Bakuten!!

Shoutarou Futaba has always loved sports, but he never became more than a benchwarmer on his middle school baseball team. After noticing a group of gymnasts practicing in the park, he decides to watch a rhythmic gymnastics tournament on a whim. Although displaying an exhilarating performance at the competition, the Shoushukan High School's Rhythmic Gymnastics Club places second-to-last due to penalties acquired from not fielding a full six-man roster.

The demonstration of skill captivates Shoutarou, and he decides to enroll at Shoushukan in hopes of joining the team despite having no background in the sport. The club recruits him alongside Ryouya Misato, a prodigal gymnast who was the runner-up in a junior tournament.

Now with a full six-man roster, the team sets out to compete in the upcoming Inter-High tournament. As he strives to accomplish this ambitious endeavor, Shoutarou must learn and master the basics of rhythmic gymnastics all while working in tandem with his new teammates if Shoushukan wants to stand a chance at claiming the title.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Misato, Ryouya Main

Ishikawa, Kaito Japanese

Futaba, Shoutarou Main

Tsuchiya, Simba Japanese

Tsukiyuki, Mashiro Supporting

Murase, Ayumu Japanese

Watari, Koutarou Supporting

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Onagawa, Nagayoshi Supporting

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Tsukidate, Keisuke Supporting

Kondo, Takashi Japanese

Shichigahama, Masamune Supporting

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Shida, Shuusaku Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Kurikoma, Asao Supporting

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Azuma, Shunsuke Supporting

Yamashita, Daiki Japanese

Mori, Akitoshi Producer

Iwasaki, Noriko Producer

Kuroyanagi, Toshimasa Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Nagaya, Seishirou Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Reviews

Jun 8, 2022

BabyGirl06301

Recommended

I don't know if anyone else got the vibe that Bakuten!! was a mix of Haikyuu!! and Prince of Stride, but that's certainly how I felt. It felt like that tone of Prince of Stride and the character relationships and major plot points of a kind of knock-off Haikyuu!! Even so, there was, for me, a lot of originality in this series. I'm gonna start off with the demerits this anime gets because I very much liked this anime despite those, so it seems fitting to start with the few things I didn't like.

For one, the characters were absolutely not as developed as I would ... have liked them to have been, but given that this anime has a 12 episode run, that's not surprising. Actually, I felt like the major points of these characters' personalities more or less filled the gaps. Still, I would have liked to see more done with the character relationships. That's equally the case because Bakuten!! isn't quite the same as other sports anime. There aren't tournaments for this team to participate in where they're doing performance after performance, and the performances are simply improvements on what's already been shown. But that's the nature of rhythmic gymnastics--it's not like baseball or volleyball. That being said, with all the extra space in this anime between performances, taking a more concentrated look at the characters would have helped it when it felt slow.

I'd like to say that I disliked the super CGI animation of the performances, but actually, the very first performance shown in this anime is what convinced me to watch the whole thing. It blew me away because of the choreography, and so I didn't really mind the style of animation.

My gripe with this anime is actually the reason I love it so much: the characters. Even though their relationships didn't get highlighted as much as they might have with a longer run, I still felt drawn in. I think that's because this isn't really a main character kind of anime. Certainly there are parts where Misato or Shoutarou take center stage, but for the most part, it's an ensemble cast. That makes it easy to want to come back to these characters and see how their struggle to make it to InterHigh is going. I also felt like the high-stakes emotional aspects of this anime were done fairly well for it being such a simple plot. There are a couple places it falls flat, but there are a few moments that actually made me quite emotional or nervous or happy, and I didn't expect that from an anime like this.

Everything else around Bakuten!! is your typical sports anime. The goals are the same, the team development is the same, and I don't think anyone will be surprised by the ending. However, Bakuten!! still draws on emotion well and creates a set of characters that are worth the time to follow and love. I look forward to the movie because getting to see this group again excites me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 16, 2022

Laralin

Mixed Feelings

More of the same, that's how i would classifie this anime.

The premisse is the same for almost every sports anime out there, a guy found about some sport he never saw, and become obsessed with the thing.

I didn't hate the anime, but the only thing good about it were the characters, they're carismatic, and have a decent amount of development. The senpais have distinct personalaties, but the two kouhais are just the same story, genius aloof guy, and entusiastic guy.

If you're a fan of gymnastics take a look, but don't go in think will be another yuri on ice.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 18, 2021

azemichi_souma

Not Recommended

Preliminary (5/12 eps)

Ok listen the ONLY good thing about this anime is the music, because it's written by Yuki Hayashi, who is an absolute god. And you can just tell that he absolutely loves Rhythm Gymnastics but they really did not deserve such a good OST.

The characters have no personality and are literally just cardboard cutouts. The main character is like literally any other sports anime protagonist, in that he saw the sport and admired the team and decided that he wanted to do the sport.

There is literally no flavor to the characters and the story is very standard. Except for episode five, whatever the heck that ... was.

The shift into the CGI is jarring and pretty terrible. Maybe I'm just not a fan of the 3D CGI in general, but it's just..... bad. Their faces look very flat and it's just not good. The 2D and scenery is pretty, but other than that it's not great.

The character designs are also very similar and they all kind of have the same face.

Honestly I'm very sad because I was very hyped for the anime before it came out, but it just didn't deliver. The characters fall flat and I don't feel any connection to them and the story isn't interesting. Like sure, the characters are pretty and cute but they have no depth and it's disappointing.

Good characters can carry a bad plot, but bad characters can't carry a good plot. And this show has neither good characters nor a good plot. It's all just very meh and not worth my time. It's also very disappointing because the cast is AMAZING and I really wanted to like it because there are so many of my favorite seiyuus. But even though they have a great cast, they can't carry terrible writing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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