Bakuten!!

Story-wise this anime is nothing you wouldn't know yet. It's yet another sports club anime with a newbie at it's center, a way strong rival school and ensuing shenanigans whenever it's not about the sport. Oh and of course there's the obligatory 'But this is the last year we can do this with our Senpais!!!' Nothing new really but its execution is solid and you easily get dragged along on the journey. That is in part thanks to the characters. All with their very distinctive personalities which make them easy to understand without seeming superficial. People argue and are confronted with personal issues and they learn from those things and our main team grows together quite a bit. The rival team has great personalities as well though. While we don't have enough time with them to get to know them as well as the main team, they do each have similar personality types to one of our main team with at most 2 exceptions. Misato's counterpart is vague at best while Futaba's counterpart is straight up oposite to him in nearly every way. Anyway, characters aren't the only thing that makes this anime work. The art and sound design are fairly nice and the animation as well is quite good. I'm not a big fan of the CG used to animate the routines but it isn't bad or anything. My only big issue with the animation is the camera-handling during performances. Personally, I think the camera moves way too much to be able to keep up with what's going on. I had trouble appreciating the routines that were thought up because I could barely keep up with what was happening which lead to me feeling underwhelmed. I appreciate the close-ups of the members faces at some points and I understand that during the tumbling parts you want to put the focus on those that are doing the tubling but with too many changing angles and sometimes swithing camera lenses and all the moving around I feel it was just too much. To me it felt like it was taking away from the amazement and beauty mens rhythmic gymnastics can have. Take that complaint with a grain of salt though as I am used to seeing those performances from a very much unmoving camery angle thanks to watching a bunch of videos online. At the end of the day I still enjoyed the ride and would certainly call it an anime worth watching.

Finally, after a long time, a sports anime actually focused on the sport. I love sports anime. It' one of my favorite genres. but i felt like he sports anime these days are less sports and more drama. What with Skate Leading Stars, Wave Surfing Yappe, and so many others who just conveniently skipped the sport part, it was refreshing. The anime hitches you from the very beginning, so there's no doubt that you want to watch it from the very first episode. The boys are adorable, and they truly feel like high school kids. Too often, for the sake of drama, the characters are soooooo emotionally mature that it doesn't suit their age, but these guys are the goofy kids they're meant to be. The coach and the manager are honestly the greatest parts of the anime. The coach is actually seen as someone struggling with himself and his regrets. I like how they took the time to drive home the point that nobody's perfect, from the coach's dilemmas to Onagawa's shenanigans, everyone has demons. THE ROUTINE. i loved that they gave us the entire choreography without any long monologues or cutaways. Sports anime focused on the sport - just how I like it! If you love sports anime, give it a go. It's just a story about a bunch of goofy high school boys doing something they love, but it's surprisingly endearing and overall very enjoyable. 100% recommend.

i'm always attracted to sports animes, but this one particularly stood out. i was interested because of its name, Bakuten, and for some reason the title was stuck in my brain, and so that's what made me watch this anime. story: 8.3/10. in only 12 eps, everyone got solid development, and they didn't include unecessary episodes or anything. they followed the story all the way until the end, and it had a satisfying conclusion. there's even a movie after this, so i appreciate how the original story is being followed and adapted until the very end. the pacing is just right, and nothing was rushed imo. i guess the right word would be fluid? because it didn't seem stiff at all, which is ironic since this is a story about gymnastics. art: 9/10. i love how they used 3D properly and it didn't ruin the mood at all. it wasn't crappy or blocky, it was real smooth how they coordinated the moves and the routine. the opening also matched the mood of the anime, so i can say that the op was splendidly made. sound: 8.6/10. coming from a former gymnast, i like how they include the specific types of moves with their names, and the sound of them bouncing off the mattress sounds nostalgic. it sure did bring back memories. all the emotional scenes were carried by the va's as well, great job for them. character: 8.2/10. maybe speaking from my experience, as i didn't really have a talent for gymnastics, i found it a bit hard to believe that the mc could do a decent backflip after the 1st ep. it took me **cough** around a year to properly do a backflip, but maybe it's because i don't have a thing for gymnastics. maybe shotaro also had a talent for gymnastics, which is why he could do a backflip by the end of the day. the anime made the moves look so easy but in reality it's really hard to do and it takes months of practice. another great thing was that the other characters actually helped mc (shotaro) and misato's development; that was spot on. i could really feel the support from them, and gave them like an actual distinct personality. it was really fun to watch their interactions. enjoyment: 8.7/10. solid 8 for this because i enjoyed the music a lot. both the ost, and the music they used to perform their routines. not to mention the op and the ed did not miss at all. overall: 8.6/10. great sports anime, and it portrayed gymnastics quite realistically, especially concerning injuries. it's not exactly a must watch, but it was definitely a great watch.

I mean this is another sports anime for many people, but isn't this very near perfection. I started this anime as I was coming into this season after finishing Taisou Zamurai by Mappa, about gymnastics which I liked a lot lot, that is when I added this to my PTW. Incredibly happy that I did. Beauty in terms of animation. Soundtrack is just as beautiful and fitting as the animation. But the thing that will stick with me are the characters, the variety, the motivation, the situation and all of it coming together to form one team. The coach's character was the most fascinating of all of them, and loved him throughout the run. The monologues at different stages were so good. I do not care for so called "tropes", until the story is strong enough to include them but not rely on them. This show may have used some tropes, but the execution of the voice acting, animation and soundtrack, char design was excellent. A strong 9/10 for me, as it personally relaxed each time I watched it, made me emotional, but in the end the words from the coach also gave us a moral to include in our life or think about. "THE FUTURE IS IMPORTANT, AND YOU SHOULD NOT DO ANYTHING TO COMPROMISE YOURS, RE-EVALUATE YOUR PATH AT TIMES TO SEE IF YOU ARE HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. STILL IT IS NOT OKAY TO WORRY(KEEP WORRYING) ABOUT THE FUTURE AT THE EXPENSE OF HOW YOU ARE FEELING RIGHT NOW"