Sport Climbing Girls #01 — A Discussion on the Fidelity to the Sport

October 3rd, 2020

 

"Should we look up what sport climbing is?" "Nah, I saw some pictures on Google."

Impressions:

I'm not an expert in climbing, but a family friend is, and I have at least a passing knowledge because she nearly killed herself doing so. This is, unsurprisingly, not sport climbing. It appears that they looked at some pictures of a sport climbing wall at a gym, looked up "rock climbing competition," got the rules for bouldering, which is extremely different, and then decided to toss in some random other words they found. Sport climbing is crazy nonsense where people Spiderman straight up walls in races that last like 10-20 seconds at most. This is like calling something "Indy Grand Prix" and having it be drag races. And in neither case is the configuration of the climbing surface ever intended to be a puzzle to be solved. It's always a straight shot. This isn't Nickelodeon Guts, although it might be improved if it was. It's especially strange because the ED (or is it the OP?) seems to know what actual sport climbing is, since it shows them rocketing straight up walls.

That entire paragraph about the accuracy to the sport for an episode more concerned with objectifying high school girls pressing their D-cups and/or six packs against a sheer surface is probably not needed, but unlike something like HaruChika, there's not a lot there otherwise. The drama is that one of them goes "Rarr, you're my rival and we have to fight." And the protagonist has nothing more than "Yay, climbing! It's a puzzle game!" (It's not.) And then they fight over who gets to join the team, when obviously both will, so the peanut gallery can read off of the Wikipedia page for various phrases related to climbing. Then there's a tournament. Because of course there is. Which doesn't stop the standard scream of "EHHHHHHHH!?" So I consider an entire paragraph on the fidelity to the actual sport a service. Especially if they're not going to magically fantasy silly the whole boring thing up. 

   

Posted in Climbing Girls | 2 Comments »

2 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • dp says:
    October 3, 2020 at 10:47 pm

    And they said originally in anime is dead! They invented a whole new sport: Puzzle Climbing!

    It’s true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. People who have read the book often hate the TV adapation. People who know something about a particular obscure field spot mistakes and can’t enjoy something that others came.

    Having little interest or knowledge of sport climbing, I found the episode to be quite fun and well put together, and reasonably non-objectifying compared to similar shows.

  • sta says:
    October 4, 2020 at 9:19 am

    I think you are mistaking sport climbing for speed climbing. Sport climbing usually refers to the three main disciplines : bouldering (what they do at the beginning), lead (climbing with a rope) and speed (the Indy Grand Prize thing). Comparing a route to a puzzle is actually accurate (they’re often called problems in bouldering) as the competition routes are made to be climbed with a very specific method in mind.

    What is not accurate is having somebody that never practiced any sport beat someone who spent her life doing it. Even if you were a genius at reading a route you would not be able to hang on the wall for more than two minutes, let alone climb it. But well, what can you expect from a nth high school girls doing things clone.