For some inexplicable reason, I'll/CKBC is referred to as Senen Ay. Dispelling the myth. Actually, anime is not even about friendship, rivalry or even more love, but about finding yourself in life.
Hiiragi Hitanari is a talented athlete and there are some: his father and older brother are famous basketball players. However, in this family, apparently, it is customary to achieve significant success, abandoning everything superfluous, including caring for loved ones, support in difficult times, friendship. This pressure is very serious for Hitanari. Despite his obvious talents, he can’t find his style of play, he can’t psychologically overcome the expectations that players have for him. Which leads to a break with family and a decision to quit sport.
- Until I met him, I didn’t even need a name.
Yes, it was Tachibana Akane, a player from another team, who noticed not only Hitanari’s abilities, but also his problems. Hitanari joins the team of the Kozu school, where people gathered cheerful, capable, but free, not focused only on sports. Perhaps a female coach is not the best option for a male team. In Kozu, basketball is only entertainment, the end of which comes with the personal invitation of Hitanari to the training camp of the national team.
Sports drama (or better say melodrama, because the first life lesson the heroes learned successfully) turned out to be surprisingly bright and whole, although here too only the initial episodes from several volumes of the manga are filmed. Nevertheless, the authors managed to reveal the characters of all the characters - not only Akane, who walks through life easily no matter how strong the headwind is, and Hitanari, who does not want to be only the shadow of his father and brother, but also other members of the team who are ready to gather for a common victory, throw off fooling and, despite the injured knee, meeting with a friend of childhood who once threw you or never working, throw an important ball into the basket. And show others that there is not one right way in the world, but several.
Beautiful anime, both in terms of plot and technical performance. Basketball is a quick team game. And here no player is lost against the background of others, the movements are rapid, the dynamics, as in a real game, the camera’s attention is concentrated on the hands of the players, as in real TV broadcasts. A very unusual graphic style of manga with a clear drawing of details, close-ups, a natural image of athletic muscles (which adds a considerable amount of sexual appeal to all characters) is transferred to the screen. The sharpness of such technicality is softened by pastel tones of the background. So I repeat, both visually and internally, the anime is flawlessly executed, and you should in no case pass by it if you like spookons.
8 out of 10