BUDDY DADDIES

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MUSIC FantasySHOCK!

REVIEWS

• 

  Mcsuper

  72/100
  A Wholesome Story Mixed With Some Darkness

  I know, the first thing anyone brings up when talking about Buddy Daddies is that it’s like Spy X Family, and while I get that sentiment, there are quite a few fundamental differences between the two. If you value more slice of life, over the top comedy, Spy X Family will be more of the anime for you. If you value more of a focus on child-rearing, Buddy Daddies may the anime for you. Buddy Daddies does have its share of plot development, which was a common complaint for Spy X Family, but I can’t say that the plot development was particularly ground-breaking or well done overall, but it did nail some of the emotional moments nicely.

  To provide a gist of the story, four year old Miri Unasaka wanders through modern day Japan one day looking for her father, and ends up smack dab in the middle of an assassination plot that goes wrong, and ends up being taken in by the two assassins, Kazuki Kurusu and Rei Suwa. This newfound task of balancing taking care of a child while continuing on their jobs as assassins is understandably difficult, but they make it work, and raise Miri well. Needless to say, they work in a dangerous environment, and the moral ambiguity of keeping Miri around even when she would be increased danger was an effective theme that was explored as well. The effort at a meaningful plot was there, but I think the season was too short get through all the conflict that was explored.

  The main thing I did appreciate about this show was that it’s decently realistic, especially with Miri just being a normal little kid. Yes, she was a little annoying at the start, but many kids are loud and obnoxious when they’re little, and Miri portrays a semi-realistic little kid. Kazuki and Rei also slowly grow into their father roles, and I did enjoy the slower development for them in terms of taking care of a child. They started out lazy and not wanting to take care of Miri, but little by little they come around to love her, and likely would willingly lay down their life for her. The cast definitely grew on me as it went along, which made the increased stakes near the end of the show more effectively executed due to that. I genuinely felt worried for them at times.

  There’s a good mixture of themes at play here, as there’s a balance between comedy, action, slice of life, and a bit of suspense as well. The strongest themes to me were probably the slice of life comedy aspect, as the moments where Kazuki, Rei, and Miri just hang out together were quite wholesome, but the underlying assassin plot did play its role as well, and while it got a little darker than I expected, the villains weren’t all that great, as their motives aren’t all that interesting.

  Production for this show was alright, with some decent animation and direction overall. The sound direction was a little weird at times, as some of the action scenes, especially at the beginning, had very goofy music that didn’t really fit the tense atmosphere, but it got better with time. OP and ED are also quite good.

  Overall, a relatively enjoyable series with its ups and downs story-wise, but I still had a good time with it. If you’re looking for a wholesome comedic series, you’ll get that, but if you’re also looking for some action and emotion mixed in, it’ll deliver as well. It’s not anything insanely special or ground-breaking, but it’s something I’d recommend for sure.

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• 

  emmerlad

  25/100
  Fumbling the walk on the razor thin line in between cute and annoying child characters.

  The gap in between a child character turning from cute to annoying is ABSOLUTELY tiny. No other show personifies this better than Buddy Daddies. With one of the most obnoxious characters I have ever had the displeasure of watching.

  Buddy Daddies starts off with a criminal contractor Kazuki and a professional assassin Rei finding a child called Miri while doing an operation. They end up saving her during the operation which forces them to take care of her until they can find her mother.

  Now Miri definitely crosses the line and is horribly annoying. She is loud, incompetent and very obnoxious. Compared to Spy x Family (this is the most direct comparison, so get ready for a lot more SxF comparisons), Anya is also very incompetent and childish, but to a lesser degree which makes her actually funny. She even sometimes crosses the line and becomes annoying as well, which proves how razor thin this line is.
  As opposed to Miri, Anya understands her parent’s jobs and tries to help them by formulating absolutely ridiculous plans which obviously won’t work for shit. Miri on the other hand just watches her “parents” straight up murder people and does not question it even slightly and keeps walking into their operations, thus “ruining” them (Rei just shoots them, so not really). She genuinely feels like ChatGPT tried to be a human, eerily human, but lacking sentience.

  Rei and Kazuki also lack the comedic aspect of Loid and Yor, both fully know each other’s jobs and in fact co-operate all of the time, which removes the entire aspect of each other panicking after doing something that could spoil their cover.
  They are also very incompetent, especially Kazuki and ESPECIALLY when it comes to parenting. Whenever Kazuki is around Miri he somehow manages to match the annoying nature and becomes a parent who lacks the ability to look after her in every possible way and just enables her annoying nature.
  Rei just never talks, so he’s fine. Which is cheap as fuck to say someone is fine when the character speaks in 1-liners all of the time. Kazuki is fine as well, whenever he is not around Miri.

  To say the ending is rushed is an understatement. With the show reducing its episode count from 13 to 12 the ending had some major cuts made to it in order to restore the status quo in between Miri, Kazuki and Rei so they could possibly push out another season of this garbage. Certain plot lines were extremely abruptly ended to also fill the episode count.

  Speaking of Spy x Family comparisons, these shows are so similar, Buddy Daddies could just be called a cash-grab clone of Spy x Family, but is entirely lacking in the comedy, charm and actual character writing departments. Instead of making money from anime by creating a wonderful show with good characters and story, just copy another good show and hope your’s makes a profit.

  Overall this show’s character and story writing is absolutely abhorrent. The animation is pleasant, but that doesn’t change the fact that every time Miri or Kazuki appears on screen I want to shoot myself due to their combined wave length designed to annoy me. At least this show still contains a few moments that do not make it completely irredeemable.

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• 

  Jamiebreeze

  75/100
  The Story of Two Killers and a Girl , and how what was seen as a "copy" became better than the "original".

  -This review will contain plenty of spoilers, so either go to the last part for the TLDR, or if you just want a quick opinion, then mine is that this show is worth a watch. Agree to disagree but for me, this show is better than Spy x Family. Hell, if you did enjoy Spy x Family, you more than likely will enjoy this one.

  -I shit on Spy x Family so much that you may even think this is a review for it. I can't apologize , so just a heads up. I am going to be comparing them a lot.

  -When watching this show you may have to apply suspension of disbelief towards some of the stuff that happens like: avoiding bullets with a tray, or dodging a shit ton of bullets coming from both front and back, all while running and carrying both a toddler and a grown ass man.

  ---

  __If someone asks you what the plot of Buddy Daddies is, show them this.__

  ---

  The sole reason I wanted to watch this, is because I knew I hated Spy x Family, but I liked the concept it had. I wanted two not so good people, to for some reason have to raise a kid on their own, and to watch them struggle while doing so. Why? because it is fun to watch people try to do things they've never done before and Buddy Daddies felt like a second chance to have that, after having my fantasies ruined by the boring sitcom that was Spy Family (the X is a pain, I'm gonna remove it from here on out). Before the show even aired, there were a lot of people everywhere saying it was just the gay version of Spy Family, a cheap copy, just another way to make money after something that was successful. Boy, were people wrong. I cannot deny Spy Family being an inspiration to this show, I am not in the production commitee after all, but it is very obvious when a show has been given love. If this was simply a copy made in hopes to rake in the money by following the footsteps of the Forgers, you would be able to tell. There was a good amount of love put into this. I can tell they tried to tell their story the best they could with the resources they had. It is a story about two men, who either lost love or didn't know it, who got a second chance to start over after meeting a tiny girl.

  The main reasons I enjoyed Buddy Daddies, is because the characters feel like real people, things actually happen, the comedy is pretty good, and because the amount of BS was minimum. Spy Family issues for me were many, among them: NOTHING ever happening, no repercussions for people's actions, hollow and cheap war speeches whilst never showing me how the war was affecting their world (the only reason I can think of it sucking is cuz they are in like the late 50's or early 60's mind you, not because of the show particularly showing anything for its claims. Want an actual good speech about war and to see how war affects a whole country? Gintama, a fucking gag manga written by a Gorilla did it better.) It is boring, dull, and majority of characters are just walking tropes. Not even good ones mind you. That grey haired woman was an even worse Mikasa. How the fuck can you be worse than the worst? and Anya is just a fanservice character (fanservice isn't always titties and nipple-less sculpted male torsos. I know, amazing.) All of this added up for a very dissapointing watch after episode 1. Feels good anime doesn't have to equal mediocrity. You can't just slap three people smiling on screen and call it a day. In contrast to this, in Buddy Daddies a lot of what I hated in Spy Family was unexistent. Things happened, characters were for the most part fleshed out, people faced repercussions for their actions and we got to see the consequences of Kazuki and Rei's job, being hitmen. There are no speeches about war, just two dudes trying to take care of a little girl, and facing ordinary real life struggles, like having your partner not help with chores, and dealing with annoying paperwork. I was very happy to get to watch an episode of this every Friday, and even looked forward to it. I would love for this show to have more episodes. It feels like they needed either more time, or better direction to make the story flow a bit better.

  I very much enjoyed from episodes 1 to 10 , but in episode 11 I think it is when I felt things were being rushed, hence my reasoning for why I think more episodes would have helped. Miri's mom, Misaki, is one of the key parts of this story. She is very important. Unlike many people, I cannot dislike her. To me, she always felt like an abused woman, and even after her speech on why she hated Miri, I just couldn't hate her, I pitied her. She was neither right nor wrong. Did she want to have Miri? Was she assaulted and Miri was the result? did she have her at a time in her life when she was not in a good mindset to raise a child? I don't think it is ever really confirmed, but that information would have helped so much to see where she was coming from. Misaki was a character that the staff could have done a lot with, and it feels like they honest to god gave up on her. Her coming back for her daughter in episode 10 didn't feel odd, what did was her crying about not being a good mom for her and cooking and caring for Miri in episode 11. I don't think a show has to spoon feed you on a character's growth, but this is a woman who when we last saw her, was dating a jackass and who looked very miserable and heartbroken over being a mother, even saying that her "dreams were ruined". It would have made more sense if we had seen her at least make a change while on screen way earlier, not to just say she had cancer, and then kill her off two episodes before the finale. There was so much wasted potential for her character, truly a pity. As a result, when she passed away I didn't feel much for her. What I did feel was a sort of sadness for Kazuki, who once again was seeing a woman dying in front of him, and because of him, in a way.

  The cast of characters is not very big, which is fine to me, but I wish we had more time with side characters like Miri's teacher Anna or Kyutaro. They seemed likeable and interesting enough. This is not to say that our main people are bad, because honestly the main joy for me in this show were both the dads, Kazuki and Rei. On the poster, I thought Kazuki would be that good guy with the doormat personality who was a complete airhead, and that Rei would be the dominant personality who would solve everything. I didn't completely guess. Kazuki does have some clumsiness but he also seems to be the one in charge, while simultaneously being a total drama king and very naughty, like when he was flirting with the casino prostitutes early on. Rei surprised me by being a sweaty gamer who had no real life social skills, and being the actual airhead of the two. It is a very nice feeling, when the cliche you expect, turns out to be something completely different. Both of them were able to have character growth and it was done very subtly with each episode. It was fun watching them cry and yell at simple things like sewing or having to play with a baby, to then see them slowly but surely catch on to what they needed to do. Small actions like Rei wanting to cook for Miri, or finally helping Kazuki out with both Miri or the house brought a smile to my face. Seeing the character change while on screen feels rewarding, but so is seeing two people, Rei and Kazuki, who have probably never known what a family is, to be experiencing it for the very first time. Miri saved part of their soul. They did things after meeting her that they would never have done otherwise. Kazuki let go of his grieving to try to achieve normal happiness. He was afraid of change, of "being fullfilled by something else", in this case his newfound family consisting of both Rei and Miri, after the heartbreak that he went through of losing his girlfriend and unborn child. In regards to Rei, he as he says, was like a statue. Not truly living, never even trying. It was a very big win in my book to see him be, for the first time, the one to take charge and say, " I want to do this. I want to try, and we CAN do it." As the saying goes, "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strenght, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.", I think this can sum up Miri, Kazuki , and Rei's bond.

  All I will say in regards to the animation is that the quality of the artwork is nothing to write home about, average I guess, but sometimes the characters looked a bit too wonky for my taste. The opening and ending theme are both very nice and the music throughout the show isn't bad, minus Misaki's song. As for Kazuki and Rei's past actions, AKA, being mostly responsible for the deaths of Miri's parents, I think that their repentance and atonement was raising her. Them dying would have been too easy and would have also left me with a bad taste. It is funny, but almost all of the P.A. Works shows I've tried, I've dropped at the first episode. They feel lacking. This is one of the few that I think I will remember and for good reasons. Despite only having 12 episodes it gave me 3 characters who I love, and whose happiness I very much wished for. It made me laugh, it made me sad, it made me cry, and above all it gave me what I wanted and never got from Spy Family. Three people who in many ways, saved and helped eachother. No games, no stupid bravado, no hollow morality choices, and no dumb character tropes. Spy x Family could never. You can't pay me to watch another season of the boring Forgers.

  TLDR; Buddy Daddies is a story about two killers killing a girl's dad, and then raising her as their own daughter, and learning how hard parenthood is while also changing their ways, and it has a banger song as the opening theme. If you watch it I hope you have a fantastic time just like I did.

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  Their smiles survived. I am overjoyed.

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