First episode was really cool and fun, but I found this episode to be…okay. It definitely went down a notch on the excitement, instead focusing on trying to develop the characters and their relationship with each other, and eye candy. Which I’ll get to in a bit.
Heath has officially become my fave btw, and it’s not because Daisuke Ono is voicing him. Again, I’ll get to that in a bit.
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On the outside, Takeru doesn’t seem to be much of a team player. He and Riku aren’t doing well. In their practices they try to achieve the same Relationing from the school’s practice race last episode, but it was starting to look like a fluke because Takeru and Riku are having a lot of trouble. Some of the mistakes come from Nana’s timing, but it also comes from lack of communication and, for one person, effort. The communication problem being from Takeru. I know he doesn’t talk much, but if you want things to go well, or you want Riku to open his eyes and his potential, at least voice it out. Don’t just run off on your own like Mr. Cool Guy. In a way, that is uncooperative. So Mr. Dan, who’s a weirdo, tells the boys they should relation with the other guys and observe. And Takeru blows the other in the dust because he’s too damn fast.
Ohh, Megane Haru, why are you like this? But serious question, why is he like this? Riku compares Takeru’s obsession with stride to his brother’s, Tomoe. Funny that they’re brothers because they look nothing alike. Maybe Riku’s hair is dyed. Anyway, Takeru’s affinity for stride goes beyond “love” and more like it’s his life. We don’t really know much of anything about this guy. We saw how eager he was to start the Stride Club last episode so we know he cares. A lot. I’m interested to know more about him because right now he’s a little meh for me.
And the other problem I mentioned, lack of effort coming from Riku. We know he stopped doing stride in middle school, and he got all uncomfortable when his brother was mentioned. His brother being the best in stride. He’s studying abroad in the States right now so I don’t know when we’ll see him. Of course, I’m also interested to know more about Riku, which in turn we’ll know more about Tomoe, his brother. Like why he stopped doing stride and why it’s an awkward subject for Riku. Because something happened in the past, he’s not putting as much effort into this club, but in the end he did and he and Takeru were able to perfectly do the Relation like before.
Okay, to the main meat of this episode. Other than the dilemma with Riku and Takeru, the team now is going to be in an official race in a tournament that Mr. Dan signed them up for. Problem is, since these races are in the city and there’s a lot of costs the club can’t handle itself, they need a sponsor. The one they had before is sponsoring another school so the group needs to find another one. For awhile they don’t know who to go to, but then they mention a fashion company that’s owned by Heath’s sister as a last resort. Heath isn’t too keen on asking his sister, but they all go and she agrees. But in return, they have to win the race (of course), and…they have to model her clothes. And
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EYE CANDY
Of course we’d get eye candy. I’m gonna steal Charibo’s nickname and call Heath, Heat. Because goddamn he looked good. He’s a natural-born model, he was owning that shit. But he’s been doing this for awhile, since he was a kid, thanks to his sister. And this entire part was pointless honestly except to make us feel stuff and laugh, but…there it is. Also they showed Takeru in a suit, too, but idc about him. Don’t get mad at me fangirls. Also we got crossdressing.
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So next week will be their first race against another school, so let’s see how it’ll go. I feel like it won’t go great because these guys have just started out, while Saisei has been continually competing. Even so, let’s see what kind of crazy flips and wall jumps they’ll do next time.
Oh yeah, we also shortly met this guy.
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Junichi Suwabe’s character, because he’s always in these types of shows. With a bunch of *boyz*.
He’s the other guy that was part of the stride club too. What’s his deal? I don’t know, he just gave advice and left. Mr. Deep Man.
Takeru really is like a more intense Nanase Haruka; but instead of stripping and swimming away, Takeru dons a sports jersey and runs off into the horizon. I wonder what Kyoani would say about this. **coughcoughRIPOFFcoughcough** >_>
At least Free’s Nagisa never got forced to crossdress.
[spoiler] I think the game mentions Saisei’s an entertainment school. Their boys are idol singers.[/spoiler]
Also confirmed this series is 12 eps long.
Well there was that one time that Nagisa told the guys that his sisters used to tease him when he was younger and dressed him up in girl clothes with girly hairstyles, so there’s that. ^^;
They probably did take Haru in mind since the Prince of Stride game came out last summer. Hm hm…too much of a coincidence.
I agree, Heat is definitely hot . ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ✧
I can’t wait to see his muscles ( if only… I wish)
But I also like the violet guy from Sasei, he looks like a nice jerky prince and that’s nice. Plus, based on what we saw in the ending, he’s an idol right ? fufufufu, yeah, absolutely not my type at all ʕ ◔ᴥ◔ ʔ
A jerky prince-type of character who sings. Hmm…sounds exactly like someone who you liked in a show you reviewed last season. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I have no idea what you’re talking about ʕ ◔ᴥ◔ ʔ Like I said, I don’t like that type at all. Everybody knows that I prefer yandere characters with some abusive tendencies, they are the real deal
This episode definitely has ‘Otome Adaptation’ vibe oozing like crazy, or at least as crazy as it could be when compared to the first episode (which is almost none in my opinion). Considering I respected Madhouse for using different approach for this otome adaptation anime in the first episode and I expected to see more of it, this episode came out bland for me (I have no one else to blame except me and my expectation though). This episode is definitely full of eye-candy materials, sure, and even though the line-up’s nice, it straight up makes me bored with its overall execution. This is a pretty weak episode for me to be honest.
Dan-sensei introduction also baffled me as he seems to just pop out of nowhere and speak difficult vocabularies. Don’t get me wrong; I LOVE unique characters. But when they were slap-forced in the middle of a plot like that without any explanation and were not used as comedic relief, my brain is reeling and doing its self-defense mode: it recognizes them as a nuisance until proven otherwise. So yeah, not having really good impression for Dan-sensei right now.
I seriously hope episode 3 will get better execution.
Funny you say that because I felt NO otome vibes. Maybe because I don’t play otome games, but I know how they go because I watch shows based off of them. But when I think of otomes, I imagine all the boys coming up to the main girl and putting her in weird situations. In this episode, NANA WAS HARDLY IN THE EPISODE! The focus of this episode wasn’t really on her, it was on the boys, namely Riku and Takeru. The eye candy with the boys modeling…well yeah, that part felt pretty pointless except for the part where we met the rival school. I do agree that this episode was weaker.
Also yeah Mr. Dan just came out of nowhere. -___-;
Remember the scene with them modeling, where Nana complemented how cool Takeru is in a suit and Takeru went all tsundere, and then Riku asked Nana how he looked? That was the scene that caused me to think ‘wow yeah, an otome adaptation alright’. It’s not a loud scream to the heaven, but as there were NONE of otome adaptation vibe at all in the first episode and I was hyper aware to catch even a tiny glimpse of it in this episode, this little scene pretty much stood out for me.
Next, the Galaxy Standard ending song. For me it screams ‘pick your favorite (idol) boy/s here’, just like what you saw in some anime like Dance with Devils. While this anime doesn’t scream like our usual otome adaptation anime where ALL the boys fall for the main girl, it looks like it wants us the watchers to ‘pick our potion’. So in this anime, it’s us watchers who get to dream of the boys and Nana the main female character can go continue her Stride Club data analysis. I’m so not trading my place with you, Nana.