Baby Steps

Episode 1
Hm so far this seems like it'll be a good watch.I thought it would be bland but I actually liked it.Had me laughing here and there and now I'm intrigued as to how this will go.Hopefully it won't become bland later.Also the way they ended the ep was sorta creepy haha.
 
EP 2

Was better then ep 1
Moments between Takuma and Ei was funny when Ei fidgets and all that :laugh:
 
Yeah, this is pretty damn slow.
Even fans of the manga tell me it takes a while to get going, but starts getting good once you get actual matches.
I'm almost tempted to take a peek at the manga to see how it is paced, as it MUST have been better paced than the anime.
I have a problem imagining how a sports series with a start this slow was able to survive the first months of publication.
 
Yeah, I'm skeptical too, at least to the anime. I might try the manga later, but I hope the anime will be able to prove my doubts wrong.
 
As a fan of this manga i can say I've been really apprehensive towards the anime adaptation. After catching up my opinion hasn't really changed much. I fear things are going to take too long to develop.

That being said it's refreshing to get a MC who's not completely devoid of confidence and who needs people to push him along at every obstacle. i'm willing to remain optimistic at this point since it's only 3 episodes in.
 
^
I can understand what you're saying about the skills gap but i think they mentioned in an earlier episode that all the younger kids on the court are being groomed as professional players. At the very least they've been playing for years more than Maruo so i don't think it's too far-fetched that he was having difficulties with them.

It's obvious this episode was just to showcase the fact that Maruo might have some latent talent in that he is able to see the serve of a national level player. I do like that they time skipped to set up the tournament for the next episode. It's going to be interesting to see how things play out.

also Natsu was just so....:love:
 
Bradalee said:
Aye of course Yuki is being groomed to be a pro, but my point wasn't that he should be beating the 12 year old, my point was that if he can't beat the 12 year old then he doesn't have a hope in hell of returning one of Takuma's serves. There's an alarming break in logic here, and it's not one that i can can just ignore because it really is so far fetched.

It did do a good job of showing us his latent ability, and i do like the way he approaches the game in his own academic style, it's just that i felt the good work was undone somewhat by the immersion breaking Yuki situation.

And i should start calling him Maruo, i need to remember that name because all i can think of is Ei-chan when i think of him :laugh:
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Ah, i can see what you mean, that does make sense. I can't really relate to the realism of the tennis because i have about 2 hours worth of tennis playing experience in my entire life. I'd like to think there won't be more situations like that moving forward, but sometimes that's what you get from a shounen:...:

Ei-chan should be fine since most of the cast calls him that anyway:laugh:

speaking of, I like how they are slowly building his passion for the sport. It's like he's not realizing it that much himself but he's slowly getting more and more involved in everything.
 
Episode 5

I really like the level of realism this show is using for the matches. It felt like i was watching a friend play a match.

also, i really really like song in the OP

So once again this show continues with the slow pace. To be honest i was really hoping this episode would end after the match was finished. I guess the only good thing i can say about the pace is that it's being incredibly faithful to the source material. I've only noticed about 4-5 scenes that are not in the manga.

Anyway, today was Maruo's first actual tennis match and i think the show did a good job of setting up how a tournament feels. We also got a bit of an explanation to how the levels of tournaments work. We were already pretty aware that STC has a lot of strong members but it's confirmed with the amount of attention they all gather at the tournament.

I like the fact that Takuma was the one to help Maruo settle down his nerves even if it did come across as a bit of an insult :laugh:

The tennis match itself was pretty good, animation quality aside. I like the fact that it felt like Maruo caught his opponent off guard and then once they adjusted to him he was no match. I also think the outcome of the match will be obvious regardless of what happens, but it will be interesting to see how Maruo responds.

Overall i liked this episode.

This show is actually very refreshing to me and the episodes always seem to fly by before i even realize it. It's nice to get a Shounen that doesn't have super moves and guys screaming and focuses on the sport itself.
 
Episode 5

I liked it, although I am wondering... Would someone with only this limited experience really be put up against someone with four years experience? It just seems blatantly unfair, and as far as I remember from my younger years playing tennis, tournaments were broken up into skill areas.
 
Discontent said:
Episode 5

I liked it, although I am wondering... Would someone with only this limited experience really be put up against someone with four years experience? It just seems blatantly unfair, and as far as I remember from my younger years playing tennis, tournaments were broken up into skill areas.
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i don't think experience is taken into account when deciding who plays who. It's not uncommon at all for this type of scenario to happen in a bracket style tournament in real life. You see it in things like College Basketball in the U.S. where the #1 seed will play some team no one has ever heard about.

Any head to head professional sport will have the best seeded player/team playing the weakest member of the tournament. It's usually not as drastic a skill gap though because everyone is at a professional level.
 
if anything, the coaches probably have no say about it. except in the first tourney of a season (honestly, I don't know much about tennis, it may not even have an 'off' season) seeding is typically a pure 'highest seed gets the best chance to make it furthest' scenario, possibly with a degree of luck thrown into the mix. organizers want games between the players who are most likely to win the thing, but they want them to take place as late as possible. it's a type of fairness that prioritizes giving respect to your existing standing first. a complete tournament rookie is lucky he didn't go up against the #1 seed - most likely this is because they're from the same club and so haven't been placed against each other directly so soon.
 
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