Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm

So she took a blow to her ego. If that's enough to make her drop the sport, maybe she just wasn't cut out for it.

Yeah, the "I have sealed this technique!" thing just made pause the episode so I could laugh properly. That was such a chuuni thing to say.

When did Satouin get knocked out? I missed that part.

Madoka really has her moments. I like her.

Otherwise, yeah, I agree. Sealing a tactic to save the sport? Come on. If a tactic is detrimental to the sport, it would probably be banned by the rules. It's why you have defensive clocks, offside, disqualifications, and stuff like that. Cheesy tactics that make any sport into a meta game removed from what it's actually supposed to be about are usually quickly patched.

Asuka is definitely the best character in that regard.

Misaki I'm going to hold off on judging. She wasn't really all that enthusiastic to begin with, and she's a bit of a lazy person, to put it mildly. Her reaction is entirely within her established character. Calling it whining is just making demands about how she should act from an outside perspective. I find it resonating to how some people find certain games very frustrating because of failures and difficulties, but when they stop and think about it, those are the parts they actually like about the games. Misaki certainly finds her situation frustrating, and has trouble dealing with it. The only real answer she has to come up with is what makes her happier.

Satouin was knocked out by Asuka two episodes back, right?

I agree about Misaki: she thought she'd done fairly well against Kazunari, only to find he never took her seriously enough to pull out all the stops, then he showed his true power in his battle against Shindo and then he himself was powerless against Inui. In other words, whereas before the matches she reckoned she could stand up against the best FC players of other schools, she now knows that she's nowhere near their league. All that she has done so far seems pointless therefore.

Episode 8:

Man, Misaki was acting really childish this episode. Trying to literally run from her problems.

So we finally find out what happened with Masaya. He just got cold feet and run away. But he can't run away. It was much less dramatic than I expected.

Saki comes for a training match and predictably she curbstomps Asuka with easy. That girl will not be an easy opponent.

I wonder if this will motivate Misaki to come back.

Episode 9: Man, this show has some good character development. Misaki and Asuka manage to get through their crisis with some honest talk. It's actually amazing that in a show based on VN girls are allowed to solve their own problems.

Oh that boy was Masaya, wasn't he?

So this is a visual novel adaptation, which, you know, you expect the guy to solve all the girls' problems through the sheer power of his masculinity and instead they go and solve their problems on their own with him reduced to an onlooker.

It's hilarious.

It's like a show from an alternate universe.

From my understanding the game is more like Amagami and the characters help fix each other's problems since the MC has his own baggage.

edited 8th Mar '16 5:03:42 PM by Memers

It's a little slow, but at least Misaki's reasonable and still a likeable character.

Mashiro's unusually likeable compared to what anime tend to do with that kind of characters.

And Asuka is at least better at singing than Koito.

Good episode, I liked everyone training together and doing their best. Also, Masaya finally decided to show what he got and of course he's good. And then Aoi-sensei decided to join the fun. Well that will be some training.

Still, it seems that all of this might be not enough. Inui is just too good. Flying without balances is supposed to be unfeasible and she's doing it. This is not a matter of just finding a counter to birdcage, Inui is just way too skilled.

Speaking of Inui, she's actually such a kind hearted girl. Very serious about FC too, she's too cute for a final boss.

So, basically, turning off the balancer is like taking off the training wheels. Harder to balance, but you're more free to do what you want. Or maybe more directly similar to the difference between an aerodynamically stable aircraft versus an instable one. The latter has better maneuverability and performance at the cost of being harder to control.

She likes a kitty, so she can't be a bad person. Even if she's a stuck up bitch.

There he goes. But you know, losing track of your surroundings is kind of irrelevant when there actually isn't anything other than one opponent and for posts to keep track of. And then he just abandons her and picks out the main character instead. Such bias.

This makes me realise I've written a lot of comments (like I usually do while watching anime) without actually posting them.

So our nominal male lead finally shows his chops, only to be upstaged immediately by sensei. Typical.

Finally caught up. I really want to know how the anime compares to the VN cause just based on the cgs (an admittedly shallow basis for comparison), there's quite a difference. Anime Irina just seems like a serious no-fun-allowed rival while in the VN cgs, it looks like she's made of pure evil. Her smile looks like she's showing off how much she enjoys eating puppies. Understandably, taking out the adult material, the role of the guy does seem minor in the anime. They also took out Mashiro's and Ichinose's backstory. The latter seemed to have some depth though and I think they combined Asuka's and Misaki's routes. So far though, the anime seems like a typical sports plot than a VN plot and as such has the predictability of a sports plot but I do find action pretty enjoyable. They seem to be losing budget though. Hopefully the animation won't go any lower than what I've seen so far

Well, at least the running animation is on par for anime. Which is to say it's still pretty bad.

I think that's about how Irina looks in the anime. It's just a little more subtle. And less glowing eyes. Although those just accentuate her natural cuteness.

Maybe it's the way the VN accentuated the menacing aura of the rivals. I mean I thought the same about Shindou based on his one set of cgs in the VN and then he turns out to be pretty friendly

That's what I like about this series: no villains, just opponents with even Irina motivated by love for FC even if her particular brand of it is a bit on the brutal side.

edited 20th Mar '16 6:02:12 AM by mwisse

Episode 11: It seems Saki got fired up for the first time. She looked like she actually had fun which doesn't bode well for Irina.

I hope Masaki won't get bummed again next episode when she finds out Saki wasn't going all out.

She shouldn't feel too bad considering how everybody else going up against Saki did.

"But this is fun."

The final episode went pretty much as I expected with both of them turning off their balancers and Asuka coming out on top in sudden death but the show it pulled it off very well. That could probably be said of the series as a whole, it was quite predictable but executed well resulting in a fun series. The only real problem I had was the repeated use of stock animation for the various moves but that is only a relatively minor quibble and this was probably one of my favourite series of the season.

The final match was really silly, with miracles pilling up to allow Asuka to win. Between constantly outflying a speeder in a straight line, instantly mastering flying without balancers and reactivating her wings with determination she looked like she was playing on cheatcodes.

Technical misgivings aside, it was a good final episode. The match was exciting to look at and the emotional stakes paid off, with the message of enjoying the sport conveyed nicely. It felt satisfying.

All in all it was a very good anime, with brilliant premise, cool visuals and likable characters, who got some nice development. I didn't expect much from what I assumed to be just another generic VN adaptation but it surprised me. It did some thing differently from the norm and it paid off. Very glad I watched it.

I think this episode summed up what I think about the series as a whole. It's ridiculous, there are tons of flaws in logic, tactics, physics, and what else. Just to take one error, Inui shouldn't have scored her first point in the match, since she just took a shortcut to the buoy. But in the end, it's an emotional story. It's based on a Visual Novel, after all. Other than character art, they're not big on visuals. They do it with text, to bring the emotions of the story forward to the audience. That's what it's all about, and that's why it's a good series, despite its flaws.

Also reminds me that I've written my usual commentaries for all episodes, but I've not posted a single one.

For shame.

But yeah, it's been all predicable but that doesn't matter so much with this kind of series. What I liked most about it was that it was actually a proper sports anime that for all its visual novel roots didn't go for tawdry romance or the male lead solving all the problems.

Well, if you really want me to post them, I can. I've just always written mainly for myself, since for some series, I just enjoy them more if I can write stuff like that, even if I don't share it.

I usually don't like sports anime, but there are exceptions (Free! is one). I don't think this feels much like the typical sports anime, though. It's probably weird that I don't, though, since I've been relatively sporty myself, both solo (like running and some track-and-field sports) and team (like handball and floorball). I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's how it rubs me the wrong way somehow.

Yeah, that was the best part. Came expecting the FC to be a backdrop and the guy to solve all problems, got a series focusing on the competition and girls solving their own problems. It was surprising to say the least.