Sunabouzu is at the same time obscene, cool, absurd, exhilarating, exasperating, outrageous and funny. It's a lot of contrasting things and while it lasts it's like a roller coaster ride.

Set in a desert in a post-apocalyptic world, this anime follows the adventures of a handyman (someone who will do anything for money) his followers and his enemies.

Animation

One could say Sunabouzu's animation suffers from a lack of details, another person could instead say that the lack of details is part of the animation style, one of the distinguishing traits of this anime. I think the second idea is more likely to be true: had the animation been any more detailed, the anime would have had a substantially different effect on the viewer and I'm not talking simply about finding it more or less beautiful; the animation style as it is now feels just right for this particular anime. However, the short of it is that the animation we have here is far from technically excellent, although most action scenes are done very, very well.

Sunabouzu aims at being a lot of fun and its animation is no exception. Most characters' appearance sometimes is enough to cause anything from giggles to peals of laughter, I bend in the manga's author's general direction. Gonzo's pencil monkeys captured perfectly the essence of every character and realized an excellent adaptation.

This anime is set mostly in the desert, indoor scenes are few, so the backgrounds are quite monotonous. If the characters and the action scenes didn't capture the eye so brilliantly, the animation would have been bad overall. On the other hand, the desert drawings are quite good and although this anime doesn't even try to make the desert as beautiful as it is in reality the final result is still pleasing. The monotony comes mostly from the lack of variety in the colors used — the ones that are actually used are not even that vivid — but this makes the action stand out more. In conclusion, I judge Sunabouzu's animation as quite good overall.

Often, drawings lifted straight from the manga are used, to great effect.

Sound

The soundtrack is totally forgettable and sound effects are rarely realistic enough, although appropriate. The reason of my high rating is simple: once again I have the pleasure to say that most of the Japanese dubbers who worked on this anime are geniuses. Half of the fun is listening to their voices!

Story

Sunabouzu is a great comedy packed with incredibly funny scenes, but its story certainly isn't particularly appealing. It's a matter of where the focus is, really. This anime is divided for most of its length in short 1- or 2-eps stories and the stories themselves mostly rely on the comedy. The last story is instead several episodes long and, I must say, quite well made: it's studied to delve as much as possible into the characters' souls, conclude their development and close the anime in a satisfying and funny way. It achieves all of its objectives.

Characters

Sunabouzu chronicles Kanta's adventures. Kanta, called Sunabouzu, a handyman who does anything for money, is hateful, a real pig (hehe go Kanta go!) and his morals stink, but he's also very intelligent and skilled. He's such an incredible character, any attempt to describe him is doomed to fail and I have to ask the reader to have faith in me and believe that Kanta by himself would be enough for a couple of 26-eps series. Thankfully, Kanta isn't, after all, the only awesome character there is in this anime, which has one of the best casts ever. For a silly comedy, there's also quite a lot of character development and even those who don't evolve at all are still well fleshed out.

Personal judgment

I had a lot of fun, although now and then I found some parts tasteless and crude. The story seemed to beat around the bush a lot, too. During the second half of the anime I really started enjoying it, though, and had to change my mind; I understood Sunabouzu is, in his own particular way, special and I simply needed to adapt.

Overall

Sunabouzu isn't a must see, but it's still a great comedy, intelligent in a silly way and very funny. I think it's a good example of what's good about anime.