Bakuon!! – 02
Hane enjoys just sitting and talking with her motorcycle
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Yay! Time for a second post on a show! We’ll see if this one is a challenge or if it’s easy to write about Bakuon!! episode 2. |
First Things First
No picture from the OP, but I wonder if they’d really let you take your license photo like that
Usually most of my posts is talking about the plot of the show, but I want to start off with the first thing that struck me about the second episode of Bakuon!!: The OP. I’m not usually struck by opening sequences in a show, and it takes me a while to warm up to most of them. But from the very start of the song, with the driving drum and bass (that starts up the spinning and the exhaust, clever), followed by a piano intro, I was, to use a terrible pun, getting revved up for the show. It’s an OP that completely fits the show. The music is good, but very insistent, and has a beat and atmosphere that just makes you think “riding” all the way through the end when that door rolls down to a drum finish. It is an eminently suitable opening, and there aren’t that many shows that you get that feeling from the very first time you see it. Most you need to warm up to, or get used to, but this one leaves you all ready to get on with Bakuon!!
Flashback Rin seems a little young to be on a motorcycle
So after I finish gushing about the OP, we get to the show itself. This one deals a bit with beginnings, even more so than the previous show did. We get the story behind Rin’s motorcycle, which it turns out isn’t a GSX1100, but the 400cc cheap copy of it. The show also goes the fake drama route in having young Rin riding on the back of her father’s motorcycle in the rain (who would do that?) and then having him crash and be hurt in the hospital, inducing Rin to write to Suzuki about her love for their motorcycles to have a chance to buy a new Yoshimura Katana 1135R. Of course, this show isn’t going down the dead parent route (they already faked us out once on that with Hane’s family), and her father recovers, and has his 1135R, and even gives Rin a hard time for riding the 400. But I think it’s fine that she has such a love for the bike. Even if it causes her a bunch of grief.
I liked the dual use katana reference
Bonding
Oh, it’s on!
The main focus of the episode is on filling out the Bike Club, and while Hane and Rin get along just fine, it’s obvious that Onsa and Raimu just can’t get on board with Rin’s Suzuki love, which means Rin isn’t really disposed to get on board with the club. But sometimes you need that 3rd party to step in with an idea, and that takes the form of Hijiri, an ojou-sama who has a rather, er, cinematic vision of motorcycles. She gets Onsa and Rin to bond over their love for their own particular bike by suggesting a chicken race (prompting the show to put up “Don’t do this!” warnings) and also introduces her ride: a rare Ducati 750SS Imola Desmo replica with a sidecar, driven by her butler Hayakawa since Hijiri doesn’t have a license yet (and probably isn’t in a particular hurry to get it). Hayakawa is one of those guys with tons of history that he just hints at, making you wonder if he really has it, or it’s mostly an act, but it really doesn’t matter. While Onsa and Rin both chicken out early, Raimu and Hayakawa take it to the limit, or over the limit, dumping the Ducati in the river for the thrill of it. But that does give us the main form of the Bike Club.
Hijiri’s living the dream
The other bonding that happens is Hane with Baita, still learning for her lesson. But what Hane doesn’t know until too late is that Baita’s being replaced by a new bike, so she can’t get the direction from the bike during her test. After some early faults and looking shaky, she’s rescued from her own thoughts of failure by Hijiri and the others rooting for her and her own idea of modesty for girls. But all’s well that ends well, and Baita heads off after a job well done for Hane, and all the other people she helped learn to ride.
Hane needs some help
Calm down, Hane. Hijiri’s wearing shorts
I thought this was a good episode, not just for the introduction of the perfect OP but for the sense of friendship that the show is able to promote regarding the group. Even if Rin and Onsa aren’t going to be the friendliest about their choice of bikes (or rather, Rin’s choice of bike), as Hane says, they both love riding and bikes so much that they’ll be good friends anyway. Now that the club’s formed, I’m going to guess that the next episode is Hane getting her bike. We already know what it is, but I think it would be interesting to see how she picks it. Also, I did notice on the credits that they list all the companies you see products from for ‘cooperation’. So they’re not just using things outlaw, but I wonder if there is any payment going in either direction, or they figure that credit of an official relationship is enough given the benefits to both sides.
Instructor Jughead says everyone watch next week!
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Everyone! Let’s welcome Highway to the wonderful world of OPs! They sure are something, aren’t they?!
I do wonder if that’s just the way Rin wants to remember it, or if it’s genuinely the way she wants it to have been. She really is the type of person to “subvert the dominate paradigm and insert her own”, so to speak. I think she’s a decent person, but really just all her possible flags to the one sense of identity.
I did love that bit with Hiriji’s split. That’s a punchline that demands a joke. It feels like the “reversed engineered it”. Which doesn’t mean it was horrible, just felt really unusual.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Your snark aside, my estimate is that probably something like 75% of OPs are tacked-on, whatever music is fine, find some name that had another OP song and find out what they’ve recorded lately, we’ll throw some extra cuts together, or worse we’ll just grab scenes from the show (even worse if they’re spoilers) and give ourselves 90 seconds we don’t have to animate each week. That includes some songs I like, personally, although many of them are boring as crap. 24.5% end up being songs and sequences that come to fit the show as you get used to them, and end up meaning ‘that particular show’ but don’t really make the connection inherently. It’s extraordinarily rare that a song and sequence does what this one for Bakuon did on its first try, even if that’s what they’re really trying to do: convey the whole feeling and atmosphere of the show the instant you hear it.
I would imagine that Rin’s flashback is probably pretty close to what happened, as much as any memory of something is. I don’t really know if she’s someone who changes reality that much, more that she’s just a devoted fan of something, and will favor that, sometimes irrationally (although I don’t know that we’ve heard her state anything that’s factually incorrect for the sake of her fandom, more just that her tastes and Onsa’s have clashed).
Yes, there certainly was a flavor of “we need to convey this lesson” in Hijiri’s setup. I think it pulled it off fine, but it wasn’t really organic.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
As far as the idea of “let’s get going/into this” in OP evaluation, some certainly do it much better than others, while some really do adhere to the bare minimum, no doubt. But I don’t think I’ll subscribe to the numbers you’ve posted…of course. But we have a wildly different musical background (you can play an instrument, I might be able to tune a radio), so your numbers are probably a bit more rational. Also, my taste in music sucks horribly.
But more OP than that are more fun than you think!!!!
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 261 comments
Giraffes Won’t Cry, eh? well how about this…
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Ah, Ms. Suzuki(tm) Fan Girl, i begin to like her just a very bit…