Harukana Receive

Yeah, there were several instances where people's voices sounded off - particularly one instance of Haruka, to the point that I wondered/still wonder if my download borked or if something was recorded wrong.

Anyway, yeah. No points at all for guessing who wins this match, or who wins the final match. It's a strange contrast to last season's Uma Musume, which managed to maintain some dramatic tension through most of the series.

The sound was the only thing I didn't think was off...

Oh well, wee wee, right?

It's strange how easy things get near the end of a series.

Finally caught up with the series, and yeah I have to say that the last three episodes were somewhat weaker than the previous ones.

I wonder if this is just a problem with this being a 12 episode anime. Not a lot of place to fit all that they wanted.

Alright, episode 10! First half of the Harukana vs Éclair match, because of course.

This is where the quality from last week was hiding, clearly. They did a good job here, both with the match itself and the character work around it, despite Akari, who gets a moment of her own so as to justify her presence, but that comes across as silly and kinda forced. Harukana spends most of the time lagging one or two points behind Éclair, who are, for better or worse, the superior pair. There's a good job of making the match feel equal and tense here, not only because it doesn't really matter who wins the game, as there are no real stakes to either pair, but because of direction and animation. They do a good job of conveying Harukana's varied efforts at confusing Éclair and throwing them off, and of showing how Éclair respond to that pressure in kind. There's nothing particularly unpredictable or amazing here, but it's all clever and well-presented enough to be cool.

Good episode. If they play their cards right, next episode should do the same one-two combo of the first two episodes and hit us with something really good to close the match. Here's hoping.

I'm not sure I've heard an anime character say "what" before.

I'll cherish that delivery for times to come.

Also no matter what the presentation, VB takes long AS.

Though it's nice to see how the skill difference is handled...

I've heard characters say "what" in anime before, but Claire's VA did the best one yet. She was on point the whole episode, in fact.

Solid episode, with a good fight and some phenomenal sound design

The solid beach volleyball in this episode has led me, and others, to wonder if the previous episodes held back so the differences in Harukana's performance earlier became apparent to show how far they'd come since their first matches.

I guess we'll find out what happens next week.

Show, there is such a thing as overdoing the "encouraging partner high-five" moment...

Well, this is odd. I thought we'd wrap it up this episode so there would be a rematch against Narumi and Ayase in the finale. Huh.

As for the episode, it fell a bit flat for me. It was pretty much a repeat of the last episode, but without much that would raise the tension or change things around. It was mostly build-up for what wound up being a cliffhanger instead of a resolution. I'm not very enthused about that, to be honest.

There were also a few moments that were off, either in animation or on sound, but they were few, so I presume they were either small accidents or my computer had the hiccups during the episode.

There's not a lot to talk about here, really. The show suddenly decided to go full-out sports show for once, but to my mind failed to nail the feel and suspense of a proper sports show. It's not a bad episode, it just didn't hit it's mark.

I mean, it sounds like they decided to spend three episodes on a one-episode match, for some reason. Especially when the show wasted its one fluid volleyball animation on actual volleyball... in a flashback... for a side character no one likes.

I could understand a show like Hanebad! doing that, since it's all about the competition and the sport and whatnot. But Harukana is more a slice of life about friendship and teamwork, and this episode had none of that. Not only that, but if you really want to make one match a three-parter, you need the tension and the stakes to keep us invested for all three, and so far only the first one actually managed that in any fashion. It really feels like an odd choice.

Someone likes...

^I'm on record as saying that Ai and Mai are entirely superfluous to the show. She's 'what if Kanata but angry', and when Kanata's entire emotional arc boils down to 'I thought being short would make me bad at volleyball, but then someone told me not to think that, so I stopped', that really doesn't leave a lot of room for a duplicate character to have the same one.

I dislike the conclusion of Ai and Mai's arc more than I dislike the characters themselves. They made for decent mid-season bosses on their own. Certainly better than the pallete swap sisters a few episodes back.

They had an arc...wasn't there already a flashback?

Also, SO MANY HIGH FIVES.

Edited by randomness4 on Sep 15th 2018 at 1:12:21 AM

all the complaints about so many high-fives strikes me with "Have you never seen a beach volleyball match?"

players will high five each other after every point!

Edited by ScrewySqrl on Sep 17th 2018 at 12:45:57 PM

Amazing.

Randomness doesn't watch sports, but Volley Ball in games is long AS, so actual VB would have to be longer.

Edited by randomness4 on Sep 17th 2018 at 9:56:28 AM

No.

But even then, real-world matches don't follow narrative structure. This does.

Well, they're also not high-fiving after every point, they're doing the palm slap before every serve.

Solid finale, with the last rally in particular being quite hype

Show overall is... alright? Well-animated, great sound design, and fun matches, but very little dramatic tension. It has a common problem in sports series where the main characters work out most of their issues early on, which doesn't give the rest of the story much to work with. And why was Shii-chan even in the story?

Because she's good.

Even the show couldn't come up with a proper excuse for Akari... "we're only together still because of you", the show says, when it clearly shows that it was Narumi's advice and Claire's maturity that did that.

Anyhow, the show's ended! The ending was predictable, but I'll tag it anyway: Harukana won, obviously. Now, sure, that's a bit of protagonist power, what with the new pair with barely one year of experience beating the supposed second best pair in Japan, but let's be honest, this isn't the stuff the show focuses on, so there's no point in griping. The last set was fine, even though it gave it's result away before even starting, with Haruka having a flashback to the whole show. The rest of the episode is just the aftermath, with a solid return of comedy and all the "power of friendship" speeches you could ever want. Nothing special, to be honest, but it's not bad.

As for the show... it's fun, I guess? I don't find it all that memorable, but it was consistently enjoyable, despite some questionable choices regarding every character that wasn't one of the main four. The matches were good. They could have been better, but the show's focus was never so much on the sport's mechanics and competition as it was in the character moments within those matches, so it can be forgiven, especially seen as those character moments were really good. Comedy, naturally, was also top notch at most times, and to me the best part of the show.

I think the show's hoping for a sequel there at the end, as well. It's the feeling I get. If it ever gets a second season, I guess I'll watch it, but I won't be holding my breath much.

All around, a fun time, but not something I'll be missing all that strongly. That's fine on my book.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Sep 22nd 2018 at 9:23:08 AM

This was less of a sports anime and more of a slice-of-life, but this was not a problem for me. Because I normally turn to Manga Time Kirara series to relax, I'm of the mind that flaws or not, Harukana Receive succeeded in entertaining me, so it's a in my books.

Entertainment.

Thumbs Up.