobius, sang by Janne da Arc.. the opening video also match with the song.. EPIC!! however, I don't really like the second opening.. even though, I love its 3rd and 4th ending song. Some of the sound effect seem similar to Digimon X Evolution's. Characters: 8/10 The characters are interesting just they way they are. Maybe the Main Character here is just a typical shounen who always do before think, being hotheaded, and silly. However, he got a lot of character development, and he's the one who's sympathetic not only to his friends but also to the Ayakashi, and also his Koma, Fue. Other characters are also interesting, almost none of them are being dumped. Everyone has their touching backstory, even though some of them are quite silly (I'm looking at you, Mick). They all have their own understandable motives of joining the game, not just joining without any reasons. They all got developed and finally grown up, Bakegyamon had changed their way of life becoming better, and understand that human and ayakashi can play together and become friend.. Art: 7/10 Quite decent, it's reasonable for its year production's quality. They did well 3D CG, though.. Overall: 8/10 This kind of niche shounen anime needs more and more love, I was sad that this kind of wonderful anime only got score 6.7. Maybe the watchers didn't like long episodes also they got bored by the first quarter episodes. Don't just judge something by its cover and its earlier episodes.. I hope my review helps, thanks for reading

Few recurring characters from the Ushio to Tora anime franchise (I just realized that both were written by the same author/mangaka). The hand-drawn anime's storyline revolves around yokai/Japanese folklore monsters in a competition and 1-on-1 battle tournament. The winner of the tournament will be granted one wish of their own. The animation quality was decent, but it became a bit messy towards the end. Some subplots that were established at the beginning were disregarded. All the opening and ending songs were amazing, very reminiscent of early 2000s anime. The scores remind me of the Inuyasha series. The character designs were very similar to other animes that I know, such as Ushio to Tora (especially the yokai) and Shaman King for the human characters. Sanshiro resembles Satoshi (Ash Ketchum from Pokemon) in many ways. Neido is decent for a mascot, quite memorable. The concept itself was similar to other monster-catching/tournament animes (which was a hype thing back in the 90s and early 2000s), namely Monster Rancher, Pokemon, Digimon, etc. If you love Yokai Watch anime, you will probably enjoy this. The ending was not my favorite, definitely not as dark and scary as Ushio to Tora, probably intended for younger children. I recommend it.

While not a perfect series, BakéGyamon absolutely deserves more recognition overall. The first half of the series mainly revolves around episodic games within the larger BakéGyamon tournament, and they're perfectly servicable episodes. But the real meat of the series comes in around the midway point of the series, as the narrative shifts its focus towards the existence of BakéGyamon and the central figures behind it. The series can be surprisingly emotional and dark at times despite being aimed for kids. The second half of the series is also when we start getting conclusions for the main cast's individual subplots. I found them all to be entertaining characters, although I do wish Mick had been given the same depth as the others. He didn't do much else besides act as a comic relief. The protagonist, Sanshiro, is a relatively typical kind of protagonist for the genre, but his genuinely sweet and empathetic nature makes him a compelling character. A lot of characters within that trope tend to come off as cocky, but that never felt like it was the case with Sanshiro. They occasionally shoehorn reminders about how Sanshiro listens to his parents and respects his elders, but I suppose those are still good things to teach the younger audiences that were watching this series back in 2006. While BakéGyamon revolves around a monster fighting formula that was popular at the time, I didn't personally find the battle system to be particularly interesting here. A lot of it is reused animations of random monsters performing a move that may or may not be the correct element in that matchup. Emphasis on random monsters, because it's very difficult to try to keep track of which monsters the characters own at a given time. And while a lot of the monsters are capable of speaking, it's very rare for them to directly communicate with their owners. It would've been a nice way to properly show the growth of bond between Sanshiro and his monsters, as a big aspect of the show is how Sanshiro's manner of treating his monsters as friends is the best way for everyone to have a worthwhile time playing in BakéGyamon. To mention a few other positive things: the komas (shadow companions) as a whole are a great addition, the ending of the series is a major highlight, the soundtrack is solid, the animation is mostly good, and both of the intros and the 3rd and 4th outro are all extremely good. And as for a few negative things: the two Neido "filler" episodes at the end could've been repurposed into something better (they kind of kill the momentum of the final episodes), certain subplots are resolved very quickly or not at all, the series can be a little sexist at times, and there's really no attempt to hide Onikamen's identity, despite the show framing it as a major reveal to the main cast. Overall, I had a great experience watching through BakéGyamon, and I really think it's an underrated show that more people should check out. At least if they're into other series in the same genre. Although do keep in mind the only available English fansub is inaccurate and somewhat nonsensical at times, so it would definitely help to have even a tiny bit of understanding of Japanese.