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!
