Nanbaka is an anime that is, from start to end, in search of identity and purpose. Since it lacks a single identity, purpose and any focus at all, it adopts multiple ones arbitrarily. I am all for multi-genre anime as long as the mix of genres is done gracefully, it serves a purpose and the plot is largely coherent. Neither applies in the case of Nanbaka; the sudden change of pace and genre is even lampshaded by some characters a few times, presumably because even the writers thought it was excessive and wanted to alleviate the problems by pointing them out. Lampshading often helps but in this case it didn't. From the 4th episode onward, starting with that ridiculous prison tournament, the anime abruptly changed from a gag comedy anime to a mix of shounen, drama, character driven story, action, you name it, as was also pointed out by the main lead Juugo. The first 1/4 of the anime is *radically* different from the rest of the episodes and this abrupt change serves no purpose.
The (sporadic) comedy is OK, but unfortunately it often relies on milking fun out of preposterous situations rather than genuinely funny ones. Comedic anime, even gag comedies, do not need to abandon every semblance of common sense and reality to be funny; good comedies (such as Konosuba, Eizouken, Hinamatsuri, Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon etc) can still make sense. Mediocre ones like Nanbaka do not, since they sadly equate "ridiculous" with "funny", which are not the same thing. The entire prison system of Nanba is basically set up like a huge farce, apparently by design; Looney Toones make much more sense than this, and its characters have a smaller hammerspace. Nanbaka's characters are worse than average, not relatable and very forgettable. Its music is fine but not very memorable.
Basically the entire anime runs not on its story or characters but on its *fabulous* art. The art is truly something to behold. Everything sparkles, glitters and twinkles, literally. The characters, both guards and prisoners, are all dressed for the gay parade rather than a prison, which also sparkles. The prison, due to its design and structure, would be perfectly suited to host a massive gay parade event as well. Their hair jobs alone have more colors than an entire dully colored anime. If this anime had poor art it would have found itself at the bottom of the bargain bin, with zero hopes of a second cour. Its rating here would not have been a (very generous) 7.34 but something like 4.5, at best. If you love anime with just very good art, with a "plot" that is all over the place, starting from nowhere and ending nowhere (even the ending was abrupt, and I don't mean "cliffhanger abrupt", just abrupt..), you will probably love this anime. The rest of you are not going to.
I never thought that a "rule of cool" anime with an even finer (and gayer) art and even more ridiculous "plot" than the JoJo series existed. Then I watched Nanbaka. At least JoJo is self-consistent in its preposterousness. I also never thought that my first review here would be for an anime like Nanbaka. My overall rating of this anime would have been "3" if I ignored the art. The truly gorgeous art added another 2 whole points.
