Basquash! – 02



Short Synopsis: Dan quickly loses his status of hero when he goes up against a girl.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
As for the shows I’m not going to blog:
– Asura Cryin’ has annoying characters.
– K-On also has annoying characters, and its sense of humour just isn’t my cup of tea.
– Sengoku Basara’s ridiculously overpowered sword-fights are fun; I’ll give it that, but it also remains just another incredibly overblown shounen series. Fine to watch… but to blog?

Basquash isn’t exactly my favourite show of the season, and there are a lot of things wrong with this, but I decided to give it the benefit of doubt. The biggest reasons for that:
– It’s got style.
– The setting really feels like something different. Despite the silly premise, you can see that there went a lot of attention in developing it. It’s one of the few original settings this season.
– Very nice graphics, if you can stomach the CG.
– A charming cast of characters, despite being a bunch of kids they’re fun to watch.

My biggest reason not to blog this show was that I’m not the biggest fan of Shoji Kawamori. Especially when I tried to blog Macross Frontier last year: I just couldn’t get myself to like the characters in the end. Still, I guess that the cast of Basquash feels a lot more colourful (on first glance, at least). I’m not exactly sure why, but what this show reminds me off the most is Gad Guard, a surprisingly good underrated show that especially became something unique in its second half, and I’m curious to see whether Basquash can do the same.

But yeah, until then I guess that I’m going to have to suspend disbelief quite a bit for that, with the 14-year-old lead and all (at least, I think that that’s his age). Ignoring cliche’s though, he amuses me so far. Especially how his attempts at setting up a delivery business only ended up in an increase of the bounty on him, and I also laughed at the incredible incompetence of the police in the city.

What this show needs to do now is continue fleshing out the characters. The cast right now has quite an interesting dynamic between them, but it needs to keep pushing this development forward. This doesn’t really look like the series that would work if it just descended into episodic random stories: this really looks like a typical series that needs some sort of plot to keep things going, unlike shows as Natsume Yuujinchou or xxxHolic and the like.

8 thoughts on “Basquash! – 02

  1. Shouldn’t you like Kawamori because of Escaflowne or does only Akane get the credit for that? Sure Kawamori didn’t direct Escaflowne but he didn’t direct Macross Frontier either and he’s not directing Basquash… yet his style and influence was all over all 3 shows…

  2. That’s exactly what I hoped for when I started watching Macross Frontier… which ultimately lead to a big disappointment. I agree that the guy has a great amount of imagination (which lead to Escaflowne and many other great series), but as a director I’m not yet convinced of him. And since you talk like you seem to know this: what exactly is the difference between the director of a series and a chief director or production director? I always thought that they were just fancy names for the same thing.

  3. I really don’t know what’s going on with Kawamori and all his Chief Director, Executive Director or whatever he wants to call it bullshit. It’s not a common thing in the industry… It seems like he wants to still be in charge of the project and have the final say on things but let whoever’s directing be in charge of all the minute stuff as well as having a large amount of responsibility. I can see why he’s not in the directors seat for this though since he’s also got the Macross Frontier movie to worry about.

    The only time I’ve ever really seen someone’s style come across this weird system that Kawamori has set up is in Macross Plus. But of course the director of Macross Plus was Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) who I envision as someone strong enough to not let Kawamori ride all over them.

  4. (waRning uncivilized commentary below)
    I admit, when I read the concept, I thought this show was going to be utter garbage, no better than a hood rat uterus-turd born from a black welfare mom; Destined to smoke crack and rape people who find themselves in the wrong neighborhood…. But boy was i ever wrong..

    (decent commentary)
    This show is pure fun!!! Those expecting a intellectual challenge from this show are they themselves intellectually challenged. Mechas playing basketball…Of course its not going to take itself seriously. But with the best production values I’ve seen this year, voice acting of the highest caliber, and a charming world-scape that draws you into believing that giant robots wearing nikes belong there; it is one show that, if not simply for its aesthetic properties, should be seen by any anime fan.

    (warning indecent)
    And I’ll come off my high horse, Miyuki is totally an instant boner! I won’t let myself be degraded my fapping to someones drawings; but if i were to FAP like I’ve never fapped before, it would be to miyuki. I could used my dong to break diamonds!

    WATCH THIS SHOW BEFORE YOU JUDDGE IT. AND IF YOU FAP TO ANIMATIONS, WHIP IT OUT AND WATCH THIS SHIT WITH A BUNCH OF KLEENEX AND JERKINS.

  5. (waRning uncivilized commentary below)
    TOTALLY agree with you Joe. This show looks like more fun than watching two morbidly obese, white trailer trash sluts try to wrestle each other for the last twinkie atop a greased slip-and-slide while their boyfriends blow up houses with meth labs!

    (decent commentary)
    Wow the characters and the style of this show just have a lot of energy! The visuals are eye-popping, and my only concern is that the story might not gain any depth past the lead character and his friends winning kooky basketball matches, but for now I’ll keep watching.

  6. Basquash! is pretty darn cool. I didn’t expect the show to have such quality animation or such great style. It’s almost like it has TTGL vibes 🙂

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