This is rather late to be talking about my favorite anime of the past year. But, ’tis better to be late than never. The more careful of my readers already know which 2014 anime excelled all others in action, comedy, and likable characters: Sabagebu! Sabagebu! stands as a five star comedy in a year which featured many good but few great shows. The only other great show which comes to my mind is Shingeki no Bahamut. 
The show fits in the genres of parody and black comedy. The parody targets 80’s action movies. (The Predator and Mad Max episodes are practically unforgettable.) But, it also poked fun at samurai dramas, as we see in the hunting episode. Amusingly, all the killing and death occurs in the protagonists imaginations–even though certain scenes make one wonder. (Just what happened to all those guys who went down in the helicopter sent to rescue Urara from the ladies’ room? Was there even a helicopter to begin with? Hard to tell sometimes.) The members of the series’ Survival club are all screwballs but inherently likable. Momoka, the blissfully sadistic psychopath of the group, stands out as the most fun to watch and original character of summer 2014.
Aren’t the anime girls with pink hair supposed to be nice?
Fun might be the key word to describe Sabagebu! One of the obvious goals of the show is to promote gun culture. The narrator details certain points of Japanese weapons laws and effectively gives step by step instructions about how to obtain a hunting license. But overall, the show causes one’s sides to split with laughter or engrosses one in intense action sequences. These things hammer home the idea that recreational shooting offers participants a great time. In particular, the finale of Sabagebu! ranks higher than most other shows’ endings from that year. It absolutely owns Aldnoah.Zero‘s for example. 
At any rate, you feel my enthusiasm for the show. Every fan of black comedies (Others will find the humor atrocious.) and girls with guns ought to watch it. 
Medieval Otaku 
This was definitely a great show for me (though I should’ve mentioned it as an honorable mention tsk tsk since I didn’t feel like putting it in the top 10). I agree that Momoka was a fresh character, as she didn’t seem to belong to the usual archetypes.
It’s funny how Sabagebu! was based on a shoujo manga, and there were a lot of differences (character personality shifts, tonal change, etc) between the anime and manga, as pointed out in Ogiue Maniax: https://ogiuemaniax.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/survival-game-club-anime-vs-manga/
And I am thankful that they made those changes, because the series deviated from the usual/normal \cute girls doing cute things\ thing. It wasn’t a simple subversion though, because it actually worked–the series was far more interesting than what I think it could’ve been if it was faithful to the manga.
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I had no idea that the anime and manga differ so much in tone. The Momoka of the manga seems like much more what one would expect for a shoujo protagonist compared to the anime character, and I am happy that they changed that. Thanks for linking to that article!
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Same here. I thought all along that it was based on a shounen/seinen manga, since the character designs appealed more to the male audience. Woops.
You’re welcome!
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Interesting…I think I dropped this one after the second episode, if indeed I did watch it that is. To be honest little about this sounds familiar to me, so I don’t remember it with much accuracy… :-\
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Quite a few people did drop it fairly quickly, but I think that has to do with the humor not being their cup of tea. I have a taste for black comedy and loved the Looney Tunes-like feel of some of the gags. Basically, Sabagebu is one of those shows one absolutely loves or hates.
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Like I say, even after re-reading the synopsis and your post I still don’t remember clearly enough if I did watch it, which suggests it didn’t leave much of an impression on me if it did. :-\
Or maybe I was just tired after all the “high school club” anime that appeared like a plague. If I recall, one season last year had a whole slew of title all largely concerned that theme, with shows like D-Frag and one with chocolate in the title…
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I do remember what you mean. There were loads of shows last year with a high school club at the center of the action. In particular, I think that anime about a girls’ paintball club came out a season or two before Sabagebu. So, you might have been jaded with the idea at the time. But, Sabagebu is absolutely hilarious, watching episode one would probably suffice for you to decide whether you wanted to watch it.
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I have started watching this based on your recommendation and I think it is very funny. The OTT action and movie references are my cup of tea plus the cast are all hilariously into their hobby.
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I’m glad that my article convinced you to give it a shot! I think Sabagebu! was the funniest show to come out last year, though it received stiff competition from Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun.
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