Osu!! Karate-bu

I usually avoid watching OVAs and anime movies since I mostly get bored fast and lose interest halfway.
But with Karate Bu, it was a different story.
I gave it a shot at first since I'm a huge fan of old school anime, and boy I'm thrilled I did that.
This show is full of manliness, and even if you didn't like martial arts you have to give it a shot.
The theme is about a high school karate club ruled by the great head of Osaka, Takagi.
He is different from your normal main characters, I think he's more like Takamura from Hajime no ippo.
The story is mostly narrated by one member of the karate club named Matsushita, but I think Takagi is the main hero of the story.
These series of OVA tells the story of the Osaka's pride of its renowned karate club, which lead to numerous challenges by other schools and gangs from different prefectures.
The story is very compact, and the characters all are original and very interseting
I really enjoyed this until the end, and it's really a rare thing to say about an OVA.

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This was a very fun OVA to watch overall, as long as you view it through the lens of an absurdist comedy, that occasionally gets a bit serious. The first 3 episodes cover various shorter stories from the manga, with each episode essentially being ~3 smaller self-contained stories in one. (Episode 4 is a single 50-minute story, which I will address separately.)

A major issue I had with this was how the show does a terrible job transitioning between these smaller stories. Like at one point you have a story about Takagi dealing with some kinda serial killer who shoves shogi pieces in the mouths of his victims before punching them to death, and then 20 minutes later, Takagi is now dealing fighting the Yakuza. You're left wondering if anything that happens in the episode is remotely connected to each other, or if it even matters. (It doesn't.)

The second issue is that the supporting cast is quite weak. The only characters that really felt fleshed out were Takagi and Momo. Had this been like a full series perhaps the other character could have gotten more to do.

Once you get past these issues though, the first three episodes are insanely entertaining. The stuff that happens is super absurd, and it's even better because all the characters are taking it so seriously. It has a "So bad it's good vibe" to it.

Episode 4 on the other hand, is genuinely fantastic and is a great finale to this short series. It has some great high stakes action, including some really sick full-on gang warfare, and has a much better pacing and flow to it compared to the previous episodes.

Again, this definitely had the potential to be really great, had it been a full series, the manga is really long so there it could have been one. As it stands, it's still quite a fun watch, would recommend viewing with friends.

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