roxane.dickinson - 2014-06-24 06:31:01

'Nobody is perfect.Everyone has problems'

This anime deals with mental patients with cases ranging from a guy who has OCD to a guy who has permanent erection(which is quite funny).The patients then go to Dr.Irabu,who is an easy going psychiatrist and a very good one along with his nurse,Mayumi.With the mysterious injections and Irabu’s advice that makes sense in a way,the patients are confused but at the end of this strange treatment,they dig further into their lives,having to find peace of mind.

The anime is more of a psychiatrist helpline with artistic expressions,very good themes and great comedy.The themes and symbolism is simple to understand and very good as well as the expert advice given by Fukuicchi (who time stops and drills or opens the door in the anime).The events of one patient takes place with that of another,making it look like they were admitted at the same day and treated at the same day. Irabu is an interesting character.He might be a funny bear,a smart,mischevious child and an adult.He can be serious and funny when he has to.The patients are great as well.Character development is good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X4KnAfPACg

Sountrack is very good,fits well but the opening and ending by Denki Groove is fantastic.

TL;DR : This anime is a must watch.It has very good stories,themes which are not boring.Characters are very good.Animation is weird but great and Sountrack is ok.It can also be used as a reliever as well as dealing with stress.Dis shiz is fantastic.

You might wanna try : 
Analyze this 
Kyosougiga 
Paparika
Serial Experiments Lain
The Tatami Galaxy 

macey.zemlak - 2014-04-16 22:35:56

"No one is perfect!"

Everybody has problems, everybody has fears, everybody needs help sometimes, but despite being as flawed as we are society seamlessly moves forward and knowingly or not we are each an important gear in advancing our culture and world.

Kuuchuu Buranko is an artistic, psychedelic expression of problems or doubts we have and getting through them or bettering ourselves. Some of us have common fears and anxieties from not being able to deal with our families and trying to run away, to maybe some stranger problems like uncontrollable erections, as well as everything in-between. Those are the types of experiences we handle in this show, I say experiences because they are 'representations' of real life problems and feel very human to the core despite being very surreal and seemingly visceral on the outside. It presents various psychological problems in a visual way, makes the unseen seen as they attempt to rip out the problem at its root.

These problems and the characters suffering from them are dealt with in an episodic, case-by-case nature giving them all the time necessary for a self-contained journey of self-realization or epiphany that is pushed along by our central characters Ichiro Irabu, an eccentric, care-free psychiatrist with an injection fetish and a generally strange method of treatment as well as Mayumi, his sexy, somewhat cold nurse. The main characters I feel however, are the patients of each episode with Irabu and Mayumi there to help guide them to the path of recovery, but not outright curing them, making every episode cathartic and full of character development. Some of the outcomes are very blatant with their problems being completely solved, some of them are more subtle and only put them on the right mindset to recovery, but each and every one of them is educational, inspiring, full of catharsis, and a batshit crazy mind-trip that may seem random but is actually very precise and well-coordinated. That isn't to say that there aren't some weaker episodes, there definitely are but they all have a great sense of purpose and still manage to give you something to think about or reflect on. The finale may not be a grand-stand that makes its episodic nature into something more but it really puts an emphasis on the themes of the show and wraps it all up very nicely. All the events are actually linked together, not in a high impact epiphanic way but in a way that's meaningful to the show's purpose and ideas.

Our characters may not be the most fleshed-out but they're very engaging, sympathizable, and most importantly, human. Some of them are defined by their problems, some of them aren't but there's always a degree of depth to them that makes up for episodes of over-arching screentime with sheer writing quality. Kuuchuu always puts it's heart and soul into its themes and characters, always lively and ambitious but never pretentious or insincere. Sometimes the writing can seem sloppy here-and-there but despite that it proves itself as a masterful work with lots of meaning, artistry, expression, and heart.

I described this show as "surreal" or as a "batshit crazy mind-trip" and that's largely to do with its art direction. It's an interesting culmination of traditional style anime with lots of vibrant colors, real-life people or backgrounds, and rotoscoping. I know when I say rotoscoping a lot of you want to run for the hills, but here it works quite nicely. It's used in more of a comedic way or to properly emit facial expression, mostly comedic though. If I made the show sound like it's entirely serious up to this point, that's definitely not the case. It's really charming and extremely goofy in presentation, while also being dark and strong on its themes, the show knows exactly when to take itself seriously and when to throw in some great satire. There's never a jarring tone-shift and its comedy really works, atleast from my perspective. Back to the art, Kuuchuu features a ton of visual metaphor and is fairly heavy on symbolism, it doesn't use its symbolism as a crutch to make sense but it certainly adds a lot of content to the show. If you're the type to look deep into those types of things then you'll definitely get a lot more out of this show. All-in-all though the show just looks great, has tons of flair and style with lots of meaning to it, it's not just trying to look different for the sake of being different.

The voice acting is stellar to say the least. Everyone gives a really convincing performance and really brings their character to life, most notably Paku Romi and Mitsuya Yuji as Irabu, he has multiple voice actors as he is represented by three different appearances according to the personality traits he's displaying, but there's assuredly other reasons as well, he's shown as: A large man in a bear outfit, a child, and kind of a middle more 'normal' form. His seiyuus really bring out his personality and capture all his little quirks perfectly, I can't imagine him with different seiyuus. Kuuchuu also features an interesting soundtrack full of music that's kind of reminiscent of eurodance or technopop including the OP and ED which are really catchy and emits the feeling of the show pretty well.

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Kuuchuu Buranko is truly an artistic gem with a ton of merit. It doesn't shake off being formulaic, a problem most episodic shows have. However, it manages to be incredibly engaging despite that with it's zany narrative and art direction, human characters, solid comedy, great foreshadowing, and fantastic execution of it's themes. If you're a fan of psychological anime, willing go out of your comfort zone in terms of visuals, and don't mind episodic shows then I fully recommend this, you're in for a very powerful and different experience.

Story: 7.5/10
Characters: 7.5/10
Art/Animation: 8.5/10
Sound: 8/10
Enjoyment: 9/10

Overall: 8/10

aharvey - 2014-01-31 15:20:22

Una serie interesante que además se combina con la animación experimental, mostrando gran cantidad de colores y además combinando 2d y 3d.

Cada episodio es autoconclusivo, pero todos los episodios se juntan y suman al final conectandose entre si. Muy recomendable (:

auer.reva - 2013-07-07 09:22:03

Irasshaaaiiii!!!Kuuchuu Buranko is a truly brilliant and ‘different’ Anime that will blow your mind, it is a very weird show that will likely not apeal to a lot of people because it is so experimental.It continuously repeats the dates 16th through to the 24th of December and follows Irabu a psychatrist as he deals with his patients.There isn’t much of a story and is made up of eleven different cases spread across eleven episodes, although each episode deals with one character, they all turn up in other episodes either interacting with the episodes patient or just appearing in the background.The artwork is rather unique, each character is drawn like you would see in a regular Anime but is also portrayed by a real live actor whos face mingles with the drawn hair and clothes, by doing this it helps give the show it surealness. Backgrounds are always drawn well and are full of different colors and shapes, you won’t find a boring grey concrete building here. people that apear on the street are drawn as cardboard cutouts as they walk. Animation is decent, for this style of show, super smooth animation is needed, there arn’t many sequences that need the animation as everything is jittery or jumpy which gives Kuuchuu Buranko its identity.The opening song is a cool song that uses some English lines, it also has some interesting visuals, the ending theme song includes a little rap but is mostly a pop song. Background music is genrally well fitted, and although not as unique as the opening, it does help give various scenes. Voice work is ok, Irabu has three different voices all fit his weird character(s). The characters are what really make this show, Irabu is an extremly excentric psychiatrist that appears as three different versions of himself, a fat guy with a bear head costume, a regular dude with smale bear ears, and a small child with an overly big white coat, and they miracualously change during a scene which none of the characters seem to mention, and also has a love (fetish) for injeections. Mayumi, Irabus nurse provides the patient with there injection, and as noted isn’t very good and one does wonder if she really is a trained nurse or not. The characters that come to Irabu as patients all come with various symptoms and conditions including, yips, various obbsesive compulisve dissorders, and narcissm, they each have there own backgrounds and reasons for developing the issues, they all are given an animals head after there injection which can appear at any time. We also have Fukuicchi who apears out of a cut-out door and speaks to the viewers (us) and explains various information about the cases that appear, and can also have some good advice if you happen to have any of the symptoms from the show.Overall you will not find many shows like this, its simply unique and extremly fun to watch Irabu and how he deals with things. If you think it isn’t your kind of Anime so you will drop, that fair, but it is show that should be given a decent chance.