Summary:

Despite all the jewels that James gave him, Dan is unsure about what to do about the new OCB league. James has been heavily promoting the match between the former BFB stars and the street players, and he’s been using money to influence everyone. For the time being, Dan takes one of the diamonds and heads back home to see Coco, but along the way, he runs into Slash, losing the diamond in the nearby river in the process. Slash figures out that Dan wanted to give the diamond as a present to Coco and questions if that’s what she wants, but when Dan turns to face him, Slash disappears. After fishing the diamond out of the water, Dan continues on home and tries to tell Coco about how he can join the OCB league and get more diamonds to pay for healing her legs, but she’s not in her room, and Dan realizes something and leaves. Having seen the whole thing because she had been in the bathroom talking with her own shapeshifting servant, Flora tells Coco about it afterward, and Coco explains that it’s not gems or money that she wants from her brother.

While this is going on, Sela and the other street players are discussing how their opponents are all-stars from the BFB league and how James is setting up the street players to get crushed. When Falcon and some of the others show up, a fight breaks out between the two sides. Sela doesn’t get involved, but she does catch Haruka’s eye. Dan meanwhile returns home again and goes back into his own room, remembering how Coco initially blamed him for her injury. He’s surprised to find that all of his fish are still alive after all this time thanks to Coco feeding them, and instead of sticking around, he heads back out, unaware that Coco is watching him. When the time for the match that pits Iceman, Sela, and Flora against Falcon and the other pros comes, Dan isn’t around, and the street players are getting hit with fouls and being outplayed. Miyuki finds Dan thinking by himself, but it’s Haruka who acts first by enticing people to clean up the court boundaries that James had painted around the city, thus confusing the referee robots.

It is shortly thereafter that Dan shows up in the Dangan, and he interrupts the match to publicly challenge the use of court boundaries and refereeing. Demonstrating what Basquash is all about, he gets the crowd and the other street players on his side, and Haruka uses this chance to interview James on camera. She calls the OCB a deception, however James claims that what he and the officials were trying to put on was not violence or something attention-grabbing, but rather a sport. Haruka feels that he doesn’t understand sports, and Dan caps it off by throwing a special ball at the building where James is. The ball breaks open when it smashes against the glass, and out of it fall all of the jewels that James offered Dan. James responds by permanently banning Dunk Mask from the OCB, but Dan doesn’t care and throws the diamond he was going to give Coco to James. In the aftermath, Dan and friends get away from the police and decide to go on the road to play all of the teams who saw what happened in Rollingtown and are now requesting Basquash matches.

Preview

This episode left me feeling somewhat conflicted. On one hand, having Dan appear at the same time that the OP started up in grand fashion was great. The Satelight team demonstrated yet again that they know how to make a really exciting sequence, especially when combined with some good music (and yes, this made me appreciate the opening song more). On the other hand, a lot of what happened felt trivial because it was quibbling about the playing styles of a game that I already have a hard time relating to. And the final shot of the episode was corny as hell. As my friend put it, “Iceman would be hard pressed to look any stupider.” The bigger issue though is that having Dan and company going on the road to basically promote Basquash seems like nothing but a detour from the more interesting plot of Dan trying to get to the moon or of Dan and Haruka going up directly against James and Slash. The preview didn’t really allay my worries any either, so for the time being, I’m not exactly looking forward to the next few episodes.

29 Comments

  1. Am I the only one who thought this whole episode was a complete idiocy? I can’t help but wonder if Dan really does want to fix Coco’s legs… Anyway, fun shows are still fun, regardless of many things being completely idiotic 😛

  2. @Re-hikari
    too bad you thought the whole episode was a complete idiocy i for one enjoyed it to the fullest best episode so far dan ain,t ur typical main character he doesn,t really respect any of the characters expect his sister because he has too much pride but rather i,m interested in who his parents are or were.

    Peter Rice
  3. One thing I like about the series, and one thing that makes it better than generic shounen fare, is one of its major abstract themes: integrity.

    Dan’s integrity, i.e., his loyalty to his values, is dramatized through his commitment to basketball-as-it-should-be-played. Dan won’t compromise on what he knows to be right. His opponents aren’t demons or monsters, they are social pressure and public opinion, and these are much more realistic challenges than the average shounen hero has to go up against.

    Thematically, Basquash! is actually pretty mature, and I that’s a big part of its appeal, especially since it doesn’t detract from the silliness and mayhem.

    Silvering
  4. Dan is really getting on my nerves. I hate this kind of hot-blooded character who defies logic to defend some retarded principles. Are you telling me that his vision of basketball is more important than clearing his debt and fixing Coco’s legs? Really?

    Son Gohan
  5. @Son Gohan

    Welcome to the retarded logic of ultra-shounen shows. This one joined the ranks of bleach and naruto after the first three episodes. Don’t expect it to get any better.

    B1
  6. The whole point of going the “Basquash” playing style and rejecting the corporate sponsor is that he still wants to get to the moon, but on his own; while also giving the people on earth something that hasn’t been commercialized and be able to enjoy.

    If you don’t play a sport or basketball for that matter, I guess you’d find it hard to relate since there is nothing to grasp except for the art style and music.

    Oz
  7. I’d have to say I found Falcon annoying here, talking down to those he considers ‘unprofessional’.

    I like the integration of youkai (legendary monsters) in the designs here.

    Those referee-bots look a bit like rabbits (retractable ears, hopping)-because of the japanese legend of a rabbit in the moon instead of a man. Having one leg and a disc-shaped head is similar to the karakasa, a one-eyed, one-legged umbrella that hops around.

    And the butler is a butterfly? Maybe butler-fly is the term here!

    biltwick
  8. @ fas
    The series is a joint project between the Japanese and French, so it’s not your typical anime per say in regards to overall design.
    As for the series, it’s does well to entertain when I don’t really like basketball or mecha. Only downfall is the over-sized boobs. If only they were toned down to the point where they don’t look like two bastket balls are being hiden under the top…

  9. heh….yeah. i feel you . but lets be serious now, Ice man Hottie… he was never a character to take serious to begin with “DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY!!!!!!!” destroy WHAT motherfucker?!?! and yep, the whole disjointed basketball?/basquash? i mean WTF are they really playing anyway?? look, all i know is that dan gotta fix his sisters legs and go to the moon. I’ll keep watching on dat premise hahaha

    BROOKLYN otaku
  10. It’s a shame you didn’t like it. I for one thought this episode was beyond fantastic. It was about not selling out, sticking true to your ideals. That’s why I was blown away by that scene with Dan juxtaposed with the opening. It was just so epic. None of this will ever be high art but this show has yet to not entertain me. With the lackluster season we’ve had for anime, I’m surprised you’re not liking this more. Of course, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I understand.

    eth
  11. I hate the theme of this episode and show as a whole. They keep saying that Basquash is the right style of basketball but as a player, I feel annoyed. Basketball is more than just people using a ball to randoms kill their opponents with no rules. It is a game that demonstrates true skills between people on a count. Rules are there for a reason. Basquash! is just chaos, not basketball.

    Leon

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