Buzzer Beater

Buzzer Beater, a Basketball anime, I love basketball, never thought this anime would work, the first time I saw it, I shared that opinion, the second time too, but now I've watched it for the first time I really enjoyed it.

So it's about Basketball, intergalactic basketball that is. Which is a pretty cool idea, if they used basketball like it would be in real life, it would've been just as good as now, but perhaps the intergalactic part brings the anime more out to the public, sin...ce it's something special.

I really enjoyed the characters, the main character is like most shonen-kids, loud, irritating and cocky, ... but since it's a regular thing, you probably won't mind it. The other characters are really cool too, they look normal, some even plain, but that's a cool think, I wished they would've worked them out more, but maybe that'll happen in the sequel(?) "Buzzer Beater 2007". But how they want to create a human team to enter the intergalactic league is cool, since we got underrated too much by those stupid aliens.

Oh, the aliens, that part could've been better too, it's an intergalactic match, but in the entire show, we get to see 2 races, Gorans and Humans. They should've expended that view on races more.

The art is good, at first I got annoyed by it, because when they spoke or awed, their lips hung out, that's kinda annoying. But if you get further to the end that dissappears, or I just got used to it. The animation itself is from mediocre level, and in the field/matches/games it's entirely different, sometimes they use CG/3D art, for example the ball or if they shoot hoops. And sometimes they use this special form of camera work.

The motion is smooth yet simple, and the envirment moves like crazy, which makes it look like a drunk is holding the camera, this was weird once I saw it, but sometimes it gives out a cool scene, the matches itself are sometimes simple, but exciting. The normal things you see in these kinds of anime's, the training and the result of training, can't be seen in this anime. The end of the last match was a bit too.. weird? It didn't fit the character that much, nor the anime itself.

We can see the main character en the head point guard train in one episode, but there's no result left to be seen, not enough, but that could be that the opposing team was just to strong. Kind of disappointing, the length of this anime could've been increased too.

It's just 13 episodes, and how the story goes now it's fine, I don't know if the viewingrate was good, but when it was, they should've lengthened it, maybe to the mediocre 26. Since now it still ended in the smaller league.

Besides that it's actually a quite enjoyable anime, there are funny sequences, but also tense one's. For a basketbal-lover, it might be a bit disapointing, but it should be watched since it's pretty good.

Buzzer Beater is an anime centred around the young basketball genius Hideyoshi and his attempt to take on the inter-planetary basketball league which is currently dominated by the physically superior Aliens.

Buzzer Beater was an anime with a fair amount of potential, but it is in my opinion lacking what makes a good sports anime.
There is a lack of effort put into the series and although I have not watched the sequel ( Buzzer Beater 2007 ), this first installment was not satisfactoy in terms of "sports action" nor noticeably entertaining (thus renegating it to the level of timekiller).

Story - 6/10
The anime mainly focuses on the ... matches of the All-Earthlings basketball team and the personal journey of Hideyoshi as a sportsman.

The story is a typical sports one; it covers practice, build-up before matches, basketball games and bits and pieces of characters doing their own thing.

Sadly, I feel that the story was rushed with many little bits being skipped or cut out as well as events happening too quickly (or not fast enough).
There is never enough time for the important parts to be spaced out satisfactorily, while I recall some moments where re-used scenes and useless dragged out parts became somewhat intolerable.

This leads on to a sub-section of the Story that I would like to cover:

Matches - 4/10
Now the matches in a sports anime are like your fights in an action anime, it's really one, if not the most important factor/s.
The basketball games in Buzzer Beater are sadly disappointing.
The camera moves; panning and zooming around following the ball which is not necessarily a bad thing, except there's a bit too much *swirling* at times.

As a player dodges past all the opponents, your viewpoint ducks and weaves after them. This creates a nice atmosphere but it seems overdone.

Sometimes there are reused "action sequences" where a 1v1 follows practicalyl the same pattern with perhaps a change in character.
There are frustrating skips in every match, where you go from a third way through the match and suddenly *CUT!* and it's all over with a nice shiny score of 100 - 40 suddenly popping out of nowhere.
(abit of an exaggeration)

Basically there are only a few (about 3 in total) mediocre, animated basketball games with perhaps a special "shonen" scene of amazing styalised "epicness" occuring such as: growing magical angel wings!
(not really a spoiler)

Character - 5/10
All the characters apart from Hideyoshi are underdeveloped at best, which really makes it almost a one-man show with some help from the cool looking guys with fancy hairstyles and dress-sense (everyone else on his team). It's a shame though cause they all had alot of potential.

Art and Sound - 6/10
Reasonable art. The main few characters look alright, but the minor characters and the backgrounds are nothing inspiring. The art does suit the anime, yet the sci-fi aspects are especially pathetic.

In the sound department we dont it's all acceptable stuff, the OP, ED and soundtrack are pleasant enough. I do wish Hideyoshi's voice wasn't quit so girly, it was rather painful at times.


Enjoyment - 3.5/10
4 being decent and 3 being poor, 3.5 reflects a feeling of something not worth the time. It isn't very enjoyable and isn't special unless you've yet to have seen basketball before.
Not as enjoyable as I had expected, especially so after watching Slam Dunk (which may be the cause of my biasedness).

Overall - 5/10
It's a shame but there's just not enough to this anime. It has a rushed feeling. Too few episodes for what should have been some nice, spaced out matches. In hindsight it may be because the creators didn't feel there was anything "important" that needed to be shown, but it makes the experience feel cheap.

Buzzer Beater gives off the feeling of an anime targeted at kids who in a cheap attempt at combining sci-fi and basketball together to grab some attention.

For a serious or mature anime watcher, Buzzer Beater in my opinion should be a miss.
If you want depth, storyline or just some good sports entertainment, watch the far better, though older alternative of Slam Dunk. Or if you just wanted to see basketball, go watch the NBA or you're local counter-part.

They tried...Just another basketball-based anime. Though unlike slam dunk and dear boys which leaves a huge impact on the audience, it is somehow entertaining. i read some reviews about this anime and saying that it suck is totally unfair. It is not as exciting as those i have mentioned earlier but it's entertaining or maybe i'm just a huge fan of basketball. hehe i'm not a fan of its art but it has some attratctive guys or gorans there.

The story obviously revolves around a blue-haired kid (hideyoshi) with extraordinary talent he always bad mouth his opponents saying he'll win and he makes sure ... he does. but knowing the nature of the game, nobody wins it straight. in a world where aliens(gorans) dominate the court, the humans are underestimated saying they can never enter the major league and so this old man decided to form a team of earthlings with one goal that is to make it to that impossible league. our protagonist entered this team gathered by the old man and so their struggle began. challenges were inevitable and one pops out after another and hideyoshi's feeling ill during the most important games. i guess i'll leave it up there. i dont wana give any spoiler.

this could have been a better anime though the idea of a basketball battle between humans and aliens was a little unusual, but if they had made it longer maybe this anime could be more enjoyable. it only has 13 episodes each season, what could you possibly show in that little amount of time right? in summary, it's like slam dunk and yu yu hakusho combined.well, that wraps it up for me, it's just fair enough anime.