Bakuon!!


Bakuon!! is a Japanese manga series by Mimana Orimoto. The series began serialization in Akita Shoten's seinen manga magazine Young Champion Retsu from February 2011 and has been collected in eleven tankōbon volumes. An anime television series adaptation by TMS Entertainment/8Pan aired between April and June 2016.

Plot

The series takes place at Okanoue Girls' High School, where girls are permitted to ride motorcycles to school, and follows Hane Sakura, a cheerful freshman who becomes awed after seeing another student ride a bike to school. Taking an interest, Hane joins her school's motorcycle club and gets a motorcycle license. After buying her own bike, Hane begins her exciting, two-wheeled, motorized high-school life along her new friends; Onsa Amano, Rin Suzunoki, Raimu Kawazaki and Hijiri Minowa.

Characters

Bike Club

;Hane Sakura
;Rin Suzunoki
;Onsa Amano
;Hijiri Minowa
;Raimu Kawasaki
;Chisame Nakano

Other Characters

;Yume Sakura
;Hayakawa
;Tazuko
;Onsa's Father
;Rin's Father
;Kinya Nakano
;Akina Nakano
;Enko Saruyama
;Baita

Media

Manga

Two spin-off manga were announced in the May 2018 issue of Young Champion Retsu. The first spin-off titledBakuon!! - Amano Onsa no Nikoichi Hanjōki, centers on the character Onsa Amano and began serialization in Akita Shoten's Champion Cross website on April 17, 2018. The second spin-off titled Bakuon!! - Suzunoki Rin no Yabō, centers on the character Rin Suzunoki and will begin serialization in Akita Shoten's Champion RED magazine on May 19.

Anime

An anime television series adaptation by TMS Entertainment aired in Japan between April 5, 2016 and June 21, 2016 and was simulcasted by Crunchyroll. The series was directed by Junji Nishimura with scripts written by Kurasumi Sunayama and music composed by Ryusuke Nakanishi. An original video animation was bundled with the seventh manga volume on March 18, 2016. A second original video animation was bundled with the ninth manga volume on December 20, 2016. The opening theme is "FeelXAlive" by Sayaka Sasaki while the ending theme is "Buon! Buon! Ride On!!" by Reina Ueda, Yumi Uchiyama, Nao Tōyama, and Rikako Yamaguchi. Sentai Filmworks acquired the license for the North American rights and released the series on DVD and Blu-ray in August 2017. Universal Pictures originally announced that they would release the series in the UK, however, it was later announced that MVM Entertainment will be releasing the series.

Episode list

Reception

Previews

had five editors review the first episode of the anime: Nick Creamer was positive towards the comedic content having solid visual and verbal jokes being delivered through humorous character expressions and voice acting; Theron Martin was initially entertained by the amusing cast and intricate motorbike knowledge but was distracted by the fanservice involving the girls' figures; Rebecca Silverman praised Onsa Amano for her "delightfully retro design" and flighty yet endearing personality, and the surprisingly funny sex humor being delivered by Baita but found both Sakura and Rin to be unbearable and lacking interesting qualities to them; Lynzee Loveridge was also positive towards Onsa and the driver's ed bike providing decent comedy but felt the rest of the episode had an unspectacular cast, generic character designs and dull non-motorbike humor, saying the anime will appeal more to that specific subset of gearheads than a general audience. The fifth reviewer, Jacob Hope Chapman, found the series to be more of an "Akamatsu-style 90s harem comedy than K-On! on motorcycles", criticizing the humorless jokes, overbearing and screechy female characters, and lackluster production for delivering "garish flat designs" and lazily repeated animation, concluding that "Bakuon!! has that unique kind of lameness where it feels like it's not really made for any audience in 2016. If you were hoping for moe motorcycles, there's no innocent charm to be found here, and if you just want to see some fanservice, you'll probably want to hold out for a show with better drawings."

Series reception

Stig Høgset at THEM Anime Reviews was critical of the "cartoonish caricatures" and the last episode being disappointing with its signature humor being replaced with a flat joke but gave praise to the main cast for their charm and personalities being closer to real-life, quality animation to accentuate the motorbiking scenes and use of the gag comedy format to tell its stories, calling it "n energetic, if flawed, show that nevertheless has its heart where it counts."