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Dec 6, 2008
Grappler Baki II is the second season to the action/shonen show, Grappler Baki.
Story: Well, one interesting aspect about the storyline in this anime is that pretty much all 26 episodes take place in one day. As far as the story itself goes, it's nothing too special, it's just a tournament of 30+ fighters, with some plot twists and flashbacks thrown in to broaden the storyline and characters. Having a tournament in a shonen show is a terribly overused technique, but I cannot refrain myself from admitting that it is a very effective cliche. A tournament is thrilling to watch, since you wonder who will make
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it to the later rounds and who will not. The tourney in Grappler Baki II is, thankfully, not too predictable, so, while the story is a bit bland and uncreative, it is still marginally effective.
Art: It's ok. I'm tempted to simply leave it at that. Character designs are ok, the animation is...ok. Overall, the art department is exceedingly average, not bad not good. The art won't amaze you, but it will not bother you either.
Sound: The soundtrack in the show is done quite well, the songs fit the action well, but towards the end, i found myself wishing for a larger selection of music, since the songs tend to get very repetitve. Pretty much each background piece of music is used in almost every episode at least once. The opening and ending songs were fairly decent in my opinion.
Character: This could have been much worse. There are lots of characters in this anime, and we actually get a decent background about most of them. The problem is that none of them are particularly interesting or genuine, and i found it hard to care for any of the numerous supporting characters. But what about the main cast? Nothing too new, Baki is hellbent on defeating his father, while simultaneously failing to advance an oddly uninteresting romantic subplot that the creators couldn't decide whether to flesh out or not. His father is still a complete bastard, who loves fighting, grinning cockily, and apparently interrupting the tournament whenever he feels like. So, nothing too outstanding in the character department, but again, could have been worse.
Enjoyment: In the end, i had the same basic problem with this season as i did with the previous season. It all just comes down to a bunch of badass looking badasses that fight each other in a badass fashion. It's entertaining to watch, as long as you keep your brain turned off. Admittedly, the fight scenes are well done, but a show can't thrive on just the action segments, it also needs a strong plot and characters, which is the area where Grappler Baki stumbled for me. The show is comparable to an average action film, moderately enjoyable to watch, but rather unimpressive as a complete work. If you are a big fan of shonen shows and action in general, add 2 points to this score, if you have a general dislike for the genre, subtract a couple.
Overall: 6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 4, 2008
STORY: 6
Well, the story is quite basic, we start off with two characters, Trava and Shinkai, on board of a spaceship. They are freelancers, and their current job is to travel and survey an unknown planet. They find an object drifting in space, and locate a girl inside of it who seems to have lost her memories. Sound familiar?
The story doesn't start off partcularly exciting, but it's enough to keep you interested. Eventually, the trio ends up landing on the planet and realise that there are some crazy things going on there. The problem is, the story does seem random, while that can work,
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like in FLCL, here it feels a bit awkward. The show explains that Trava and Shikai hope to collect money to be able to enter a sort of mecha suit battle tournament, but the anime ends before any of that takes place. It seems like they had more story to show us, but ended up just wrapping up the show in 4 short episodes.
ART: 8
Best part of the anime. The art is really creative and different, kind of a mix of a Aeon Flux and Mind Game. This will turn off some people, but if you value art and like creative applications of it, this OVA is for you. The character designs are very funky and sometime silly(the female character's huge hips) but i found them very interesting. Overall, i found it to be stylish and eye catching.
SOUND: 6
Fair for the most part. Nothing really memorable here, but it works and none of the music felt out of place. Pretty solid overall. The voice acting was very good and fit the funkyness of the characters.
CHARACTER: 7
Well, this one was hard to judge. There is no character development here, but in some cases that can be a good thing. We are introduced to several eccentric characters and, in the end, it is fun to observe their actions and mannerisms, so i decided to go with a positive score.
ENJOYMENT: 6
I liked this overall, but it could have been much more, it's simply too short to be impressive. Now, short anime can be wonderful, but here it felt like a 12 episode anime cropped into a tiny 4 episodes of 13 minutes each. If you don't care about art, or don't like this kind of animation/character design, subtract two points here.
Overall score: 7
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 4, 2008
STORY: 7
Ookiku Furikabutte is a shonen show about highschool baseball. Naturally, the storyline isn't shockingly creative or original, but it does not need to be in this case. We get some nice development, and an obligatory tournament, like in most sports shows. Even though the story isn't anything special, it progresses nicely and keeps a good pace. One aspect i liked was the actual baseball games, unlike other shows, the games in Ookiku Furikabutte are very realistic and don't have incredible techniques and unrealistic occurences.
ART: 8
The art here is a bit different than most shows, mainly in the character design department, especially with the main
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character. It looks odd at first, but i grew to like it as the show went on. Other than that, the animation is solid and smooth, it's not awe inspiring, but it works just fine. One thing that i found strange is the main character's mother's design, she looks a bit crazy most of the time.
SOUND: 7
Ookiku Furikabutte has very nice opening and ending songs in my opinion. All 4 of them are rock tunes that seem to fit the show well. I was partcularly impressed with the second ending song. The other music is solid, but this is where i had to take off a couple of points. While all the in-anime songs work well, none of them are memorable or interesting, really, it seems they went a bit safe with the soundtrack. Still, this doesn't affect the overall enjoyment much. The voice acting is spot on and, as far as i saw, perfect.
CHARACTER: 8
The characters in the show are all likeable and develop nicely throughout the anime. The one problem is that their development is quite predictable, since this is a sports/shonen show. The thing i liked about the characters is the lack of any kind of villanous figure, and a lack of an over-dramatic struggle between certain characters. The anime realises that this is just highschool baseball and doesn't submit to bombastic storytelling. This results in the viewer liking most of the characters, which is a plus. One character that can get annoying is the main one, Mihashi Ren. As a character, he is a really nervous and unconfident one, but this anime takes it to the extreme, so oftentimes i found myself frustrated with his behavior. Still, in the end, the anime makes you like him, since, as mentioned, he develops nicely over the course of the story.
ENJOYMENT: 8
Really, this should be a 9, but i could not help but feel dissapointed after finishing this, since the storyline just stops in the middle. Because the show takes so long to get through the actual games, we only get two of them in the whole anime. This would be fine if the show was longer, much longer, but as it is, the fact that it ends without reaching any kind of real conclusion storyline wise, takes away from my score. Still, the anime is incredibly fun to watch, the baseball games are intense, the characters are likeable, and the animation is solid and appealing.
Overall grade: 8(.5)
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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