Bubuki Buranki

Away from home for 10 years, Azuma Kazuki had no idea what was awaiting him upon his return. He certainly did not expect to be attacked by dozens of heavily armed people and taken as their prisoner. Fortunately, Azuma's stay in captivity is short. Wielding a strange sentient weapon—known as "Bubuki"—upon her right arm, his childhood friend, Kogane Asabuki, rescues him.

After escaping, Azuma learns that he too has the power to control Bubuki. Together with his new companions, he must revive the Buranki titan named Oubu, that sleeps somewhere deep underground. With this knowledge and purpose, a new path to unearth the truths behind the Buranki opens before Azuma.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Taneomi, Shizuru Main

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Ougi, Kinoa Main

Ishigami, Shizuka Japanese

Asabuki, Kogane Main

Ozawa, Ari Japanese

Kazuki, Azuma Main

Kobayashi, Yuusuke Japanese

Nono, Hiiragi Main

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Banryuu, Reoko Supporting

Han, Megumi Japanese

Kazuki, Kaoruko Supporting

Kanemoto, Hisako Japanese

Matobai, Shuusaku Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Homeless Supporting

Nishimura, Taisuke Japanese

Arsenyevich Balakirev, Maxim Supporting

Kawanishi, Kengo Japanese

Hirasawa, Nao Producer

Hara, Hirokazu Producer

Ueki, Tatsuya Producer

Arai, Keisuke Producer

Reviews

Feb 3, 2017

playrough

Recommended

Bubuki Buranki was like.....a show with an interesting story about the adults, sidelined for a much less interesting and sloppily told story about the kids.

I guess my biggest issue with the show was that it starts out promising one kind of story, and ends up telling a completely different one by the end. The saving grace of this is that both stories were pretty interesting, but the end result is not especially pretty. I think the story of Migiwa and Reoko was quite captivating, but the way it was told? Chaotic and piecemeal as hell.

There were a lot of scenes that did nothing ... to move the story forward. Mainly fight scenes, which I assume were put in just to look cool. And they did look cool! But a lot of the beginning of the show has very little impact on the endgame.

As far as the mechanics - art and sound - it's fine. I guess if you're one of those people that hates CG animation this isn't for you, but I'm fine with it myself and I thought this series looked pretty good for CG. Like I said, the fights are cool-looking.

When it comes to characters, there's not a lot of development to speak of. Really, Hiiragi and Shizuru are the only ones who change significantly in the show, so no surprises that they along with Reoko wound up being my favorites. Everyone else remains fairly static, although as the adults' backstories are revealed they definitely end up stealing the show.

Overall, a good concept with bad execution.

For the record, a "7" rating to me means "average," which is what this series wound up being.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Aug 30, 2021

RESOLVING_POWER

Mixed Feelings

I watched both seasons of Bubuki Buranki. Here are my thoughts:

My expectations going into this were rock bottom but surprisingly I enjoyed watching it. For those who don't know, this is a mecha-themed action show that is animated entirely in CGI. I watched the Blu-rays, which might've been a bit more polished than what was presented to a seasonal viewer.

The plot is kind of a mess and it was sometimes confusing. There were some pacing issues; seemingly trivial things got more screentime than plot-critical events. There were also some questionable decisions, like introducing a bunch of new characters in a short period of time during ... the latter half of season one. That was probably especially bothersome for those watching the anime as it aired, as opposed to watching both seasons continuously. Another noteworthy thing is that the conflicts/fights rarely have any consequences for the party who loses, which kind of removes any feeling of suspense. The story is somewhat ridiculous at times, and I did not take it seriously. However, the show is sometimes fun to watch and the episodes usually passed quickly. Basically, "just shut your brain off, bro." Admittedly, a lot of loose ends in the plot get tied up during season two. Even beyond the overarching plot, there are a lot of character arcs that the show is constantly juggling. It gets messy at times, especially considering that most episodes spend a significant amount of time on action scenes as well.

The characters were okay, although a few were bland or annoying (looking at you, Kogane). There was adequate character development for the four main supporting characters, but a glaring lack of development for the bland MC. For context, the four supporting characters form the limbs of a mech and the MC is the torso ('heart'). I liked a lot of the antagonist/villain characters actually. There was tons of variety among the antagonist characters and a lot of them were entertaining when on screen. Unfortunately, this is in stark contrast to the zero-personality MC. Overall though, I liked the variety of personalities that were featured in this anime.

Voice acting was decent and there was a lot of variety among the cast. There were a handful of characters (mainly antagonists) who had notably unique voice work. The OST was okay and I liked the OP and ED songs. Felt myself singing along to the first OP. One stand-out aspect was the great sound effects (mainly related to mech function and movement).

Action scenes were pretty fun to watch. Both the human-on-human conflict and the mech fights. I think my favourite aspect of the series was the action scenes. They felt fresh and creative, and the CGI allowed a lot of things I wouldn't expect from conventional anime. In addition to motion, the action scenes were very colourful. Aside from the mechs themselves, there were neat weapons and equipment.

Unfortunately, CGI is a double-edged sword in that it really inhibits characters' facial expressions, which impairs dialogue-heavy scenes and dramatic moments. One thought I had was that the lack of facial expressions could be compensated for with more-emotional voice acting, but this wasn't discernably employed, in fact many characters are kind of deadpan. It would be interesting though if the use of CGI in anime influenced decision making related to voice acting.

This anime has an experimental feel to it. It is surprisingly creative, especially for an action-focused mech show. It is unique from a technical perspective, as well as in terms of the characters and story. With better writing and direction, it could have been a great show. Even so, I don't regret watching it.


Overall rating: 6/10
It was flawed but it had a lot of fun moments and was easy to watch.

For those who like action and mecha shows, you might consider sampling this anime. It has problems but it also has some redeeming qualities. It seems underappreciated.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Apr 4, 2016

Katharsis939

Not Recommended

Bububu is in my opinion the worst show, I've seen completely in the last season. I forgot the miserabely narrated story immediately after the show ended, sometimes, as the episode ended. The style, and CG was awesome, remembered me often times at Knights of Sidonia (beautiful Anime, go watch it!), but the unbelievably bad choreographed action scenes took so much time, that they pushed and squeezed every piece of dialogue between every fight as fast as they could. For example, after the 12th duel with this Bulletshooting guy, everyone I know recognized, that these fights go nowhere. They are meaningless in every aspect, end without ... consequences and every char is saved with an unbreakable plot-armor.

Because of the massive amount of action, the end of the show is sooo rushed and punished with pure storytelling, combined with the stupidest and most obvious plotholes I have seen in years... Damn, I have to keep spoilers out of this... ok... they could make an whole Anime around the last two episodes, and it still could be cool, filled with action and with dense storytelling, but THEY HAD NO TIME. The last episode was so stupidely hilarious, thanks to earlier mentioned side characteres, that the Drama, they wanted to achieve by implementing red-haired girl's backstory, was blown out the window. It was annoying in every second and I regret to took the time, I needed to realize that. (3/10)

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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