"Well, Nanbaka sure was... a show. I mean I don't know what I expected from a show that had baka in the title. I saw loads of people drop it. But yet... for some unfathomable reason... I'm still here. Everybody bolted for the exit as soon as possible and I couldn't make it out. Then... then, we got a season two."
"I returned for it. Every week. The people who had escaped or just never got on in the first place were off watching better shows. Good shows. But I was here. Watching Nanbaka. Watching this supposed action comedy fucking devolve further and further into a slush pile of meaty bits and broken dreams. The only thing it had going for it was the bizarre and ridiculous and frankly ugly overdose of color but with season two, they decided that enough was enough, and took the color away and left us in darkness."
"Where did the comedy go? Why did the focus shift almost entirely on just meaningless melodrama that is completely... like you started at zero, but now you're at negative one. Was the melodrama supposed to be entertaining? Was the plot supposed to be super interesting and be taken seriously? Then... then why did the announcer character repeatedly break the fourth wall and straight up ask 'oh hey where did the comedy go gee wiz wasn't this a whacky anime about dumbos breaking out of prison geez darn hurm things that make you go HURM"? Like at this point, are you simply taunting me for not dropping this? The show itself is now taunting me."
"I should have escaped when I could have. Before Nanbaka had me in my death throes via pointless and annoying melodrama. Why? Why did I not get off of the Nanbaka Express? FOR OVER TWENTY FIVE WEEKS, I WILLINGLY EXPERIENCED NANBAKA. WHY."
#Introduction#
Woah, that was a pretty emotional outburst for an anime review. There was no need to get weird or bust out the caps lock. People watch what they feel like watching at the time. If a person feels like they want to put their time into watching Nanbaka over shows like I don't know, ACCA or Rakugo season two, then that's their choice.
...Unfortunately though, I was that person. Thus, we're here. Whoops!
Anyhow, there was in fact a manga of this before there was an anime of this, by Shou Futamata, who is most commonly known as the creator of such series as: Nanbaka, and more! Before we get started, I feel it's worth mentioning that not only is this review going to be a shorter one, but also...
Rather than generally going on about how Nanbaka is, I'll instead be focusing on the actual surprising plunge in quality comparing season 1 to season 2 (hence why I'm doing a review of the second season). I'll of course still address general flaws of Nanbaka as a whole here and there, but don't expect a section dedicated solely to how awful just the character designs are.
#Nanbaka Does Obnoxiousness Best#
Actually maybe awful isn't the word I'd truly use here, but absolutely fucking OBNOXIOUS.
Almost every character has multi-colored hair, colored fingernails, and apart from a few instances where this is not the case, THE ENTIRE FUCKING PRISON SPARKLES. It's too much.
IT'S TOO MUCH. There is such a thing as "too colorful" and oh boy. Nanbaka literally... when one of the characters is going through an emotional arc of SUPER SERIOUS EMOTIONS OF SADNESS, the main way they demonstrate this is THE CHARACTER LOSES ALL COLOR.
If you do not have multicolored hair then you are in fact SAD. SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. THAT IS HOW YOU DEMONSTRATE SADNESS IN A CHARACTER, OBVIOUSLY.
#Okay, now I'm talking about the characters apparently#
Also literally almost all the characters are idiots (did you notice that baka is literally in the title of the anime wow), annoying, or cross dressers.
There is literally a ninja character who as a child was such a terrible ninja that he was exiled from his ninja village, and then some director abducted/adopted him and taught him the art of acting and he became a movie star and did solely ninja movies. Then ended up in prison after having an identity crisis???
"I was a ninja before, but I was adopted/abducted and then groomed to become a ninja actor. MY NINJA HERITAGE HAS BEEN BESMIRCHED."
Literally in season one, there's like a whole episode, maybe more, dedicated to this ridiculous ninja character. But by the time he showed up again in season two, I had basically forgotten who he even was until he started doing ninja things and was like oh right.
Like okay, I'll dial it back to the main character quartet.
Green Hair likes anime and manga, has to take medicine because all of the drugs he's been forced to consume over the years, for some reason has the ability to copy any and all abilities he witnesses other people doing if he's not on his medicine including qi kamehamehas, and also apparently if he doesn't take another sort of medicine, his personality changes into that of a brutally violent psychopath.
Then you have Purple and Red Hair who is strong and likes food. His... his character is so centered around food that his friendship to Black and Red Hair started solely because he busted Purple and Red Hair out of another prison before they ended up in Nanbaka (oh yeah, that's also the name of the actual prison, I didn't say that before) and treated him to hamburgers.
There's Purple and Yellow Hair whose character was... was... like I remember it being he's a gambler or he's really good at card games, but like they ran out of things for him to do, so they just had him be really annoying and also one of the main generators of the melodrama that sped up this show's decline into the dumpster. Here is a example of his dialogue.
"Black and Red Hair, no! You cannot escape from the prison! We four are all friends and we need to stay in the prison together!!! For if we were to escape we could obviously not continue to be friends because reasons we have to stay in the prison the entire show is about the prison we have to stay THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THE NANBAKA EXPRESS." ~Actual Nanbaka dialogue probably, citations are to follow this review in proper academic format.
Finally, there's our main character. Black and Red Hair. He can literally undo any lock ever. The only reason they haven't escaped Idiot Prison is because Bald Guard beats them down every time (because bald character in an action show = the absolute strongest. didn't you read the memo???) and also because they love Idiot Prison. Also he has shackles on his legs and arms that turns his limbs into blades because he is an edgy and super serious action character who was experimented on in a previous prison by evil people. He IS the character who loses all color because he becomes sad for a while.
...
...What was the main point of this review again?????????
back to the main point
I'm not even going to go into the plot because honestly, why would I? But basically, in season one, like for a whole chunk of episodes, after a bit of random comedy episodes, Idiot Prison just starts having like an action tournament or something? There's no point in pointing out the idiocy of having like a generic action tournament in a prison and then being surprised when one prisoner starts a ruckus, then another just suddenly sprouts blades for limbs, requiring Bald Guard to literally beat him bloody.
But you know, that still allows Nanbaka to do its thing. Dumb action comedy with colors. Sure it gets goofy when it tries to be serious but eh. But then, in season two, inexplicably... almost the entire season takes place underground in nondescript identical dark hallways. Suddenly, the sparkles are gone, and most of the episodes are in these fucking gray dark hallways. Because what makes action entertaining to watch? It being in a generic hallway.
The stupid tournament of season one at least had the benefit of eventually devolving into chaos and only lasting a couple of episodes. Season two, it's just them having melodramatic moments or fights in these goddamned hallways. So I say fuck it, and take a look at the manga. And what do you know.
The hallways are there. Oh good. Well, at least the studio remained faithful to the manga.
I love that the majority of the entire second season took place in these hallways. I love that the literal ending of season two was them just escaping the underground hallways and saying oh thank god that's over. I love that nothing was resolved and there's probably going to be a Nanbaka 3. I love time being spent on one of the minor characters that was introduced in the tournament arc taking time to create melodrama by saying he doesn't like the look on Black and Red Hair's face and that he's useless despite being able to unlock any lock in a PRISON.
#Conclusion??? Please??#
...I really don't want for there to be a Nanbaka 3. The manga can keep on existing for a billion more years, a billion chapters of Nanbaka. After all, I'll never ever ever EVER read the manga. But if the Nanbaka Express itself gets started up again, I'll be yanked along with it for another season of mediocrity and no doubt even MORE pointless and annoying melodrama accompanied with generic and not terribly exciting action/fight scenes.
This review was all over the place, but I need to restate that season 2 of Nanbaka really is actually worse than the first season. Like I actually lowered my rating of the first season after the second season because it made me so grumpy towards the series as a whole. But even then, it's not like the original score I had it set as was great as it is.
Nanbaka 2, I give a 3 out of 10.
Personal opinion of whether you should even bother watching it at all is... there are just so many better shows. Like even if you want dumb action comedy, there are so many better shows. Recommendation goes out to fellow masochists only. Like even if you want a "bad show" to watch, there are so many better terrible shows that are actually interesting in how garbage they are.
