Bakuon!!

If you've watched K-ON, Gochiusa, Kiniro Mosaic or any of the hundreds upon hundreds of cute slice-of-life anime out there, you've already watched Bakuon.

People like these shows for a reason, as evidenced by the massive amount of BluRays and merchandise they tend to sell. I'm fine with them, and presumably anybody who would give something like Bakuon the light of day is fine with them, too. But when the only thing distinguishing them from one another is what gimmick they can throw in (in this case, motorcycles), there begins to be a problem.

It is especially apparent that the motorcycle aspect of Bakuon is more ... background to the girls being cute and sexy and stupid and whatever. It will likely please biking fans with its references to and jokes about specific motorcycles and brands, but it never goes into detail and is largely superficial. Bakuon needed some way to distinguish itself from other shows in the genre, and, hey, biker girls is fresh or something, right? It's a bit of a shame, since other Cute Girls anime like K-ON have already shown that something meaningful can indeed be done with the girls' club activities. Biking can be more than an excuse to animate boobs jigglin' with the wind, and while it occasionally tries to go a step further with Rin's and Chisame's backstories, it never goes quite far enough.

Anybody seeking realism is, obviously, not going to get what they are looking for here. Bakuon breaks physics and sense on a regular basis. The girls get air-time so big they put Hollywood to shame. Heck, one of the motorcycles is even sentient! And God is a motorcycle otaku! And all the males wear masks and have their faces hidden for whatever reason. Bakuon just don't give a damn. It knows its viewers are not going to take anything it has to say seriously, and so it amps the lunacy up to twelve. It's okay with being dumb. It doesn't want to take itself seriously, and it doesn't need to. I'm cool with Bakuon in that regard. At the very least, it already puts itself above some other shows in the genre by keeping the drama to a minimum and focusing on why people are watching a show like this in the first place: comedy and cute girls, with an emphasis on the cute girls part. If the choice is between bad drama and minimal drama (I certainly would not trust Bakuon to handle it with any sort of grace), then I will choose the latter without hesitation.

There are some striking-- almost scary-- similarities to K-ON here, particularly with regards to Chisame, the show's late addition to the cast. A year passes and Chisame, as one of the new first-years, joins the bike club, much like Azusa from K-ON, and initially shows reluctance and a distaste for the club's silly behaviour, much like Azusa, before giving in and growing an attachment to it, much like Azusa. She also has twintails, much like Azusa, and the exact same freakin' last name, right down to sharing the same kanji. Maybe they're long-lost siblings? Something to think about.

Whether you will enjoy Bakuon or not is largely dependent on your interest in girls with twintails, as the other girls are sure as hell not going to appeal to anyone. You have your Yui clone, presumably a victim of intense brain damage, your Ritsu (who now has frizzly and messy hair), and your Tsumugi, an ojou-sama with a butler attending everywhere she goes. Yawn. Rin and Chisame are the only ones with character, who aren't completely one-dimensional and who actually bring some life to the show. Rin has a legitimate reason for loving biking and brings passion to the show as a result, while Chisame provides an outsider's perspective to the world of motorbiking along with her amusing deadpan humour, and is so adorable that you will want to reach out and squeeze her whenever she appears. (Chisame also looks like Nico. And Rin has big boobs. I thought I should mention that.)

Bakuon does not attempt to hide the fact that the girls are there primarily for sex appeal, what with all the close-up shots of their boobs jiggling, Rin's (naked) butt shaking in the camera's vicinity and taking up approximately 90% of the screen, and them cleaning their bikes (in a swimsuit, by the way!) by grinding and rubbing their genitals all over them. One of Rin's most defining physical characteristics is that she has a motorcycle logo branded on her butt. Bakuon is pretty weird.

I am not someone who believes sexiness is inherently wrong and should be banned from all media. Sexiness is fine. Rather, the issue I have is that most anime force it in where it is entirely unnecessary. If it's a story about, say, a gravure idol or a girl working at a hostess club, it is more than welcome. A group of high school students playing mahjong or music, on the other hand? Not so much.

Under ordinary circumstances, then, I might criticise something like Bakuon for the aforementioned scenes. But honestly? The T&A is one of the only noteworthy things about the entire show. You take that and the motorcycle gimmick away and you're not left with much else. So I'll take the sexy biker chicks who masturbate themselves via their motorcycle, if only because I can't imagine Bakuon being even less of a show than it already is.

But I'll also admit that, despite all its issues and lack of anything meaningful or noteworthy, I still enjoyed Bakuon more than I expected to. It starts off quite rough, and it's only towards the end that it establishes its characters and figures out what it wants to be. For those last few episodes (9 onwards), I genuinely did have a good time with it. It's not a bad anime by any means. It's fine. It's OK. It has heart. And it can be more when it wants to be more - it just doesn't try nearly as much as it should.

Boring? Sure. Uninspired? Absolutely. But you can go a lot worse than Bakuon if you're just looking for cute anime girls to keep you occupied.

Pretty interesting work coming from a former adult doujinshi artist.

During my time watching, I was not impressed with the way Bakuon!!was introduced. I understand that originality in anime & manga has been dead since the earlier 2000's (my opinion, everyone else has their time-line of when it stopped.) however Bakuon's story, while somewhat unique, still failed to bring anything exciting to the table... or in this case TV. Unfortunately creativity was the biggest thing that hurt the story. The plot and story are both simple, which is somewhat good, but also feels very plain. I felt like the producers were afraid to break ... the barrier a bit (no crash pun intended) and branch out the story. During the time I spent watching each episode, it was as if the team that worked on Bakuon weren't trying their best to make it really stand out. If I was watching television in my hotel room in Japan and I saw Bakuon on and decided to watch it, I would probably change it due tom the lack of engagement and exciting developments in the story. In all honesty I wasn't in the least bit interested in the show. Bakuons appeal? it's pretty much just your little below average moe title. Think of it like this, "what if the K-On girls were on motorcycles?" or "what if the Lucky Star crew was on motorcycles?" I mean at least they were not playing card games on motorcycles but I digress. Not every episode in Bakuon is equally strong. For the most part episodes felt unbalanced because one episode the main focus or plot would be about a character getting their license then next episode would be about a hot spring. So as far as the plot goes, there was no "set plot." This is of course common in the world of Slice of Life anime. Overall the story doesn't meet my expectations. It is too simple-minded and focuses a tad too much on sponsoring motorcycle companies whilst trying to add some sort of "cuteness."

Characters designs looked like they were ripped off.. or heavily inspired by Kakifly's K-ON! which is something you'll see more than once on my review. Hane stood out the most for inspirational use. I'm not sure if maybe the original creator was going for a moe look or what his deal was but It just wasn't working. Aside from that and I actually had to do lots of Googling for information on the oringal creator because the way the show is set up I seriously thought that Kakifly (Creator of K-ON!) worked on this show or at the very least helped Orimoto with the character designs. In my research I found out that Mimana Orimoto was actually a doujinshi-artist that focused more on adult work which I find both uncommon but also very interesting because this show is to my knowledge, his first published work that isn't hentai. I also found it very interesting that none of the characters from his doujinshi's or self published work share no visual similarities with the Bakuon cast which is good. Now I think that if you read the manga you'll notice the K-ON similarities the most however the anime does a better job getting rid of those distinctions. Animation was pretty good for the most part. I was moderately impressed with the racing scenes in the show. I think the only thing that kept me from actually enjoying the races was that the animation wasn't over the top. Like if I watch something like Initial D movies, even though the animation isn't on par with Bakoun the animators were still able to make the races and drifting look pretty damn good! Lastly, special effects look great, background settings look wonderful etc. I think the art and animation was pretty solid overall.

The sound wasn't anything special either. The background music is lackluster at best. The opening and ending song while catchy did not get me excited to either watch the show or stay for the previews or warning sign (lol.) The voice actors in the show failed to leave me with memorable impressions based on their peformances. This of course was something I was upset about considering that all the seiyuu's have had some pretty great roles... well maybe not Rikako. It depends on whether you liked the shows she was in. Freezing was okay but... wait a second, let me get back on subject here. I felt like the sound department was reletivly weak in general. One thing that I did admire though was the sound effects. I watched Bakuon on Crunchyroll via PS4 and because I have surround sound along with a soundbar by Bose set up around my television. Whenever the girls got on their bikes hearing the engines revving along with them racing sounded so freaking great! Perhaps my favorite episode was maybe episode 9 or 10 where Nakano was sharing her experience racing with other people and the sound of her whizzing by the other racers was epic! it would travel from one speaker to another and because of the way my speakers are set up it, with the bass, it felt like, and sounded like they were racing in my room!

I mentioned earlier that characters looked as if they were ripped off.. or inspired by Kakifly's K-ON! Hane stood out the most for inspirational use. This is because she looks like Tsumugi Kotobuki, has the personality of Tsumugi, and Yui hirasawa. In addition to that, her relationship with her Imouto or Little sister reminds me of Yui and Ui's relationship in K-ON! Rin reminded me of Ritsu Tainaka. Sort of Tomboy-ish, cute, and when she puts her mind to it dependable. Mio I see a lot in Raimu shy, timid at first but when something excites her she gets super happy and her personailty changes. This is what I mean what I say it's like the characters ripped off. Better yet, they seemed more like copy & pasted archetypes and personalities you'd seen in any other anime series. As mention earlier there were no major character developments other than minor mental thought processes or characters loving certain brands of bikes, just little things. I was not, too impressed nor satisfied with the little women of Bakuon!!

What I find pretty interesting is that no matter how many times I found myself becoming unsatisfied with episodes, I would still find some interesting developments to help me enjoy the show. I think the word I'm looking for is "fun." No matter how bad episodes seemed they were still fun to watch and I really admired that about the show. I had a good time watching the girls enjoy themselves on their bikes.

Overall I would have to say that Bakuon!! is hit or miss. The show has its strengths and weakness, and it makes it somewhat difficult for me to decide what rating to give it based upon everything I mentioned earlier. In addition to the rating, I think that the show obviously needed more work, especially in the story & the characters department. Perhaps if the show had more "originality" then I would have gave it a 7 however I think Bakuon!! is fairly good in all departments despite its lack of creativity. 6.5/10 from me!

Certainly one of the more stranger shows to come out of this anime season, Bakuon is a show in which a transgender motorcycle guides you through tests and each one of our main female character pretty much become wet at the thought of seeing their favorite bike brands.

In an age in which Japan will put cute girls with anything, this time we have cute girls with motorbikes (which is certainly better than the cute girls with bread). I'm still hoping for a cute girls show about drug rehab or something along those lines.

Since I am a filthy cave dwelling dweeb I did enjoy this show ... on a raw personal level, since each of the girls was seen in very proactive clothing and pandered to the otaku fan base while also having some genuinely fun moments intermixed within the show.

The plot is pretty much the same as every other show of this type. New girl joins school, gets roped into joining a new school club and in this club, finds a new passion in her life. It's a basic formula for a basic show. The rest of the episodes are pretty episodic and don't really have all too much in the way of story development or all too much characterisation outside of their individual quirks. Some of the jokes and comedy could sometimes feel kind of forced and jarring and if you're not a bike fan some of the jokes will probably fly over your head as it did with me.

Despite that, there were plenty of scenes and moments I generally felt were pretty funny and entertaining, earning a small chuckle here and there, and it certainly entertained me week after week but is still ultimately forgetful.

Character designs and animation could be pretty meh, and sometimes could look off model and strange. The animation is pretty standard and If was improved, it could of helped with some of the joke delivery a little better. The bikes, when in motion were pretty much all CG and didn't blend to well with the 2D backgrounds.

Overall Bakuon was a fun ride with fun characters, but aside from that, doesn't really offer anything unless you're a huge motorbike fan, or a fan of Rin's tits (and those are some big tits). It's hard to recommend this show since there are so many other shows of this nature that do this so much more better.

Bakuon is 2016’s answer to K-On, only with motorcycles in place of rock music.

The story itself is simple enough for anyone to watch. However, what may turn people off is the constant motorcycle jargon (models, companies, etc.), as to be expected for such a series. I do give credit for all of it being true, as the company/models mentioned do exist. Other than that, the stories being told were lackluster.

I can’t really say I enjoyed the characters that much. They certainly had their own personality that distinguished them from each other, but never went farther than that. We don’t get to learn anything about them ... outside of what model they ride and how proud they are of riding them. We even get an introduction to a new character during the last few episodes, which makes their appearance for the rest of the show useless.

The animation was, by far, the worst thing about the show. This pertains to the character models, specifically the eyes. Almost every episode had moments where the eyes were disproportionate to the point where it was distracting. Although saying the story is mediocre, I wouldn’t minded it had the animation been consistent.

Overall, Bakuon was a hit and miss for me. Honestly, I found interest because it showed many similarities to K-On. If you’re into motorcycles and/or cute girls riding them, then this might be for you. If you’re not too familiar with motorcycle trivia, then it may not be to your liking.

Part 1 English
Part 2 Bahasa Indonesia

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Welcome, my fellow weeb petrolheads, to my review of Bakuon. Now, let me tell you, this anime is like a motorbike that looks cool, but doesn't quite live up to the hype.

First off, the story is a bit all over the place. It's like they threw a bunch of motorcycle-related ideas at a wall and just went with whatever stuck. And don't even get me started on the talking motorcycle. It's like Knight Rider, but with a lot less David Hasselhoff.

Now, the voice acting is decent enough, but the real star of the show is the sound design. The motorcycles ... all sound awesome, and the revving engines will get any gearhead's heart racing.

As for the music, well, it's forgettable at best. It's like elevator music for motorcycles.

Overall, I'd give a score of 6.555/10. It's not the worst anime out there, but it's not exactly a masterpiece either. If you're a fan of motorcycles, it's worth a watch, but don't expect too much.

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Selamat datang, teman-teman wibu penggemar kendaraan bermotor, di ulasan saya tentang Bakuon. Sekarang, biarkan saya memberitahu Anda, anime ini seperti sepeda motor yang terlihat keren, tetapi tidak sepenuhnya memenuhi harapan.

Pertama-tama, ceritanya agak berantakan. Seperti mereka melemparkan sejumlah ide terkait sepeda motor ke dinding dan hanya mengambil apa saja yang menempel. Dan jangan biarkan saya memulai tentang sepeda motor yang bisa berbicara. Ini seperti Knight Rider, tetapi dengan David Hasselhoff yang lebih sedikit.

Nah, pengisi suara cukup baik-baik saja, tetapi bintang sesungguhnya dari pertunjukan ini adalah desain suara. Semua suara sepeda motor terdengar luar biasa, dan mesin yang dinyalakan akan membuat hati siapa saja yang suka kendaraan bermotor berdegup kencang.

Sedangkan untuk musiknya, ya, itu mudah dilupakan. Ini seperti musik latar untuk sepeda motor.

Secara keseluruhan, saya memberikan nilai 6,555 / 10. Ini bukan anime terburuk di luar sana, tetapi juga bukan mahakarya. Jika Anda penggemar sepeda motor, ini patut ditonton, tetapi jangan berharap terlalu banyak.

This is entertainment. If you like motorcycles and/or chested high school girls, this is fun, enough to check at least one (1) episode.

Even for people with some familiarity with the medium this could be enjoyable.
The jokes aren't unfunny, the characters aren't yet that stereotypical or hateable, the animation is fine.
It's very proficiently done, and although as a SoL there obviously isn't any grand story, it isn't at all disagreeable to watch start to finish and it has a little progression for the characters.

It's inoffensive, but enjoyable. If I'd particulary want to recommend it, it's very good for:
Around 100d, middle experience, it's fun, it's not ... informative, not indicative, but it's good fun entertainment.

(This review has been adapted from my blog/reddit thread. Spoilers ahead!)

I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, but I used to ride my bike around my neighborhood as a kid.

The bike was a hand-me-down from my cousin. It had a glossy green metallic frame. The back wheels had these extra spokes to let someone else stand on (or for grinding rails should one be skilled enough). And it made a nice clicking noise as I rode it down the sidewalk. It was a cool bike which, by proxy, made me cool, too (which is pretty hard to do).

While I liked that bike very much (and maybe because ... of it), I’ve always wanted to try riding a motorcycle. And as the girls of Bakuon!! prove, motorcycles are more than just glorified bicycles.

STORY

Bakuon begins with Hane, a happy girl who is eager to start her high-school life. However, riding a dinky bike up the hill to her school is more taxing than she realized. But when she sees a passing motorcycle, she knows what she will do: ride them.

For Bakuon, motorcycles are its bones, blood, and organs. They are what the anime focuses on in regards to its slice-of-life escapades, its comedy, and its more sentimental material.

On the slice-of-life side, the anime takes its time in explaining the different types of motorcycles. A Honda CV400 Super Four, a Yamaha TZR250, and a Suzuki Katana 400 are just a few of the bikes showcased. Everything from their make, their origins, and their overall feel come into play. The amount of information does not make one become a biker-know-it-all, but the audience still gets educated quite a bit in the ways of the two-wheeler.

But they don’t just explain their bikes. Hane and the other girls (perhaps obviously) use them for a variety of circumstances. They take part in a daring duel involving a ledge and a river. They embark on a road tour. They race one another during a cultural festival. Nothing extravagant, but, then again, biking isn’t either.

On the comedic side, Bakuon has not just a surprising amount of jokes in store but also some cleverness here and there. For example, in episode nine, Hane introduces all the bikes for that previously mentioned race. One of the students comments about Hane’s overly safe-conscious motorcycle, calling it “intellectual, like a satire on modern society.” Hane’s response?

“What’s a satire?”

The show has more than just “unintentional” humor. It goes unrealistic with a virus that forces Onsa to (gasp) like Suzuki bikes. It uses extreme juxtaposition with a gruff biker dude who hates only two things in the entire world: murder and standing next to a mid-sized Katana. It has silliness when their teacher licks the feet of Hijiri.

While the laughs themselves are almost always very light in nature and impact, they do a nice job of providing a mixture of different forms.

On the sentimental side, the anime is surprisingly sincere. About once per episode, the narrative takes some time away from the slice-of-life silliness and the bike-related jokes to craft a small scene that is more than heartfelt in nature.

One of the best examples of this idea happens in episode five. Onsa (who is usually the starter of these scenes due to her personality) stops Hane from wanting to ride in Hokkaido for one last time. She does not do so because she fears Hane will get hurt or even that she does not think Hane has the capability to ride well.

Instead, she simply tells her that, while they had immeasurable fun on their trip, it is time to go back, to realize that (and using a cliché because clichés are awesome) all good things must come to an end.

People face this same feeling all the time. When visiting grandma, when going to that movie theater, or when taking part in a cross-country motorcycle journey. Nobody doubts those are fun experiences, but, eventually, the fun will stop for now. That’s just how life is, for, in a similar fashion, that same sense of fun will eventually come around again – as the girls of Bakuon show.

These three pillars – motorcycles, comedy, and sincerity – support the anime’s strongest ideal: that it is more than okay to like something “foolish.”

The girls often talk about the problems associated with biking. When it’s cold, the freezing air numbs their hands. Motorcycles require heavy maintenance to function properly. A lot of effort is needed to obtain a license. Certain designs are favored over others. Bikes are prone to new types of accidents.

Yet that means nothing to what one can get out of this “foolish” hobby. A new way to roam the world. A set of scenarios unable to be felt in any other fashion. A group of friends who not only share a common interest but also share a tight bond between each other.

So, when the gang is dancing up on stage and singing a song to recruit new members, or when Hane goes through the motions on her imaginary bike, the audience empathizes with the girls’ joy and their sadness because the audience, too, likes foolishness.

It may not necessarily be with motorcycles. But it’s easy to understand why being a “fool” is more fun than not.

ANIMATION

Arguably speaking, Bakuon’s worst aspects are its art and its animation.

The art itself is, at times, not that appealing. Even disregarding the unimaginative locales – the clubroom, random sides of the road, and a bike shop – the show has trouble on a more technical level. Characters can appear wonky, their lines rough and their faces distorted.

CG segments exist that, while not off-putting, are not exactly welcome. They are almost exclusively there for the more intensive movements – such as Hane turning a corner on her bike or Raimu falling through the sky on her scooter – so, even if those segments are considered a distraction, they are only so for a small amount of time.

Unfortunately, actual animation follows in the same tire tracks, though, to be fair, it does swerve off the path now and again.

Usually, the show does not have much in the way character movement. Arms, eyes, and general body actions are not given a lot of attention. However, the girls riding on their motorcycles, with hair flapping and wheels spinning, prevents this anime about moving vehicles from keeping its kickstand in place.

As for the character designs, they, like the actual animation, are more subpar than not.

Onsa and Hijiri are on the lower end. Onsa’s frizzy hair is part of her personality, but it looks more like a big ball of wet fur plopped on her head. And Hijiri may have long purple hair and glasses, but her design is overly dull.

Hane is arguably the same, but she’s purposefully so (as the main protagonist) and she at least has cute hair clips (in the shape of wings).

It also doesn’t help that (for everyone) their glossiness is tuned a bit too high, their colorings are somewhat faint, and the school outfits they all wear are too plain to remember.

Regardless, Raimu, Chisame, and Rin are easily a hit. Raimu’s helmet fits her literally-say-nothing persona. Chisame’s short stature is used for both characterization and development. And Rin’s tight, pink motorcycle suit, blonde twin tails, and large bust make her out to be an attractive character.

(A small nod goes to both the ED visuals with their paper-cut-out characters and some of the citizens in the anime with their red-and-white fox masks.)

CHARACTERS

The cast of Bakuon are a quirky bunch despite the realistic setting of the show.

Hijiri comes from a wealthy family. She has a personal butler drive her around in her Ducati (of which she owns many). Should her motorcycle become unusable for whatever reason, she simply has another one delivered via a helicopter drop. And she apparently has the capacity to fund scientists to create a device that cools down the engines that pass over them.

But her most prominent personality trait is her penchant for being a delinquent. Due to her upbringing, Hijiri finds immense pleasure in doing delinquent-like acts or even just hearing about them. Driving super late at night to go to a restaurant to eat food. Owning a fake motorcycle license. Seeing Onsa and Rin “fighting.” She may not actually be a delinquent, but it’s practically her middle name.

Chisame arrives much later in the season (technically episode seven but officially episode nine), and she is considered a side character for this reason, but she quickly demonstrates that she is as important as the other girls.

She tends to be less optimistic than most, and she does not like to be seen in a negative light. She also happens to be an undefeated minibike champion, taking after her father’s impressive skill on the race track.

Like Hijiri, though, Chisame has a trait that overshadows (maybe, in this case, undershadows) her others: shortness. Growing up, she never could reach the ground with her feet while riding a larger motorcycle, turning her off from the bigger bikes altogether. Her inability to do so fueled not only her determination to be the best at minibike races but also her fear of associating with proper motorcycles (as well as memorizing the multitude of seat heights for bikes out there).

The rest of the girls can be described in a similar manner: normal trait juxtaposed with a weird quirk. Raimu is older and the best motorcyclist ever, yet she never speaks a single word (and doesn’t even have a VA listed next to her name). Onsa likes to joke around, but she’s often the one who brings about the next philosophical musing. Rin can be mean at times since her fervent love of Suzuki bikes often dictates her actions.

Hane is the same. She’s a simple, kind girl who is oddly cheerful. Nay, incredibly jubilant. She almost always seems to be smiling, viewing life with more positivity than necessary. As such, her personality is affable to say the least.

To put it differently, the girls of Bakuon are each foolish in their own respective way. But that foolishness does not exist just to define them. Indeed, it allows them to both grow as characters and affect the other girls in the group.

Hijiri’s foolish delinquent behavior allows the group to experience new events. Chisame’s foolish view of herself leads her to earn a motorcycle license. Raimu’s foolish silence allows her to guide the other girls. Onsa’s foolish outlooks let the others understand different angles to approach life. Rin’s foolish passion for Suzuki fuels the passion for the other girls. And Hane’s foolish happiness gives her the strength to cycle forward no matter what may be trying to stop her.

Yes, the characters were not all that engaging. But it was nice to see them connected back to that sense of foolishness that the story itself touted from beginning to end.

SOUND

Bakuon’s opening track combines bass, piano, and lots of drums to create a piece that feels as though one were touring the countryside on motorcycles with a group of friends. The vocalist does well, and the ending guitar riff is catchy, but most of the piece is not too adventurous in terms of scope or even finesse.

The ending track, in comparison, does a lot better. The different characters sing individually and together throughout the parts of the song. Onomatopoeia adds a bit of extra cuteness. Shifts in the lyrical pacing change up the flow. The starting guitar is a catchy lead-in. And the quickness of the piece give it higher energy (in contrast to the OP). It’s a nice ED – both on its own and in conjunction with Bakuon.

Voice-acting performances are of a similar quality to the ED. Reina Ueda as Hane does a splendid job of acting happy. Nao Touyama as Rin brings the passion. And Yumi Uchiyama as Onsa did well with a slightly mature voice to fit the slightly mature girl.

As for the other tracks from the original soundtrack, they do well. Lots of piano pieces – on both the low and high end – for the silly times and the bittersweet times, as well as daintier woodwind pieces for the laidback and fast-paced moments. (“Oyaoya!!” is especially fun.) Also, all that guitar. Tracks like “Kinpaku!!”, “Bushitsu!!”, and “Bakubaku!!” bring, like riding a motorcycle, lots of cool, tough vibes.

It may seem like standard slice-of-life fair for this fairly slice-of-life show, but the various compositions, tones, and motifs, combined with the large quantity of music itself, make the OST a more-than-strong offering.

ENJOYMENT

I had a lot of fun with this one.

One of the best jokes from the entire season was when Hane met Jesus. Him responding to her “Thank God” comment, and His revelation that motorcycles were around way back when had me laughing hard.

But it wasn’t just this example; I found myself laughing at many other points. Hijiri using training wheels on her motorcycle, blurred out symbols on the motorbike to avoid copyright infringement, and Onsa (with Raimu) poking fun at the Suzuki brand of bikes each got me smiling.

Though my favorite parts of the show were Rin and Hane.

Rin’s more tsundere tendencies were a welcome sight. As was her running gag with a semi-jerk dad, her calling the smaller-sized Katana users losers, and her overzealous nature in general made her quite likable.

While Rin ekes out the win as my favorite character in the show (just barely so), Hane was always making me smile, too. Mostly because she’s simply a very happy, very fun person.

She was worried that Yume would yell at her if she lied to Rin about Rin’s Suzuki. Her goofball impersonation of a motorcycle: “Vroom! Put, put, put.” The enthusiastic conversations she had with Baita the talking bike. Her happiness rubbed off on me, making the anime an even more entertaining experience overall.

In all honesty, this anime is nothing too special. It does not drive for anything unique or arguably memorable. It does not have the strongest cast imaginable. And it does not have anything overly interesting. But I had fun without a doubt.

Bakuon!! may hit a few bumps in the road, but that doesn’t stop it from reaching its destination. Its theme on foolishness makes those sharp turns. Its sound-work gets over those hills. And its likable cast and silly jokes stop it from taking too many detours. All in all, it would make for quite the metallic hand-me-down.

SUMMARY

Story: Great, motorcycles, comedy, and sincerity support the idea that “foolishness” has its problems, but the rewards are far grander

Animation: Bad, boring artistic direction, below average actual animation, and slightly below average character designs

Characters: Fine, while Hane, Rin, Onsa, Raimu, Chisame, and Hijiri are not much more than their base characteristics, their continued theme on foolishness makes them more thematically relevant

Sound: Good, okay OP, good ED, good OST, good VA performances

Enjoyment: Good, it’s nothing special, but it’s a fun-filled, happy time nonetheless

Final Score: 6/10

A funny, epesodic, fan-servicy anime about cute girls on motorcycles. While I do not know.... well, anything about motorbikes, this show breaks down concepts enough for you to understand the incoming jokes. If you like motorbikes and/or a bit of slapstick comedy you might wanna check this out.

There is not much overarching story here and most episodes are self contained. Hence it gets a sort of low grade.

The art is pretty nice overall. The characters are all designed differently that you do not get bored looking at them. The motorbikes are all well designed too (goodness knows they better be). I tend ... to make a habit of watching cars in the background of anime to see how good the cg is. While most shows seem to put no effort into this aspect, the cg in this show is pretty good. most moving shots of the girls on their bikes are cg.

The characters are really what holds the show together. They all have wildly different personalities. It would take too long to go into their details but its fun to watch them clash over their bike preferences.

Your enjoyment mileage may vary. As much as I think this show will fade into the ether of cute girl anime and be forgotten, I think it has picked a niche corner to hold down. After all there probably are not that many anime about motorbikes.

I had to put an average note on every part. Because there is a huge difference on the ways I watch this anime.

As a motorcycle fan, I love the precission the author drew the bikes and how exactly the love for the bikes the owners have.

As a person, I F****NG loathe that underage ladies are pictured as suitable riders, and there is sexual abuse shown in one of the episodes. WTF!?!?!?

I mean, if the ladies were 18 years old (or older), apart of picturing women in a way they are not ("but, you know, is just an anime, not real life!") that would be "acceptable", ... but the way this anime has been made seems totally wrong.

The story is nothing special, the characters are average, the music is kinda cool making the anime look like funny, but... I came for the motorcycles, and I had to make an effort to continue, I don't care about the measures of underaged ladies. I guess that the target of this anime is teenage boys who like motorcycles, but there's a lot of better animes out there. If you pass on Bakoun!! you won't really regret it...

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