Bucchigiri?!

Episode 7

Bucchigiri?! has a lot of running gags, but one I haven't felt the need to mention is the one with Arajin's teacher always going to the scandalous “Nyan Nyaight Love” establishment. That exclusion was because, despite popping up in nearly every episode, the joke itself has never really evolved, and you can see the resolution coming a mile away. Anyone not born yesterday can tell that the punchline will be how Nyan Nyaight is a cat cafe rather than a saucy hostess bar or brothel, and all the innuendo was just a joke about how much the dude just loves cats. Yet the show seems unaware of how obvious it is and continues to run through the same setup every episode, accumulating screentime for a payoff we all know is coming and only gets less funny the longer it goes on without changing. It's a kind of joke that could work better across a single episode but has been stretched across the whole show.

That over-commitment to a repetitive bit is endemic to this show's struggles with both comedy and dramatic narrative. The show has building blocks for a fun, wacky adventure that could also tell a simple but effective story. Yet those pieces just keep getting stacked up and taken down in the same formula every episode or two. Arajin tries to pursue Mahoro, only to wind up in a fight he tries to chicken out of. Matakara tries to talk to his old friend who shrugs him off after a couple sentences. Everyone else is a loud, fight-obsessed weirdo with at most a singular gimmick. Without stronger comedic writing and delivery, that routine wears out its novelty pretty quickly, yet instead of abandoning them to get on with the story, or at least find new jokes, the show just sticks to the same bit for way too long.

Take this week's episode, where instead of advancing any of our characters' arcs after the climactic fight in episode six, it returns to the same holding pattern as before, but now the guys are doing pro-wrestling instead of street fights. You could make a great episode with that and there are tons of anime comedies where you can imagine for yourself the wacky gimmicks, costumes, and ridiculous storylines different characters would adopt. Here, we get something way less than the sum of its parts, where most of the cast is knocked off after a couple of seconds and there's not even the inkling of the showmanship that makes pro wrestling entertaining. The characters aren't distinct enough to have any interesting gimmicks the way real (well, “real”) wrestlers do, and with production issues rearing their heads with a vengeance during the fights, we're left with an episode-long diversion where there's no standout jokes or hits land, and all of our narrative momentum is squandered.

In some cases, it's worse, since we more or less backpedal on all the progress Arajin made last week. Nothing much has changed in his relationships with Mahoro or any of the other characters, outside of the guys still thinking Arajin's cooler and stronger than he is. Matakara at least gets to talk to him for a meaningful amount of time, but even that gets quickly cut off to slip back into the same bits as before. Arajin then spends the entire episode chickening out and fleeing from danger, without even a token attempt to stand by his friend. It's fine for Arajin to still have room to grow, but we're more than halfway through this story, and he's still identical to how he was in the premiere. There's slow-burn character writing, and then there's aimless wheel spinning.

On paper, I love the idea of rowdy street thugs turning into backyard wrestlers, but without a more thorough commitment to the idea, and with such inopportune timing, it just feels like a waste of time that highlights every flaw of Bucchigiri?!'s comedic chops. I was willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt in its early episodes, but its time and charm are swiftly running out.

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Bucchigiri?! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.