This had potential to be amazing. Instead, it's just…. Decent. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoyed this show quite a bit, but it just does not hit anywhere near the potential because of the extreme lack of animation.
But before getting into that further, what is this show about? Shakunetsu Kabaddi is about the sport of Kabaddi, which I knew absolutely nothing about. It's a sport that's most popular around India, and to oversimplify the rules drastically: two teams of 7 on each side of the court take turns to send one person to the other side and tag others out, while trying not to get tackled. If the person makes it back to their side of the court, they get points and tagged people get out, if not, the defending team gets the point and the failed attacker gets out. That's the simplified explanation. I don't know if that sells you on the idea, but it really sounds like an incredibly entertaining show to watch. I F O N L Y W E C O U L D. They don't animate the sport. Like at all. They show the character take a few steps, and then show still frame showing contact with the same annoying *STRUGGLE* said by the imaginary narrator. We hear the characters thoughts about what's going on, but they don't show anything. We just have to accept what the characters are saying, and just fill in the gaps ourselves. It's just underwhelming, and honestly enough to understandably put people off. But despite this I still enjoyed it. Why is that. Well I've laid out the main issue with it, so I'll now give it credit where it's due.
The show's story is not anything too special, in fact there is literally another show airing this season involving a team that does not have enough players wanting more of them in order to properly compete in competitions… But it works well, and makes sense, since who the hell has even heard of this sport? The characters are fun, and there were a couple of pretty funny moments throughout the show as well. Since of course, it's not as if the entire show is spent playing the sport; there is plenty of the slice of life aspects that's pretty common in sports series, but there is still enough of the sport to keep us from getting too bored. It has a nice balance of the two.
So should you watch this? If you do not care at all about animation and don't mind a bit of stop motion, then this is genuinely a fun show with some really cool moments. If animation is important to you, or specifically if you at least expect it from a sports series, then unfortunately this isn't quite good enough.