Prince of Stride: Alternative - Reviews

I'm disappointed. After whatching the first ep I fell in love and was SO excited for having found the next best thing (sports wise) after Haikyuu (which I absolutely ADORE). It had clean animation, great "movement/action" effects (that are fundamental for me when it comes to getting all psyched with sports anime) and... Stride seemed pretty impressive. I mean... They run and compete while parkouring the s**t out of the place. Come on! That's cool! 

Then around ep 3 (took me a while, I know) it hit me: this is like watching a great sports anime like Haikyuu (idea wise) with the character depth, story development, humour and dialogue creativity of High School Star Musical and the blue cold aesthetics of K (which isn't an anime I dislike per se.  I AM watching the second season. But the electronic music and cold blue-ish atmosphere are quite cold and generic for me in terms of feels; just saying). 

So, summing it up: the idea is amazing but in my opinion it leaves a lot to be desired.

It could've been SO impressive! Seriously, to me it would've come hand in hand with Haikyuu if they just hadn't made it so basic character, story, dialogue and humour wise. My mental boner is most definitely gone and after ep 8, doesn't seem to ever be going to perk up. I will finish watching cause god forbid I can skip on any anime that has any incline to actually showing pretty cool moves and effects. But.. yeah not gonna recommend it. It's alright entertainment if you've ran out of things to watch or are you're making some time while the next ep of something you're watching comes out, but don't expect much, it definitely won't leave you at awe.

 ***THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW***

Prince of Stride is a show that seemed to have shown so much promise in the early episodes but soon driveled out into a bromance, low intensity “battles” anime. I was waiting for that super intense, heart pounding race to occur; maybe in the second season?

Story: 5/10

So the main thing you need to know about the show is this; highschoolers get together to run in “Stride” races against other highschools. The main characters Nana, Riku, and Takeru form the main core for the show to present itself with. The supporting cast is there and does a decent job but it's obvious that the show is appealing to a demographic that I'm not a part of. The bromance aspect of the anime is almost suffocating which would not be a huge issue IF it did not impede on the story of the anime. Literally after every race there is a plethora amount of bromance crap that clutters the closing minutes of every episode. Also the whole “We have to get better” aspect of the show was in my opinion not done very well. It seems like the Honan (main school) team just gets unbelievably awesome in the last 2 or 3 episodes out of nowhere.

I wanted to like the show because the other elements seemed so great but all I was left with was an uninteresting friendship story that had lots of running in it.

Animation: 6.5/10

I feel that I have to rate this harder than normal because it is MADHOUSE we are talking about. The studio that has brought us No Game No Life, One-Punch Man, Chihayafuru, and so many other breathtakingly beautiful anime have come up pretty short in the animation department. The scenes are fluid which is important in an action orientated anime but the art quality seems pretty disappointing. Character models and scenery seemed pretty lackluster especially when comparing it to No Game No Life (which I just finished re-watching). MADHOUSE can do so much better than this.

Sound: 8/10

The music, soundeffects, and voice actors are pretty good in this show. Music seemed to hit the mood right on the tee, voice actors did a pretty good job expressing their characters, and the sound effects were very impressive. The element of wind, running on different surfaces, and landing on platforms/rails was spot on.

Characters: 6/10

The characters melded well with each other but unfortunantly I just could not get myself to give any s***s for them at all. It's not that they were generic it's just the whole package of the anime just didn't hold my attention.

Overall: 6.38/10

It's an average anime to be honest. It has a very predictable outcome, average character development, and sadly average action scenes. I was hoping that the ending would blow me away but the final race is quite the disappointment. If you are expecting something great like with other MadHouse anime then I would skip out on this one.

Enjoyment: 4/10

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Sincerely,
Awesome Drummer

I'm not big on sports anime usually, but I thought this one was really good. It almost makes me want to try others too. The animation is bright and lively, the characters aren't stereotypical in my opinion, the setting is common but the game is unique, and the music wrapped it up nicely. The story wasn't so unique, but then, it's a sports anime, there is a limited number of paths it can take so I don't think that is really important, rather how the path is taken is important.

Story- As usual, I am not going to sumarize it here because there are plenty of other summaries you can read. One thing I liked about the story was it didn't start off with a really bad team, rely on a single person to fix the issue, or have just one or two really good people on the team who far outshined the others. The story started with no team period due to not having enough people. It wasn't the best or the worst. while Yagami was the main character, he didn't get a whole lot of extra attention compared to the others. None of the people on the team were way better than the others either. They each had their strengths but overall were rather evenly matched. The goal was to win this summer competition which winning a big competition is nothing unique to sports or any anime where competitions are involved. Technically, the story skips over most of the competition only focusing on the first match and the last two, but those are where the story is and there are only 12 episodes so they didn't have time to go into detail about every match. Also, the events mainly take place during the one summer break, a short period of time which fits nicely into a short anime, instead of spreading intself thin trying to cover a long period of time with too few episodes.

Animation- I'm not a fan of bright colors, but I liked it in this anime. It was a good match for the story and it was more exciting. Also, where the focus was played an important role too. 

Sound- The opening and ending songs weren't annoying so yay for that. I actually liked the opening which is unusual. The music during the show was a nice choice too. I liked the one that played during the competition. It made it feel more realistic and important. It reminded of dance competitions and events. There is mainly two songs that played during the anime and both were good.

Characters- Given the short length, we don't know much about the individuals outside the stride club. Almost all the anime takes place in the stride club and only a few scenes are set during regular school or home life. It was a good choice to focu on the events within the club instead of trying to show a bunch of events outside the club that didn't have much to do with the club since it was a short anime. However, the characters do develop quite a bit in such short time. It's not neglected.  

Overall, I felt this was certainly one of the better well written and organized 12 episode animes. The structure of the story, the events focused on, the development of the characters, the sound and animation used, all appeared to be well thought out. Usually I rant in my reviews on short animes because it feels like the people who made it didn't take into account the components of a short story or the fact that they only had a few episodes and so it falls short. This was not the case in Prince Of Stride Alternative so no little rants tonight. 

Could some things have been better? There is always room for improvement so of course. However, I really hope they make a second season. It feels like forever since I was able to give something a good rating.

I really liked the character development and the characters themselves are pretty interesting. What really drew me in was the animation. Some people wouldn't like all the color and the intensity of the drawing and even music. But the effect it created for me was that I felt I was racing again (I was a competitive runner for 8 years, and now do marathons). Where it feels overwhelming, I'm raring to go racing. I do wish that there was more character development and depth, but I think that is because there were only 12 episodes, so the writers were very limited (but is that a legitimate excuse?). I also wish they showed more of that running community that has a lot of comrodity I have never NOT seen in runners.

But other than that, I loved it! The animation was great, I liked the clean art, there was good character development, and it brought back so good memories of racing and the raw emotion and power that comes with those memories.

Though I haven't finished the anime (I'm on episode 11) I want to write this review. From the first episode, maybe even from the moment I read the synopsis, I was already caught up in the idea of Stride. After watching, I wasn't disappointed with how it turned out.

Story 9/10 - I love the concept of the anime. Reading some reviews, I noticed some people mentioned that Stride wasn't anything special, it was just relay racing. I think otherwise, because there's a bunch of parkour included xD. But of course that's not all. Compared to regular racing, this anime shows how there can be emotional connection with Stride, and teamwork, etc. Sounds like any basic sports anime but every story has it's own way of showing great sportsmanship and etc. The sport Stride is unique compared to others and it's nice to see something new for once. Like in all sports animes the team is working towards a big goal so the idea isn't new but the creators are able to show each character's emotions towards the goal and how hard they work, etc.

Animation 10/10 - I really like the art. I mean, it's not particularly anything special but it's not bad, and I would say above average. It's somewhat captivating, the way the animate the races. I suppose they're able to really capture the moment with the display.

Sound 10/10 - The opening and ending songs are awesome. In the episodes that I have seen so far, I haven't skipped the opening once. Also, the music that they pick to accompany the mood and the races are really suitable. The music gets me pumped up about the races (it's not the only thing that gets me pumped though, the races themselves are awesome XD) and it's pretty great. The voices of each character are nice too and pretty suitable.

Characters 9/10 - there's definitely a lot of background stories to each character. Paired with their emotion and effort, this anime definitely did well with character development. Most characters are easy to like and there's only a couple that would irritate you or make you dislike them. It's also interesting in the way each character expresses their feelings towards Stride.

Overall 9.5/10 - I noticed most reviews said that this anime was lacking something and wasn't reaching it's maximum potential and I guess I somewhat agree. It's a shame that they tried fitting everything into 12 episodes because if maybe they stretched it out more or gave a continuation after the new year started, most viewers would've been happier. Most animes that I have seen that were 12 episodes were fine, and I suppose I was satisfied most of the time, but with this one, even though I haven't even finished, I truly don't want it to end. I find the plot captivating and I really want to see more. More teams, new characters, more competitions, etc. I've seen a lot of fans who really love the anime, and it would be nice if it continued even for another 12 episodes or a second season. It really has potential :D