Nana Maru San Batsu falls under the typical underdog character who goes into a field where he knows ALOT of and finds his interest in trying to be the best by learning the ropes...such is the case of Shiki Koshiyama in competitive quizzing.
Nana Maru San Batsu somehow made competitive quizzing to be addrenalined pumping, something as mudane as quizzing and to be honest in the early episodes of Nana Maru San Batsu, LA just saw Nana Maru San Batsu go through the ropes of telling us tips in competitive quizzing and general introduction to the world of quizzing. LA being a person who likes to find the most useless of information "just because" however this anime easily intrigued LA as well as getting LA to join in in the quizzes along with the characters and thus LA could easily relate to Shiki Koshiyama in this way. Other members of Shiki's Quiz Group consisting of Daisuke Inoue (wait the mangaka??!!..no) voiced by Tasuku Hatanaka the pop culture and maths expert of their group, Mari Fukami voiced by Umika Kawashima who have the ability to buzz in quickly and have knowledge of etymology who gets some family character development who ties into the next character Gakuto Sasajima voiced by Takuya Satou, the Captain of the Buzou High School Research Group and Quiz Club and essentially the Ace of the group. Shiki also comes across rivals when delving into the world of quizzing, consisting of Chisato Mikuriya voiced by Kaito Ishikawa who is essentially the tough by fair rival to Shiki but is also Shiki's best mentor in striving for him to do better at quizzing and Akira Sonohara voiced by Takuma Nagatsuka a more sneaky, snarky loophole abusing quizzer who likes to cause more chaos than answering the questions in a civil manner, quite the opposite to Chisato if anything. LA's favourite character however goes to Chiaki Sonohara voiced by Ayane Sakura, Captain of the Asagaoka All-Girls Quiz Team as LA just loves Ayane Sakura's reactions and her REGAL accenting.
So why does LA sees Nana Maru San Batsu addrenaline-filled?...well answering the questions as well as seeing Shiki succeed is actually thrilling in some cases and many of the matches or training quizzes and getting the audience into it all gets LA into the competitive atmosphere, kinda like how Akira wants...in making the quizzes interesting. Compounding this would be the tips and tricks Nana Maru San Batsu teaches us kinda helps in making this a rather participatory audience anime and it succeeds.......if only the questions weren't so HARD (This was for LA, though LA got some right out of luck, obviously this statement varies for others) as LA has knowledge like Tasuku than Shiki goes through. Shiki is still your audience proxy throughout this anime and although he's a plain average bookworm character, LA still rooted for nonetheless.
The animation for TMS Entertainment is consistent for the most part with the character designs being....plain to say the least as the majority of characters are in their respective school uniforms under their quiz meets, doesn't really allow for much change in wardrobe, with some exceptions in certain episodes. During the quizzes however many of the characters inner-monologing bring some nice coloring and visual flair reflecting how the characters are thinking and is probably the more interesting parts of the animation. Consistent as it is...TMS Entertainment did average in terms of animation even when they try to be exotic during the quiz inner-monologing.......it's kinda what you expect from a competitive quizzing anime.
Now, voice acting, for the majority of the voice cast LA had no annoyances through this anime with Ayane Sakura easily taking LA's favourite voice actor for this anime, but that isn't what you want LA to talk about isn't it?...Umika Kawashima as Mari Fukami, she at the early episodes of this anime had what LA heard, stilted blunt voice acting which might have irked some people as it didn't fit into her character design and personality, LA being one of them, however later on LA came to accept her vocals and saw a differing side of Umika's vocals in a positive light, Umika really did became Mari especially when it came to her doing the quizzing...Umika was different and as long as she wasn't annoying she was ok at best and Umika was definitely NOT annoying in voicing Mari.
Nana Maru San Batsu is another entry for LA into the weird tournament style sports anime, looking at quizzing let along competitive quizzing and although Nana Maru San Batsu can be preachy with it's tips and tricks for quizzing but it actively encouraging it's audience to participate in it's quizzes, give character development to it's underdog team and really making competitive quizzing fun, interesting, exhilarating and entertaining to watch.
