OP Sequence

OP: 「Rin!Rin!Hi!Hi!」 by ハシグチカナデリヤ hugs The Super Ball

「ナンバーのついたバカたち!」 (Nanbaa no Tsuita Bakatachi)
“Idiots With Numbers!”

I’m not sure how i feel about Nanbaka. It’s great when it isn’t taking itself too seriously, but I’m not sure how well it does when it starts to dive back into the real world. Luckily, it only happened for the last few minutes of the show and everything before that was just pure mindless fun.

General Impressions

It’s not often that a single character holds a show together for me, and even less when it’s specifically the seiyuu. But in this show’s case, Sugoroku Hajime (the epic prison supervisor of block 13) who is voiced by the wonderful Seki Tomokazu is definitely the biggest reason I made it past that first prison “escape”. Hearing his over accentuated yell never fails to put a smile on my face and it was doing a great job at making up for this rather lackluster prison. I mean, I couldn’t have been the only one who was wondering what was going to happen if the main characters of the show actually escaped during the first episode, right? Which is why I was blown away when I saw Hajime singlehandedly knock Juugo, Nico, Rock, and Uno back into their cells. And not only did it he do it in an epic fashion, he did it all while going along with everyone else’s pace. Besides my new favorite Saitama-lookalike, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy our main four prisoners. Besides their unique abilities, I was loving the flashy character design they all had. Ranging from Juugo’s eyes to Rock’s epic hair, everything was so over the top that it’s tough not to like it all.

Now, if I had to pick a few things I wasn’t so happy about, I think the biggest would be just how downplayed the whole “prison escape” aspect was. I wasn’t expecting this to be a comedy (which the show does well), so it took a little while for my expectations to properly adjust. My second gripe would also have to be with the way the show focused on Juugo’s wrist and neck brace. Something about the way it dived into serious territory felt like a complete mismatch from everything we watched for the past twenty minutes.

Don’t get me wrong though, I thoroughly enjoyed the show and will probably be back next week to watch all the idiots (minus Hajime) do their things. It also doesn’t hurt that the show has a catchy opening and ending track. Anyways, if you’re looking for a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously and will probably give you a few good laughs, Nanbaka might be right up your alley.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「ナンバカ脱獄理論♪!」 (Nanbaka Datsugoku Riron) by ジューゴ(上村祐翔)、ウノ(柿原徹也)、ロック(汐崎アイル)、ニコ(小林大紀)&双六一(関智一)

Preview

12 Comments

  1. Loved the animation, so crazy, so colorful. Kinda disappointed on the ‘prison escape’ thing, I expected something different, with humor but not that kind. Characters seem to be nice.

    Three episodes rule, here it goes. I am going to give it a try, hoping it may surprise in some way.

    Pyon
  2. Isn’t the cuff thing suggesting some future plot development? He’s clearly the main character and when his mystery cuffs and the man who cuffed him are explained it will probably turn out to be a completely absurd story.

    Let’s hope anyway.

    This show needs to get a bit more whackier and absurd to be watchable. Weirdly enough, this episode played it too straight to justify the look and silliness. It looks like it should be a creative show, but it’s not there yet. I was expecting silly humor just based on the style alone but I want a reason to watch other than “something is a mystery to some guy I was given no reason to care about”.

    At this point, it’s just a rainbow of traps and meatheads. Which is okay, if that’s your thing.

    danny
  3. If anything, I’d say this anime would be great for those who have enjoyed similar wacky ones such as Cuticle Detective Inaba (aired some 3 years ago I think?). Coming from that kind of anime, I knew what to expect jumping into this one. There were certainly some downsides to this first episode compared to other episodes of other animes, but I think I’m in for the ride. We’ll see what happens as the series goes on ^^

    And yes, Seki Tomokazu’s voicework is just too amusing to ignore. xD

    Harua

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