Kabuki-bu!

This is my first review on MAL and I was mostly driven by the low-ish ratings on here when, personally, the 12 episodes were indeed quite the delight! Kabukibu! was rather an unexpected find and quite the unexpected gem! As a non-Japanese person who enjoys anime as well as the art and culture that Japan has to offer, Kabukibu! was indeed an eye-opener as I had been of the thought that Kabuki was primarily a dance form but apparently it is a type of dance-drama performance and I wouldn't have known that had it not been for this anime!

Kabukibu! gives a thoroughly slice-of-life-esque look into ... the art form set within the context of a high school and its various clubs; to summarize: it shows the extreme perseverance of a single student and his attempts to have his high school provide a platform wherein people can casually learn and practice Kabuki, which in this universe, is an unusual feat (Aspects of this can appear somewhat corny, to be blunt). It allows the viewer to know the basic nuances of what goes into Kabuki within the span of 12 episodes through the perspective of characters that either love or at the very least understand Kabuki, characters who indulge in the performance of the same, and audiences of various age groups who either know or do not know about the art form. It enables the viewer to see the value of such an art form from a cultural point in addition to depicting ways in which the art form could be distant from the modern viewer and even makes attempts at bridging that gap...

By no means, is this anime some masterpiece but it sure does offer a good time, a thorough ground for base-level knowledge about Kabuki as far as an anime in a high school setting can go with predominantly high school characters; it's soft, simple, cheesy, wholesome to some extent but absolutely enjoyable if one was to give it a chance...It's a fairly lesser-known anime and I for one, believe that it deserves more than the 6-point-something rating that it currently has on MAL! Again, it's no solid banger but it is fairly decent for a single-season anime! :) (And it had me looking up actual Kabuki videos on YouTube, so I suppose that's a plus as well!)

Kabukibu is a story I went into with high expectations. One of my favorite anime stories of all time is Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, and while I didn't expect this to rival that work, the concept of another anime whose main focus is an archaic form of Japanese theatrical storytelling was something that greatly interested me. This may have been a bit of a mistake, because at the beginning of this story I felt that my expectations were far too high. However, as the story progresses, we do manage to get some things that I find very interesting that gives the work its own reason ... to exist. Let me explain.

STORY -------------- 7/10
The story itself is rather generic. It is about a group of classmates interested in an activity, and their struggles and attempts to do said activity. This can be easily compared to other works of this genre, or even idol shows, or as I tended to think of it, a sports series. Sports stories have lots of training before bigger events, giving the characters a chance to grow and evolve as they attempt to improve. Kabukibu does something similar in that characters have their progression and conflicts in between these moments of Kabuki, but herein lies one of the problems with the story.

The Kabuki sections themselves are rather short when they appear. The longest performance happens near the end of the series itself, and this may cause a problem when it comes to getting viewers interested in the art of kabuki. We have a performance that may get people interested about halfway through the show, but that is also rather short for the buildup the show gives it. Personally, I think the show could have used more long-form kabuki performances, like the one that happens in the last episode.

Outside of the Kabuki performances, later on in the series the story brings up some interesting questions about the act of kabuki theater itself, and this was honestly one of the most interesting parts of the series. I don't really want to bring up spoilers, but there are some interesting questions that are brought up by the kinds of people who are interested in a 400-year old art form.

ART ------------- 5/10
Kabukibu is pretty generic in its art style, and there's not a huge amount of good animation moments. In fact, I can more frequently remember moments of poor or reused animation than good moments of animation. I would forgive this if we had more kabuki moments, but sadly the fact that there aren't a great amount of kabuki performances means that it feels like a show on a budget. I will say the final episode has to have some of the best animation in the show with its final kabuki performance, but I wish that this happened more in the series itself rather than only giving us this good animation in the end.

SOUND ------ 6/10
I don't have much to say in this department. Voices were decent, and the OST frequently used a leitmotif that gave the story a nice sort of theme to it. The sounds of the tsuke and the shamisen during the kabuki sections were great, and it also has a good opening, but nothing related to the sound in this series will really stick with me.

CHARACTER --------- 7/10
Characters start out pretty boring and generic, but later on they are given interesting and enjoyable interactions. Tonbo in particular is a character I really enjoy. The characters really follow the main sorts of archetypes you would expect from a show about a club, but again their interactions and development are given unique and fun touches.

ENJOYMENT ------------- 7/10
While I didn't really like it coming into the series and it felt boring to sit through, once I hit around Episode 5 I was finally more interested, and the last episode was exactly what I wanted from this show. It asked questions I didn't really expect it to and gave realistic answers that also continue to raise questions about the art form itself. It's pretty interesting by the end. I was hoping it would be better animated, especially during the kabuki sections, but I did like one or two of the cast by the end.

OVERALL ---------- 6/10
There were some problems, especially going into it. I don't think this series is going to convince people that aren't already at least mildly interested in Kabuki to look into Kabuki. I don't think I will be doing so, and I wouldn't blame others for feeling the same. It's slow-paced and feels oddly focused at times, but by the end manages to deliver something I was really looking forward to, and on the way brought up some concepts and ideas that were really fun.

The way I would describe this anime is…half decent. There’s nothing really new here and nothing really terrible either.
I liked the idea of it. A boy named Kurogu really wants to start kabuki club as he sees it as dying art and wants to bring it to a younger audience. The thought of learning about a new bit of culture and seeing all the cool costumes for used for Kabuki was a nice thought. And the kabuki is interesting. From what I’ve gleamed it uses pretty simple stories like a band of thieves or too people in love and uses fantastic costumes, ... specific, almost dance like movements and sound effects to bring it to life. And all that was fun. It’s just the rest of it that fell flat.
None of the characters are that interesting. I can’t even really remember their names. Kurogu is the basic overeager boy who is always happy and lives with his mother whom he for some reason calls by her first name which is kind of confusing; I did like that he never let anything stop him from achieving his dream and he apparently sucks at the thing he loves so much and Tonbo is the quiet, nerdy, tech guy who just does whatever Kurogu asks of him. For the rest of the characters after the initial conflict of getting them to be in the club are just kind of there afterwords. Kaoru for example, is a great actor but she’s in the drama club and also a girl so they have to find a way to borrow her from the drama club and have a girl in kabuki which doesn’t really happen apparently unless they’re a love interest. And she’s shown to be an amicable girl who just wants everyone to get along. And you’d think after finally wrestling her away from the stubborn manager of the drama club and even going through a competition to get her in the kabuki club she’d be a bit more of a focus. But she almost never talks after that and other than one episode there's no more conflict between the two clubs. The same for Hanamichi. They work really hard to get him into the club even though at first he scares them and it goes through this whole thing of him being a tough guy who’s secretly a softy, but then he’s just a side character after that and they do nothing with him afterwords. He also changes from tough guy to gay stereotype so quickly, there was no really point to it in the first place. Maruko is my favorite character be far. She makes the costumes as well as cosplay outfits. She’s so sarcastic and just basically hates being there it’s really funny. But once again she stuck in side character land. It could have done so much more with them instead of just more focusing on trying to get the one guy to join the damn club he doesn’t want to join.
Jin and Shin were the most interesting; Jin mostly because the show seems to be focused on his joining the kabuki club and he gets the most development due to it. Jin is really amazing at kabuki but thinks people in the club are just doing it for fun and looks down on them for not taking it seriously. He’s overly polite and a perfectionist which sometimes gets him in trouble such as when Kurogu and Tonbo show up at his house he can;t just kick them out and instead offers them tea which is kind of funny. He’s trying to work hard to be as good as his famous kabuki actor grandpa and gets into conflict with his father for the former not being around a lot and Jin’s not being a regular boy. As for Shin, he’s a good kabuki actor with a apparently famous kabuki actor as his dad who tragically died. But instead of wanting to be like his father, he wants to be a rock star. Shin is loud and obnoxious, basically you're typical anime rocker dude. Something that's stands out a bit is that he has to live with grandma because his mom married a man that lives in the U.S. and moved there.
That brings me to the second problem with this anime besides underdeveloped characters. Seriously issues are never taken seriously. Jin doesn’t get along with his dad and constantly fights with him? Never bring it up again. Kurogu’s mom is never home? Oh he’s fine! He has Tonbo! Shin’s mom abandoned for a man and moved to America which upset him so much that when she does come back to see him perform he wants nothing to do with her and gets depressed enough to not want to leave his bed? Get over! We have a show to do! And it works! These issues are brought up and then brushed aside almost immediately like they don’t’ matter but they do! It’s like the story writers wanted character development but didn’t understand how to deal with the fall out and it’s infuriating to see characters who are suppose to be friends say that the other characters problems are basically stupid and don’t matter.
My last point is about the voice acting. It’s atrocious. Well two parts are really and that's enough to make me hate it.. Hanamichi’s voice starts out fine. It fits the design they gave his character. But then once he joins the club, he’s given this high-pitched girly voice that doesn’t match at all and starts acting like the gayest stereotype imaginable and it’s grating. I don’t know why he couldn’t keep his old voice. The second part is when they actually do kabuki. Every time the club started putting on a performance I dreaded it. Not because it wasn’t well done. The costumes were great, the sets were cool, the interactions backstage were fun to watch, but the voice they use for it made me want to jab a screwdriver into my ear drums. It made me miss the moments of them just talking about the plays or just hanging out eating lunch. Which those parts were fun, don’t get me wrong. I liked all of the characters practicing and figuring out what plays to do and who does which part, or having them just hanging out and being friends. Hell, the most interesting episode was watching them update a play so that younger audiences would get it. But kabuki is the main focus so it was just constantly me pulling my headphones halfway off so I would have to listening to it that much. And I get that it’s apparently the actual voice used for actual kabuki performances but my God, it felt like someone was yelling directly into my ear and doing it in such a slow, agonizing manner like people who think that the deaf will hear them if the talk slower and more exaggerated. It drove me insane.
Overall I’d give Kabukibu a D. The setting is whatever, it’s just Japan, the animation is smooth, the characters are underdeveloped, I don’t really remember much about the music, the only conflict is getting Jin to join the club and every other one is brushed under the rug, the art-style isn’t anything new and the voice acting is annoying as all hell. I wouldn’t re watch it, or hope for a season two and kind of wish I hadn’t watched it in the first place; even if I did learn a bit about kabuki. It’s just one of those anime that you watch and soon enough, forget about.