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YMMV / Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. Is he a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, a Cloudcuckoolander Genius Ditz or is it Obfuscating Stupidity and that only acts silly to let his enemies guard down in order to deal with them easier? This is best shown in episode 16, where he looks at the Hair Hunt recruit agency with a stern look, only to go back to his silliness. However, it turns out that he was looking for Gunkan and knew he would be there. Another example is in the defeat of Halekulani in the anime, when he avoids giving the defeated foe a straight answer, letting him come to his own conclusions instead.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: This can generally apply to the whole series in general. For those who do like the series in the west, there's Beauty, the heroine, who is well-liked in Japan, but mostly hated in the west for being the resident Damsel Scrappy throughout. For the sequel manga, Shinsetsu Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, there's Namero Yononaka, who eventually becomes the new emperor for The Empire of the series; he's the most popular of the three new protagonists of the manga (making 9th place in the last Japan popularity contest; the other two came in 11th and 20th respectively) but his nihilism, narcissism, and lack of humor make him despised among the sequel's small western fanbase.
  • Awesome Ego: Don Patch. Always claiming to be the main character on the show, always the most voted in official character popularity polls. His sheer ego empowers him to do amazing feats such as pummeling powerful enemies in a single flurry of punches, injecting stupidity into his enemies to make them dumb, and becoming a golden warrior that's even more ridiculously powerful.
  • Awesome Music:
    • Both theme songs of course, "Wild Challenger" and "Baka Survivor" , are incredibly catchy and fit the madcap tone of the series.
    • Terrifying Margarita Empire, the Leitmotif of the Chrome Dome Empire, is a legitimately threatening and sinister piece. Coming of the Hair Hunters a more electric take on the theme isn't too shabby either as a battle theme.
    • Both parts of Beautiful Japanese Me have the perfect air if a film noir movie completely in earnest. One part mystery, one part tragedy.
  • Awesomeness Withdrawal: Quite a few fans in the West felt cheated when the anime version had to be cut short.
  • Better on DVD:
    • Despite the fact that the S'more Entertainment box sets completely lack any subtitles whatsoever making watching the Japanese version a pain, they do have all the episodes completely uncut in English with all of the scenes that were either cut for being too risqué or time constraints on Toonami intact.
    • The Blu-ray released by Discotek Media FINALLY includes a Japanese version with, and paraphrasing the box now, over 40,109 subtitles! Though because of the shows nature the onscreen text is not translated.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The entire series is like this, but one incident stands out: during the fight in Z-block base, Beauty suddenly snapped and started going along with the series insanity, scaring the crap out of Heppokomaru. Eventually, when Bo-bobo and Don Patch finally got back into the screen, she went back to normal. This was never mentioned again, nor did it ever happen again.
  • Catharsis Factor: Giga had been tormenting and taunting Bobobo and co. ever since they arrived in Cyber City and turning Heppokomaru into a statue in front of their eyes with fiendish glee. It is immensely satisfying to see Bobobo finally defeat him and utterly destroy his insufferable personality of being unbeatable on top of it.
  • Crack Pairing:
    • Softon and Torpedo Girl even more crack with her Gender Bender transformation to the obviously masculine and not romantically interest OVER.
    • Both bombs and ice cream know a thing or two about how to make a Fat Man.
  • Crossing the Line Twice: Bobobo's extreme physical abuse towards his allies, especially when it's unprovoked would be absolutely horrendous to watch....if it weren't so exaggerated to the point of absurdity and the fact that most of them are self-absorbed jerks makes it funnier anyway when their egos are shattered when they're the butt of the Black Comedy.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Pickle, who appears in the first chapter and is not fondly liked by Bo-bobo. He topped a Supporting Characters character poll.
    • And in Shinsetsu, we have Namero and Pokomi, the former an eternally stoic Deadpan Snarker who eventually becomes the newest emperor of the Neo Maruhage Empire, the latter being a lolita-bait, bubbly magical girl and Heppokomaru's younger sister.
    • Rice. He's in about four episodes, and yet is insanely popular in the fandom.
    • We also have Tokoro Tennosuke. Originally appeared once in the beginning for a joke, but was liked so much he become a Breakout Character and an Arc Villain, then pulled a Heel–Face Turn and became one of the show's main trio.
    • Gunkan, despite being shafted after his defeat, he's very much significant in the anime as he's promoted into more significance into Greater-Scope Villain categories with his presence more apparent, added to the first opening's character roster and even the Big Bad of the PS2 video game. Being voiced by Ryūzaburō Ōtomo/Paul St. Peter helps.
    • J, despite being a member of the Arc Villain Giga's Quirky Mini Boss Squad, is very popular for being a less malevolent Noble Demon that's both genuinely polite and respectful in a group of very dirty fighters with colossal egos, an Evil Counterpart to Soften that proves to be a Worthy Opponent to aid him in a power-up for a future battle, and a legitimate singular threat that required a fusion. The fact that he was involved in the infamous Denbo fight definitely helped matters.
    • Denbo in spite of only two notable appearances, is very popular for fans, easily the most popular next to Bobo-Patch for several reasons. A Magical Girl Ms. Fanservice with a distinct personality outside of being one-note like the others and being technically one of the few Action Girl fighters on the good side. It got to the point that she had an Identical Stranger in Bububu just so that the design of the character could be utilized more in an arc.
    • Bobo-Patch, the original one, having a single appearance, is very popular for being a reserved type hero compared to his wackier components, having Bishōnen looks and a an appropriately serious personality. Bobobo and Don Patch have tried again and again to achieve this form again and again, with varied result.
    • OVER and by extension Torpedo Girl are by far the most popular of the Big 4, with the former coming in at 13th at the last popularity pole and Torpedo Girl coming at 12th in the first popularity pole as well as the character ranked 2nd for characters to make an additional appearances poll. The latter is an legitimate female combatant with a unique personality that could bounce the characters' silliness while adding her own brand of comedy. The former is a very awesome villainous figure with a unique fighting style whose gradually angered seriousness bounces off the odd characters very well plus his hatred towards Jelly Jiggler is a major source of morbid comedy. It increased further when he was unintentionally forced into an reluctant alliance situation agains the Third.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • In certain circles of the fandom, Don Patch is usually called "Patchan", which is a shortening of Patch-chan.
    • Due to Porusutoroi's tongue-twist-tacular name, fans sometimes call him "Porufgsfds" for the lulz.
  • Franchise Original Sin: Several elements that led to Bobobo's Sequelitis moments in Shinsetsu were already found in the original series, starting with the OVER arc, as well as the Halekulani and Giga Arcs to a lesser extent.
    • The Terrible Trio type fights began with the Three Civilizations, being an unique idea at the time as fights were mostly one on one, allowing for teamwork and the Civilizations were already sharing a similar theme. The Three Brothers of the next arc shared a similar theme as did Sonic's group as it was a Once per Episode type situation for each arc. It only became noticeable during the 100 Years Ago Hair Hunter Troop arc when almost every fight was a three on three match, leading to a tired premise, even by the time the Time Skip approached.
    • The Easily Forgiven nature of the series towards its enemies, it was excusable in the beginning Jelly Jiggler, Dengakuman and Soften were Affably Evil at worst, not really doing anything too heinous on screen. With OVER/Torpedo Girl, it was harder to justify as they were either a Sadist or an obnoxious Smug Super that personally caused suffering to those whom Bobobo cared about- it made less sense, but it allowed a potential new ally to fight enemies, much like with Halekulani later on, even though he was a Bad Boss with a tendency to Kick the Dog. It only really became an issue when Bobobo spared Czar Baldy Bald the III, a Knight of Cerebus Misanthrope Supreme who did everything to kill his friends and eat him, as as well as being a known enemy to Bobobo's heritage. Rather expectedly, III was not one to take the lesson of loving humanity to heart to be good, unlike other enemies, deciding to use Bobobo's mercy to start up more trouble and starting up the Time Skip fight dilemma, making Bobobo's decision idiotic even by the show's standards.
    • OVER's One-Winged Angel being Torpedo Girl, subverting the usual conventions as expected of one would expect a villain's transformation to be, odd and silly rather than even more terrifying. It worked with Torpedo Girl as she ultimately had her own gimmick of being a hypocritical No-Nonsense Nemesis with her own quirks outside of the fact she was a torpedo and that it was so out of left field that a serious, dangerous and violent man like OVER would end up having a transformation that it was humorous in its own right, providing the perfect Mood Whiplash punchline to the tense situation and she being a Not-So-Harmless Villain anyway, ending up being a popular character in her own right. Dark Yasha and Shiryuen Kamara would follow suit with their own wacky transformations, but lacked the character depth outside of it being a wacky contrast to their serious self, lacking the original charm of the first subversion.
    • The Mood Whiplash between the heroes' silliness and the villains' seriousness began with OVER. It worked with him as it was very good comedic timing between OVER's patient Tranquil Fury and the group's antics, leading into the moment that OVER turned out to be Not So Above It All as the very odd Torpedo Girl. It was initially seen as a refresher from the Bunny-Ears Lawyer and Harmless Villain Arc Villain Big Bad that the series started out with, with Geha the Gale, Battleship/Gunkan, Jelly Jiggler, Dengakuman and Rice. The issues with this change, really began to show themselves as Halekulani, Giga, Czar Baldy Bald the III, Hydrate and Bibibi, who were more traditionally serious villains showed increasing Knight of Cerebus traits with few to no quirks to bounce off the heroes, ending with killing the heroes temporally at one point. It bled into Shinsetsu, which caused Bobobo and the others' attempts to be funny in the face of serious situations like Heppokomaru and Namero's Face–Heel Turn being extremely naively tone-deaf at best and insulting at worse from a narrative standpoint.
    • Bobobo's intentional use of Unfriendly Fire, it had always been there from the start, but the more intense violence towards allies were usually sporadic, with Bobobo being somewhat more cordial and less likely to harm allies that weren't Beauty. It's only during the OVER fight that it really started to become the Running Gag of the series with each arc getting Serial Escalation in how Bobobo would use one as a Human Shield or other kinds of abuse. It's one of the several reasons why the original anime was cancelled due to the excessive violence.
  • Fridge Brilliance: While mostly a weird series that often doesn't make sense, some of the weirdness does have some inherent logic surprisingly enough.
    • Bibibi also possesses the Fist of the Hair Hunt in conjunction with his Fist of the Head Hair. To be able to manipulate the hairs on one's head, it also would mean one would have to have to cut it off before gets unmanageable.
    • It also makes sense while outside of H-Block, there's never a nod to the hypocrisy of several of the prominent Hair Hunt Troop commanders possessing hair, often to extreme Anime Hair extents, if you know Bibibi is the real one in charge, and not the assumed Big Bad whom would be called out on this normally.
      • It also makes sense that the IV is not the Big Bad from his actions retrospectively. In an organization in that normally Rank Scales with Asskicking, his decisions to rely on others hints that he's aware he's a figurehead to hide the real and more powerful Big Bad.
  • Game-Breaker: In the GBA game, Jelly Jiggler's Magical Blade of the Radish is so overpowered that it is more or less a guaranteed One-Hit Kill to every single enemy of the game including its bosses, because of this, it is rather common to see many walkthroughs use this as a Cheese Strategy rather than use anything else.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • Spain absolutely loved the series, possibly as much as Japan itself did. Two different dubs were made there, Spanish and Galician, and the former is commonly described as one of the best adaptations ever made in the country. The charisma of the anime itself, the presence of both gleeful hamminess and surprising professionality in the voice acting, and on top of everything, the brilliant translation of the original language puns (along with the more ethereal fact that you could tell the dubbers had the blast of their lives while doing the work) turned the series into such a hilarity that even today it is considered some of the best Japanese stuff ever come to Spain.
    • The UK has its love for the show as well, with it being described as a Monty Python-esque anime, due to how it appeals to the same bizarre mindset within British humor.
  • Growing the Beard: While the show always tried to blend Shounen and Surreal Humor from the very start, the initial episodes are often regarded as very slow to get through and often distract the main plot with bizarre side-plots that slow down the action at key moments. Once the OVER arc begins, the action and comedy finally mesh together into a better mix, with much quicker paced comedy, which integrate into the main story and action, leading to several imaginative and crazy fights against legitimately dangerous enemies and continue to escalate the insanity from that moment onwards.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The heart decorations on Beauty's clothing becomes hard to watch, when her English voice actress Philece Sampler died of a fatal heart attack in 2021.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: In an EXTREMELY BIZARRE sense as is the shows typical nature, BoBoBo defeats the series first Hair Hunt Captain Hagen of G-Block with his older sister BuBuBu-Bu Bu-BuBu's Hair Fist The Fist of Armpit Hair.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In the last episode of the anime, one of Don Patch’s dub lines “How about a spin-off series starring me?” becomes especially funny considering that he would later get 2 spin-off manga series (Fuwari! Don Patch and Honnori! Don Patch) in 2012 and 2014 respectively, 7 years after the anime ended.
  • LGBT Fanbase: The series has characters including the main character, who interchangeably take on gender identities with the act being not being shammed and the ridiculousness of the situation being the focus. One character, Torpedo Girl/OVER is technically a transgender character.
  • Love to Hate: Giga is easily one of the despicable major villains in the series, with his insufferably smug personality with no respect to even his superior, personally turning Heppokomaru into a clay statue on live television and constantly mocks and insults Bobobo and co. at every moment of their fight. It's due to these traits and his eerie powers that he's considered one of the best villains in what many consider one of the well-received arcs in the series.
  • Narm Charm: A lot of the scenes make no sense and would be corny in any other series, but they're so over the top that they're enjoyable regardless within the context of the show due to sheer Surreal Humor and World of Ham to back it up.
    • Tokoro Tennosuke/Jelly Jiggler's backstory is being a fired food product that didn't sell. In spite of this, it manages to be one of the series' few genuine Tear Jerker moments that is not set up to be Played for Laughs.
    • Torpedo Girl being the One-Winged Angel for OVER should be the most inane thing ever if it was taken seriously in-universe, but it manages to be one of the funniest moments due to how it's regard as Narm in-universe given how everyone reacts.
  • Sequelitis: Many fans on both sides of the pond find Shinsetsu Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo to have this for various reasons. Sadly, this plays out when Sawai was forced to end the manga after 73 chapters due to demand from Shonen Jump's staff and loss of interest from fans in general.
  • Superlative Dubbing: The English dub is considerably better because it has many more laughs than the original without alienating sub fans.
  • Tear Jerker: Despite its comedy, there are some genuinely sad scenes, especially involving the villains. Even some of the comedy segments have sad moments.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Gunkan was a fellow Nosehair user and promoted as a major character in the first opening, yet is shafted after his arc
    • Same for Purupu, despite being built up as one of the four Arc Villain top leaders, he's unceremoniously defeated by Don Patch and unlike Gunkan plays no significant role afterwards.
    • Most of the main villains except The Third, OVER and Halekulani get little prominence after their defeat.
    • Bababa Ba-ba Bababa, not the king of the nosehair, but the eldest brother of the Five Hair Kingdom siblings, who controls the Fist of the Chest Hair, and the most mysterious of the quintet. In spite of playing a very big role in Bobobo's past and even have interaction with Bibibi with the implications that they shared control of the Neo Hair Kingdom, he doesn't appear in person, leaving his appearance, powers and actual personality outside of Don Patch mistaking an enemy for him, a mystery, leaving Bibibi as the singular threat. This gets worse as Hatenko makes a declaration to stop him and go to where he is on the moon, leading to a potential opportunity to finally show him. Instead, this remains unresolved as to whether he was dealt with offscreen or ignored in favor of stopping Czar Baldy Bald the III's reign.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In the manga, Bobobo summons Yami Yugi/Atem in order to summon Osiris/Slifer in order to defeat Halekulani's game board technique, it one of the manga's most iconic unpredictable moments. Instead, the anime has Bobobo utilizing a copy of Halekulani's phoenix made of money in order to defeat his game board technique, lacking the impact of the former.
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • The Woobie:
    • Tokoro Tennosuke gets the worst treatment of the group and little to no respect for anything he does for them
    • Gunkan and Rem suffer hardships from Hard Work Hardly Works and Abusive Parents respectively.
  • Woolseyism: Much of the humor is untranslatable and based off Japanese pop culture, so most dubs basically rewrote the whole script to their liking. The English dub even poked a bit of fun at that fact.
    Bo-bobo: "I'm trying really hard to fill out this entry form — Buuuuut IT'S IN JAPANESE!!"

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