Bakuon!!
Girls discover motorcycles and friendship at Okanoue High School.
Mimana Orimoto created the manga Bakuon!!, which started in Akita Shoten's Young Champion Retsu in February 2011. As of July 2025, it has eighteen collected volumes. TMS Entertainment and 8Pan produced a 2016 anime adaptation that aired from April to June.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Sports (motorcycle racing), comedy
Facts from the source article.
Characters
Hane Sakura is the friendly, kindhearted main protagonist who rides a pink-colored Honda CB400SF Hyper VTEC Spec III. Rin Suzunoki is a blonde and busty girl with pigtails who is an avid fan of Suzuki motorcycles, becoming angry when anyone belittles any Suzuki model; she rides a Suzuki GSX400S Katana that belonged to her father and works part-time as a pizza delivery person, and despite not being an official club member she always accompanies the others. Onsa Amano is a wild-hearted, tomboyish girl whose family runs a bike shop; she rides a Yamaha SEROW225W assembled from parts of two other broken bikes. Hijiri Minowa is a wealthy girl in glasses who dreams of being a rebel and delinquent but is kind-natured; before turning sixteen she rides in a sidecar with her butler Hayakawa, then obtains a moped license and rides a Honda Super Cub with a cattle skull and training wheels, later switching to a customized Ducati 1199 Panigale S tuned down to comply with Japanese regulations banning minors from bikes over 400 cc. Raimu Kawasaki always wears a helmet, never talks, and her face is never shown; she acts as the group's big sister but is actually a seasoned biker who has been at the school for at least 20 years, re-enrolling with a false 18-year-old student ID at the principal's request to monitor the reformed motorcycle club after it was disbanded twenty years ago following a serious accident involving Raimu during a race. Her surname is unknown, taken from her Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12R. Chisame Nakano is the newest member, a prodigy with racing motorcycles who has a height complex due to her petite figure; she rides a Honda NSF100 in races and her father's Honda PCX 150 scooter on streets, believing bikes are not meant for roads. Yume Sakura is Hane's younger sister, more responsible and level-headed. Hayakawa is Hijiri's butler.
Media
In May 2018, Young Champion Retsu announced two spin-off manga for the series. The first, Bakuon!! - Amano Onsa no Nikoichi Hanjōki, follows Onsa Amano and started in Akita Shoten's Champion Cross website on April 17, 2018. The second, Bakuon!! - Suzunoki Rin no Yabō, centers on Rin Suzunoki and began in Akita Shoten's Champion RED magazine on May 19. A third spin-off, Bakuon!! Taiwan-hen, ran in Akita Shoten's Bessatsu Young Champion from November 5, 2019 to August 1, 2023. TMS Entertainment produced an anime television series that aired in Japan from April 5 to June 21, 2016, with Crunchyroll simulcasting it. Junji Nishimura directed, Kurasumi Sunayama wrote the scripts, and Ryosuke Nakanishi composed the music. An original video animation came with the seventh manga volume on March 18, 2016, and a second OVA with the ninth volume on December 20, 2016. The opening theme is FeelXAlive by Sayaka Sasaki, and the ending theme is Buon! Buon! Ride On!! by Reina Ueda, Yumi Uchiyama, Nao Tōyama, and Rikako Yamaguchi. Sentai Filmworks holds the North American rights and put out DVD and Blu-ray sets in August 2017. MVM Entertainment handled the UK release.
Reception
Anime News Network had five editors review the first episode. Nick Creamer was positive about the comedic content, noting solid visual and verbal jokes delivered through humorous character expressions and voice acting. Theron Martin was initially entertained by the amusing cast and intricate motorbike knowledge but was distracted by the fanservice involving the girls' figures. Rebecca Silverman praised Onsa Amano for her delightfully retro character design and flighty yet endearing personality, and found the sex humor delivered by Baita surprisingly funny, but found both Sakura and Rin unbearable and lacking interesting qualities. Lynzee Loveridge was positive toward Onsa and the driver's ed bike for providing decent comedy but felt the rest of the episode had an unspectacular cast, generic character designs outside Onsa's, and dull non-motorbike humor, saying the anime would appeal more to a specific subset of gearheads than a general audience. Jacob Hope Chapman found the series more of an Akamatsu-style 90s harem comedy than K-On! on motorcycles, criticizing the humorless jokes, overbearing and screechy female characters, and lackluster production for delivering garish flat designs and lazily repeated animation, concluding that Bakuon!! has a unique kind of lameness where it feels not made for any audience in 2016. Stig Høgset at THEM Anime Reviews was critical of the cartoonish caricatures and the disappointing last episode where signature humor was replaced with a flat joke, but praised the main cast for their charm and personalities being closer to real life, quality animation accentuating motorbiking scenes, and the use of gag comedy format to tell stories, highlighting the Hokkaido arc, calling it an energetic, if flawed, show that has its heart where it counts.
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