天下制覇

Such animation. What speedlines.

Impressions:

I forgot to turn off the music I had playing in the background, and Dr. Mario's theme kicked in at the start to much confusion, but I would also be lying if I didn't say that wasn't the highlight of a very boringly by the numbers episode. Sora discovers punks have taken over the clubhouse. Sora has tantrum that not everyone loves basketball as much as him. Sora has screaming fit about anything and everything, including but not limited to a girl talking to him, and being told to stop screaming. Sora does two moves that get shown three times, explained once, and then re-explained to indicate that they're not as superficial as they appeared on first or second blush. Sora smiles, lighting up the world and igniting a love for basketball in everybody. Scene.

Major League or Shaolin Soccer it ain't. It's Yet Another High School Sports Show™, which, yeah, was fully expected, but the day will eventually come when one of these wants to be a weird parody like Softenni first, and has indulging in the litany of bad sports drama cliches somewhere around fourth or fifth on the priorities list. Hell, even that beach volleyball thing had a little more exuberance for the actual sport instead of tucking away 20 seconds of it at the very end, shown repeatedly and melodrama'ed up like it's a dying mother, which is something this show also uses for maximal drama. The beach volleyball thing also had an animation budget and butts, both of which are probably things that would have been a marked improvement here.