REVIEW: ‘BUCCHIGIRI?!’ Episode 1 — “Merge!? Fall In Love With Fortune Bang Bang Chicken!”

MAPPA is back this Winter Anime Season with a new original anime from FREE! and SK8 the Infinity director Hiroko Utsumi, with screenwriter Taku Kishimoto, who most recently worked on BLUE LOCK. The series is called BUCCHIGIRI?!, and it’s a culture-blending series that is best described as a campier Tokyo Revengers with a 90s aesthetic with Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure humor. In Episode 1, “Merge!? Fall In Love With Fortune Bang Bang Chicken,” Bucchigiri, establishes this brash world of gangsters and Honki (which are essentially djinn from 1,001 Nights) as something hilarious and packed with action.

In BUCCHIGIRI, we follow Arajin Tomoshibi (Genki Okawa). He’s moved back to his hometown and is having to deal with the fact that he’s just not the coolest guy in his new school, which is filled with your favorite delinquent character tropes and designs from across anime inspiration. While Arajin is set on dating the class cutie, Jin Mahoro (Anna Nagase), he’s also trying to avoid his childhood friend Matakara Asamine (Yusuke Hoshino), a member of Minato Kai, one of the school’s gangs. The other two gangs are NG Boys and Siguma Squad, but we don’t get too much into those in Episode 1.

But both paths are obstructed when Arajin finds himself in a brawl with the Siguma Squad and its leader Jin Marito (Nozomu Sasaki). At the end of his rope and losing badly, Arajin makes a wish that changes the course of his life: “I want to lose my virginity!” It’s a dumb wish and one that is completely played for humor but results in Arajin becoming imbued with the fighting power of the towering genie that has chosen him as his user.

As a series, Bucchigiri is kind of all over the place tonally. Bucchigiri Episode 1 is a special kind of chaos that lays out everything that the series is going to be. It displays its direct humor without subtlety to be found. The animation style that embodies the 90s shonen aesthetic with character designs that feel old is on display. And the characters show the audience their archetypes without any sort of nuance. None of this is bad.

In fact, Bucchigiri is rendering in Episode 1 because of how unflinching it is in using high school boy humor, obvious BL tropes (which we can expect from Utsumi), and excellent animation to craft an original series that you may not understand, but you definitely want more of.

The series is fairly different from what MAPPA has worked on recently. A studio with diverse titles under its banner, Bucchigiri Episode 1 expands expectations. The animation is similar to Utsumi’s previous work, but it also has a direct influence from 90s shonen, especially when it comes to presenting musclebound bodies…and the hair.

On the animation front, the series is intriguing and vibrant. On the storytelling front, Hama Bay, Arajin’s hometown, is fantastically imagined. A town filled with delinquents and gangs, the amount of background graffiti and the opportunity for unique character designs make Hama Bay exciting. And with a gang war brewing beneath the story’s surface, Hama Bay is fantastic.

If there is any glaring issue with Bucchigiri Episode 1, it’s the way the series embraces Orientalist tropes of the Middle East. From the illustrated language on the genie’s chest (Arabic? Farsi? Urdu? We don’t know, it’s just vibing) to the character designs in the ending theme song, the series is perpetuating some stereotypes that may have been better left in the past. That said, how Utsumi and the team execute the series’ delivery of its theme will prove all the difference, and I’m willing to give the series the chance.

All in all, though? Utsumi once again has a hit on her hands. The animation, the design, and the character personalities are immediate crowd-pleasers. Not to mention, it’s about to launch a whole host of ships, just like Free! and SK8 the Infinity did before it.

BUCCHIGIRI!? Episode 1 is streaming now on Crunchyroll, with new episodes every Saturday.