Bakuon!! – 03
The kind of memories everyone wants
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Hane passed her license test last time, so everyone knows what’s coming next, right? How did searching for her bike go? |
Picking the Right One
She’s really not cool
So while Rin’s license photo is cool, Hane’s is just dorky. But then, Hane is a bit of a dork, so it’s totally in keeping with her personality. So now begins the search for a bike, and despite the advocacy of Rin for a Suzuki (in particular, a Katana with less power than hers, which would permanently put Hane in an inferior position in Rin’s mind), Hane really liked the Su-Four she rode at the driving school, and knows that the ‘real’ ones have more power. And I like how, once again, Hane puts Onsa in the position of saying how awful the reality of biking is and trying to make it sound exciting. Basically, the Su-Four is the perfect bike for Hane, who is in love with the riding itself and not much interested in the culture that goes with biking. So Onsa’s tale of the Su-Four rider as analogous to a woman who is faithful to one man her whole life doesn’t exactly sound like a bad thing to Hane. So they head to a shop that’s advertising a lot of them, for low prices, but Onsa is strangely against going to the shop.
The little twerp…
The jig is soon up for Onsa, as it’s quickly revealed that not only is the shop pretty sketchy, with dusty bikes of dubious circumstances, but that it’s her family’s chop. Did I say chop? Well, that’s not that far off the mark, since Onsa’s Serow was actually a salvage bike put together from two broken ones, and most of the bikes that are for sale there are drowned or broken or otherwise fraudulent. And just because Rin is the emotional punching bag of the series, her dad rides by as she’s excoriating Onsa about their business practices and says that Rin’s precious Katana 400 was a drowned bike with a reset odometer, too. Onsa does have a bit of a point when she says that for their underhanded business practices, they’re providing a service people want: cheap bikes. And in my mind, that’s ok… a little. But the problem is when it comes time to sell that bike with the reset odometer, or the quick coat of paint over the frame rust. The next buyer isn’t necessarily going to know that it really has twice as many miles on it or spent some time with the fishes (although they might have a VIN check service in Japan, but not everything gets reported to them). That’s why those practices are illegal.
Hane is in love
But in this den of iniquity, Hane finds “the bike”. Of course, it’s a pink Honda Su-Four (to go with her name: “pink” “wings”). And I think it’s telling that while Raimu-senpai was pointing out problems with the other bikes in the shop, she doesn’t say anything about Hane’s bike except “OMG It’s pink! So cute!” I really have the feeling that none of the other girls would steer Hane wrong if it mattered, they all feel responsible for her and want to protect her. So much so that Onsa declares that she’s not going to let the shop use its normal business practice, and will do all the repairs herself and not reset the odometer. Which she does, under the watchful eye of Raimu-senpai. And Hane, finally getting her own bike, experiences that thrill all on her own for the first time: her bike, her ride, her freedom. At least until the gas runs out.
Onsa’s penance
And Hane is off on her adventure
Will Rin Ever Join?
Everyone does get a nice chuckle out of Rin’s antics
Rin’s prideful nature won’t let her just join the Bike Club, even though she likes hanging out with Hane and even Onsa. It’s gotta be in a favorable position over Onsa. So even though everyone considers her part of the group, there’s still a bit of status that goes back and forth, like when she says she doesn’t want to ride with everyone on a tour. Except that she does, and goes to the same place at the same time. Which would be fine, except that Hijiri bought helmet communicators for everyone, and only got the mic installed in Rin’s helmet. So everyone else can hear her Katana song and her “missile launch”. Plus we get a little bit of Rin’s ‘middle child’ nature when she’s rejected by the “big” Katana riders, and swarmed around by the 250 riders. But all in all, they have a fun trip together.
Someone’s still the butt of most of the jokes
And we find out a little about Raimu-senpai, who it turns out isn’t a student, at least anymore. She’s the Peter Pan of the school, never wanting to leave the Bike club, never wanting to leave school, even though she was there 20 years ago. Heck, maybe she’s even a demon now, after getting blown up 20 years ago due to the forgetting of a screw at a race. But the principal still trusts her to take care of the other girls in the club, and will allow them to have one if she’ll watch over them. Of course, that doesn’t cover Rin, at least yet.
So will Rin ever join the Bike club? I don’t know. I can’t tell if the joke will get old, or if they could do something better with her actually in the club, not just in the group. And another thing that Bakuon!! does pretty well is throw in the one-off jokes like when Onsa tries to tell Hane that the other riders are “asking how about for 20,000?” But Hane ruins her joke by not getting it and making Onsa try to cover up her dirty joke. Or just a visual joke like Onsa’s little brother trying to look up her skirt (and I noticed her brothers had the mixed up shirt: the blue with an H and red with a Y). They even have brick jokes like Rin’s Katana song, which we probably won’t ever get past the 4th line of. This is really one of my favorite shows this season, and I’m actually surprised I can write so much on it. Thanks for reading!
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: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Clarkson, May, Hammond & Stig. We know who the Stig is, your choice of the others.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
For such a silly comparison: Rin is Hammond, Onsa is Clarkson, Hijiri is May, and Hane is the audience.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…we could make Hane, Matt Leblanc?
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
She’s far more relevant than that. “New Top Gear” is going to be a stillborn abomination.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
There is no more Top Gear. Only the new Amazon show coming up.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I can detect an analogy to modern genre fandom with this show; above and beyond matching a bike preference to a genre or brand preference.
I mean, Hane has to start somewhere and she has to start where she is comfortable. So it’s like matching a new anime fan or a new comic book fan to something cool. You don’t just bust out ONE PIECE and say “get back to me in a few years”.
Also there are some elements of “real fans” vs. “casual fans” going on with how Rin and Onsa want to dominate Hane’s mind share.
Sempai of course, bridges everything…
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
Rin is a-freakin-dorable in this episode. It’s obvious how much she wants to be part of the bike club and their activities, but she’s too tsundere to admit it, and Onsa is either clueless or trolling her. Yet Rin was sooo cute when she was riding along, not realizing the headset mic was in her helmet. Like Hane said, Rin is a really genuine girl, and when she’s singing her Katana song you can feel how much she just really loves to ride.
I hope she’ll be able to join the club eventually. It’s clearly where she belongs, and she deserves better than to be stuck as a semi-outsider for the rest of the series.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Rin has effectively been part of the club even if she’s not an official member, and I doubt there would be anything that Onsa does to prevent Rin from going along to any event they do, especially because Hane publicly wants Rin to go along (Onsa wants Rin to go along as well, but wants it under the same conditions Rin does – “I’m doing you a favor”). Hijiri included her fully with the wireless set, even if Rin left before Hijiri got it installed (which is kind of a funny thing for an ojou-sama to be doing, but works well enough for the show).
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
With Onsa and Rin there must be equal but opposite tsun-reactions or else the whole show would explode…
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 261 comments
Hmm…Nothing seem to be big, Just she want to get that Motorbike for that flowerly honda girl.
Anyways, Here are my Special Pun Names for them:
Hane – “Ms. Flowers with wings” or Flowerly Honda
Rin – “Ms. Giraffes won’t cry” or Suzuki Fangirl
Onsa – “Ms. Yamahahahaha” or Twerp Buster
Hijiri – “Ms. Ducatini” or The Girl from Ducatiania
Raimu – Ms. Lime-Face or Simpson Helmet Lady (I just hate that name “Stig” really it’s so lame really.)