I was surprised that this series got animated, as the manga was just a short, free, online ditty that didn’t have that much of a story (although the ending was surprising). They cut out almost every intriguing alien and plotline, and toned down Hideyoshi’s skill. Although many of the basketball sequences were beautiful, many of them were reused several times and practically every game was a blowout. I’d say only episodes 1, 2, 7, and 11 were even decent, and the rest were boring and annoying. I really didn’t like Hideyoshi, and he wasn’t even that skillful. They didn’t go into the backstory on most of the players. Afro never played (why was he even in the anime?), while Ivan and Cha-Che really only got one game in. If I had to sum it up in a sentence, I’d say that Buzzer Beater was the most boring basketball anime that I’ve ever sat through. On the plus side, it was only 13 episodes.
Kabitzin’s Rating: 1.5/5
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Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
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I know I just posted this exact same post in the previous one, but I think that the ideas herein hold true to this comment as well.
I haven’t read the manga, but the concerns of the back story and the players not playing and the such, no big.
When you have a team that is hot, you don’t really want to switch them out. You keep in the players that are hot in the game. They are on a roll you don’t want to risk losing that. Though it was ChaChe and Ivan who helped start that roll.
As for the lack in the background stories, well the way it ended, I am sure that they were hoping to get a second season in. This hope was probably based on the graphics of the show.
The problem with Hideoyoshi’s game, I think would have fixed itself. I mean it is a sports anime. They are going to go with what worked in the past, taking this new person/team and work them through slowly getting stronger. Like in Metal Fighter Miku, she isn’t the best to start out with, she has to learn slowly, and I think that Hideoyoshi was changing.
The show truly had its let downs, but I think that it was a pretty well done show. I hope that someday they will finish it out. I want to see Hideoyoshi vs. Gyuuma.