I have finished quite a few anime and next on my list of reviews is Bucchigiri!! Please note this review has spoilers ... like major spoilers.
Bucchigiri is an anime original, coming from studio Mappa this action genre anime surprises us with a mixed of Japanese and Arabic culture and an old school style of animation/art. With that said the anime sort of fall on its face as soon as the story begins. Some of the jokes which were meant to be funny felt like a waste of time or a parody anime. The plot of the story seemed fine until you realized the writers completely forgot the main point of the plot of the story and sidetracked to making a story not even about the main character. Enough with the initial thoughts let me tell you what Bucchigiri is about.
Story
Our main character Arajin is back in the city where he grew up and is now going to high school now. Within this we see that the city is divided into 2 gangs (Siguma & Minato Kai). There are 3 gangs initially, but we will get into the 3rd one later. Arajin meets Mahoro the girl he has a crush on, and Matakara his old childhood friend. We see both characters are in different gangs Mahoro is sister to the leader (Marito) of the Siguma gang and Matakara is in Minato Kai. Initally Arajin does not want to join either he just wants to lose his virginity (cliche trope), but he joins Siguma because he is basically a simp doing whatever Mahoro wants.
Fast forward a bit to where Arajin finds a genie who gives him the power of a honki person. You are probably wondering what the hell is a honki person. From my perspective a person who trains and achieves the ultimate fighter status. From google it shows a person who searches for a heart that does not flee, Yeah Arajin did not reach his goal of becoming a honki person. We were also shown a flashback to where Arajin and Matakara were young and training to be a honki people. This helped put the plot into perspective to see Arajin and Matakara had a common goal, or so you would think initially we find out there is another genie from the 3rd gang the NG boys who leader loses the powerful genie to Matakara. Yes, there is a lot going on and even more. I have not even stated how the genies have a previous history with each other which led the story from Arajin and Matakar to Senya (red genie) vs Ichya (blue genie).
Animation Beyond the horrible story line of this anime, I do appreciate the art and animation. First the character art style is great. There is a bunch of color within the anime and the anime clearly have flavors from Arabic and Japanese cultures. The fighting style is great too; there are some good fighting scenes in this anime. Music wise again it gives an Arabic vibe, especially the end credit scene. Regarding the animation and music aspect Buccigiri passes with excellence.
Characters
format(webp)) We have a few characters in this anime. I can absolutely say the main character Arajin is the worst main character of all time. I am sorry I do not see how you put a plot for the main character to rise to the occasion and have heart to fight and he never progresses to doing so. You would think he would change when his childhood friend reaches out to him, but we see in a later episode flashback that he left his friend to get beat up by older kids. Not to mention the power up phrase he uses when he merges with Senya is that he wants to lose his virginity. At first it was funny then later it really gets corny to continue stating that and have no progress with the only girl in the anime.
Speaking of the only girl in the anime, I will jump to the side characters briefly. Mahoro is the only girl besides Arajin mom within this anime, I found that extremely weird but not as weird as her obsession with her brother Marito. The anime really gets me irritated when she shows that she clearly does not like Arajin but Arajin is too dense to even notice.
Matakara is the only character that made sense in this entire anime. Yes, the chad of the anime who can fight have the right morals and try to help any and everyone... what could go wrong? Yes, they even fumbled his character with the importance of his brother. Matakara’s brother was once a member of Minato Kai ended up going to jail for some time. So of course he is an important person to our important characters, later as the story begins to enter the climax, we see Matakara is notified that his brother is seriously hurt after a stabbing incident. Bucchigiri proceeds to end this entire important moment with us not knowing whether he is dead or alive. Yes, Matakara goes crazy on everybody once he is synchronized with Ichya but does he even know if his brother is still alive or not.
Conclusion
To conclude Buccigiri has so much potential to be a good anime but focuses on the wrong things. Great fight scenes and character designs but did not put enough effort into making the story an exceptional story. Also, the cat scene jokes fell flat, I am not sure why they included that in every episode. I rate this anime with a - Basura!!!
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