Wow. It’s weird that I’m here right now. It’s strange that I am typing up a review with the tag up top [Final Impressions] Tribe Cool Crew is the only show besides World Trigger that I’ve been reviewing since day one, and seeing that World Trigger’s still going, this is the second to longest running series I reviewed. Still, this series has been here through Vanadis, Saenai no Heroine, Punch Line, and most recently Monster Musume. 50 episodes. But..I guess everything has to come to an end. It’s still a bit surreal after doing a whole year of this series that it’s finally over. I know this wasn’t the most popular show, I know it pissed me off a bunch of times over the past few months, but still, I HAVE been reviewing this show pretty much every week for a year. So yeah, it does have a special place with me. That being said, for those of you who have stuck with this show will me all these months, thank you. What do you say that we review this show one more time and then dance off into the sunset? Okay. Let’s do it.
So the episode picks up exactly where the last one left off with Jey having woken up from his coma due to the power of everyone’s funky dance moves (Yeah..yeah I ranted about that last episode). Everyone, including Gallagher (the bad guy) is shocked to see him up and about and even calls BS on the fact that he woke up due to the power of dance. Now that Jey’s awake everyone is like “Well, i guess the dance battle’s over” and Gallagher’s like “Nope! keep going.” So the robot goes first, but this time, everyone joins in, including Blossom Bullets and Jey himself. Yes. The guy who just woke out of a several year coma gets up and dances a bit. Because you know..that’s entirely possible. Whatever. I’m still reelling over the fact that he woke up due to the power of funky phresh moves in the first place.
So, even though the people in the audience have every reason to vote for the robot because that’s what their bosses that basically rule the world want, they can’t deny the phresh moves and vote for Tribe Cool Crew. Because..you know..that makes sense.
Gallagher actually admits defeat and says that he’ll clean up the mess he started.
Everyone is happy as the day is saved thanks to dancing and Jey presents Tribe Cool Crew with the final pin, which is given to Yuzuru as he’s the only one who hasn’t gotten to hold onto one yet. They leave, and we have ourselves a little time skip.
It’s a few months later and a few things have changed, first of all, Haneru’s a few inches taller, and Kanon’s…(cough) grown a bit too.
It’s also revealed that Kanon and Haneru are actually going out. Aw man. Why’d that gotta happen offscreen? We also see that Yuzuru and Momiji are off doing Tengu Batman stuff.
The group then gets together but Kumo reveals that Jey asked the group to go on tour with him, but only Mizuki and Kumo are going right now as Kanon and Haneru have to finish school, and Yuzuru is going to stay with Momiji for a while longer.
The series then ends with all of them dancing one more time as a group as after this, they know they have to go their separate ways.
Well, that’s it then. That’s the end of Tribe Cool crew. And for a final episode, I have to say, while filled with cheese, it’s pretty much around what I expected. It leaves you with a happy note. This is one of these series where not a single person dies and that’s good. Because it would feel very out of place in a show like this. The ending is a tad bittersweet knowing that for now they all have to go their separate ways, but you know that they’ll all be together again when the time is right.
I do like how it looks like Momiji and Yuzuru are pretty much a canon couple as I really DID like these two together seeing how adorable they were. I am a tad upset they didn’t pull out Yuzuru’s bishonen mode in the final dance though. It would have been nice to see them bring that back one more time as it was brought up in that tea episode and then never again.
To be perfectly honest, there was only a few ways this series could have ended and it definitely ended one of the better ways it could have. It was a safe ending, but like I’ve said about this show in the past, I never expected this show to change the world.
That being said, it’s time for the final score.
Head: Well, I mean, it’s a show about dancing. At times the plot got sidetracked quite a bit but it kept the idea of “Dance Road” being the central focus pretty well. Winning the tournament didn’t seem like it would be enough for our heroes to overcome, so I could see the necessity for the Crowd High Villain subplot. The episodes never really overstayed their welcome as I enjoyed learning about these characters.
Yes, the show tried to make dancing this epic thing, but I’ve come to realize that ever since Yugioh shows are going to have mundane things decide the fate of the world. So… I have to at least ATTEMPT to suspend my disbelief.
Most of the episodes were fun (Yeah most. Seriously, fuck you pickle episode..yes i’m still on that) and we learned something new about the characters. They DID try to make the cast a LITTLE too big at times though as you could tell from the opening theme song, and some got lost in the shuffle. All in all, fun idea, not a terrible execution.
6/10
Eye: Kind of like One Piece, the animation of this show grew on me. Starting out I thought it was a bit weird and some stuff was off, but after a while I got used to it and forgot about the weirdness of the way they looked. The only thing I would say was strange still was the turning them into CGI when they dance. That..I never really got used to that. It was so jarring and weird. I would have honestly loved to have seen them dance in 2d, but I guess that would have been a lot more money. I don’t know, it took away some of the magic when they turned it into CG and it took me out of the moment a lot of the time, so it loses some points for that.
Another big thing in this show was the music. For the first bunch of episodes they REALLY seemed to like repeating dance songs. Tribe Cool Crew must have used the same song for like… 20 episodes. It got old fast. Not only that, but 9 out of 10 times, the Crowd High songs were the same. I think the series could have definitely benefitted from some music variety. a lot of the songs sounded very bland and generic and didn’t make me want to dance at all.
Speaking of songs….holy crap. This series was 50 episodes long and they kept THE SAME OPENING THEME. They made a few tweaks here and there, but overall, they kept the same intro for 50 episodes. That’s just lazy. There should have at LEAST been 2 openings. Even World Trigger had two openings. If they really wanted to keep the song they could have at least had different visuals. Because one intro for 50 episodes is LAZY.
6/10
Heart: It’s hard to peg this show down for a heart score as this show feels weird. It’s hard to explain but when watching this show..it feels different than most animes you watch. A lot of the characters tend to feel distant even though you know so much about them. They’re genuine..but also elusive. Unless you’ve seen the show it’s very hard to explain this and I realize i’m not doing the best job here.
Some of the messages are REALLY shoved down your throat like “World Peace” and “Everyone should Dance”. The show is DEFINITELY preachy. Like, Captain Planet level of preachy. But if you’re not annoyed at the fact that they want to save the world by dancing, then you should be okay. A bunch of the characters are neat, I like Yuzuru and Momiji the best probably though. Mizuki’s..okay as is Kumo. Kanon can get a bit dull, but she’s sweet enough. The only one I really never liked is Haneru. He’s one of those spunky annoying Narutoish types who doesn’t take stuff seriously and thinks he’s right but the series acts like he’s always correct and blahdity blah. Eh. I never liked him.
I didn’t get a whole lot of squishy feelings from this show, but, for what it was, it was cute, and, I will say, after all the episodes I’ve seen, it’s going to be hard to remind myself that I no longer have to watch this show on Sundays. This show was like the crazy extended family member that you saw every once in a while and now that he’s gone, you realize you’re going to kind of miss him. So, I guess to the effect of its sheer length, the heart did something for me.
6/10
Final Score: Even 6/10
The show was okay. Better than average, but there were a lot of things that bogged it down. It could have been better if they inverted a few tropes, but the problem is, they played the series too safe in a lot of ways and didn’t go for anything other than status quo. And all in all, that’s the score it deserves. Slightly above status quo. It isn’t BAD by any means, but…it’s not going to win any awards for being fantastic either. Hell nobody really even KNOWS about this show and was by far my least viewed review series. That being said, i’d be lying if I didn’t say that looked forward to this show sometimes. So, to that end, I salute you Tribe Cool Crew. It may have taken us 50 episodes to get here, but we’re finally done.
It’s sort of sad, like saying goodbye to an old friend. But it’s time to move on and make new friends. However, I will say, It’s been fun Tribe Cool Crew. Okay fine, you can give me one of your cheesy CGI dancing screenshots one more time.
Ha..still weird.
-Hideki
Will you be reviewing Brave Beats?