Posted by OP Sequence
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Short Summary:
Akitsuki Yamato is enthralled by the beauty of a girl doing the high jump on his way over to his new job and home at a bathhouse. During his first cleaning, he gets interrupted by some female customers. Being the klutz that he is, he accidentally pushes one onto the floor just as the high jump girl from before walks by. She walks away after giving him a dirty look. He worsens things by accidentally entering her apartment thinking it was his, when his is the one next door. In the process he learns that her name is Asahina Suzuka. Later that night, when cleaning the bathhouse, he finds that she’s fainted in the steam room. When she comes to, she’s not very appreciative that he’s saved her, but in the end, Yamato agrees to help her train for the high jump. The next day, she barely makes it over the height that he set. Suzuka is disturbed that she can’t jump as high anymore until she realizes that Yamato had set the bar too high and that she had actually jumped higher than normal. We end the episode with her smiling.
ED Sequence
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
OP: スタートライン by COACH☆
ED: 青いフィールド by COACH☆
Bleh, COACH☆ sounds like a pretty average girl group. Nothing much to say here except that the ED is rather catchy, but that’s about all. Quite catchy though…
Based on just the front page of the official Suzuka website, Suzuka looked like a romance series that had a lot of potential. After viewing the first episode, I have to say that I’m quite disappointed. Instead of a good romance, we have a semi-ecchi semi-sports romance comedy. It’s a typical girl slowly grows to like the male lead story which makes it way too predictable. And it doesn’t help that Yamato is a stereotypical shounen character either. I’m sure the manga might be good, but this first episode really turned me off. Seriously, the only good thing about this series is that I like the ED (but only the chorus), but I’m sure that’ll pass. Probably not going to stick with this series, though I might view the second episode just to see if it improves any (doubt it by the looks of the preview).
Edit Several Hours Later: Well, I’ve just blitzed through six volumes of the manga, and it’s not too bad. The art is pretty good, and it’s a bit ecchi. My issue, as with every shounen romance, is that in order to keep writing, there’s tons of things that come between the male and female leads. For instance, currently, in volume six, Yamato is going out with another girl because Suzuka basically rejected him. But because she sees him all the time with someone else, Suzuka is now getting jealous. This kind of back and forth that shounen mangakas use to keep their romances going. I’m not really a big fan, but it’s not a bad read once in a while.
So what does this mean for my blogging this series? It means that I’m going to give this series a few more episodes of blogging. Compared to the manga, the series animation is really different. Hopefully once they introduce some more characters, it’ll get better.
I have a decidedly better feeling on Suzuka than you on the first episode. I guess the main reason is that the male leads are much less important to me on shows like these than the female leads. And bluntly put, I like the mix of Suzuka quite a lot – not the usual googly-eyed adoration of the worthless male, but a solid blend of sober maturity, spunky fire and yet a bit of sensitive vulnerability which is all too rare in anime lately.
Yes, romance comedies thrive on (too) much to and fro, but after the latest batch of flicks which have armadas of girl cuties swooning over the dork, this is a pleasant change of pace. I foresee issues on a slightly more “serious” level than the average. And that’s what I need.
PS: I actually prefer the OP to the ED 😉
While I understand what you’re saying, it’s worthy to note that this series will also introduce an armada of girls for Yamato. They don’t fawn over Yamato in the Da Capo or SHUFFLE! sense, but he is surrounded by them in the Love Hina sense. Having gone through the manga, I can’t see this anime amounting to all that much, though the manga itself is pretty good.
Yes, this series will have some seriousness in terms of Suzuka’s past and how Yamato has to win her heart over. At this point, we’ll just have to see how the animation crew handles it.