Prince of Stride: Alternative

ZetsubouKaiji

ZetsubouKaiji

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Prince of Stride: Alternative

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First episode is out and I'm watching now. Not really sure what to make of this one just by the tags or description. It certainly makes use of the bright colors though.
 
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Episode 1:

The first episode has the makings of a decent sports anime, but it'll take a couple of episodes before I can really tell. The plot, humor and characters for this episode were the basic archetypes that you see in every sports anime so the skeleton for something good is there, but it depends on how much flesh they can put on those bones. The first episode didn't show me anything special, but it also didn't drag or get boring at any point. The humor was fine, it didn't make me laugh, but I wasn't offended by it either and maybe once the cast starts growing some chemistry it could improve.

I don't really know why the girl was even in this episode and it worries me that with the reverse harem tag, the sports part is just going to be perfunctory and we'll just end up with stretches of episodes that are nothing but the girl getting hit on by each of the guys. In this episode was basically standing to the side not doing anything while the guys went along and did their thing. She left absolutely no impression and if she'd been completely removed from the episode I doubt anyone would have noticed.

The art and animation were just okay. Some of the running scenes did look snazzy, but the general animation was pretty stiff, had a lot of still frames and many shots were lacking in detail. The color palette was bright and vibrant without being distracting which was nice. The character designs were fine, but nothing really remarkable. For a Madhouse production this looked kinda meh.

All the really great sports anime I've seen have had more memorable first episodes than this one. They took the same basic framework as this episode and added their own personal stamp to it. This episode goes through all the right motions, but hasn't started making any identity of its own yet. It could just be a slow starter, Free was certainly slow at the start and that one turned out to be pretty good. Or in the worst case this episode could just be a tease and the real reverse harem shit starts up next week.

Bottom line it's a meh episode.
 
So after watching the first episode I think I might be sticking with this one. Lets see how it does up to the 4 episode mark though. So far so good. :)
 
Pretty interesting first episode. Nothing amazing, looks to be your typical sports anime though which is a good thing imo, means it probably will be better than average.
 
lukeycow said:
Pretty interesting first episode. Nothing amazing, looks to be your typical sports anime though which is a good thing imo, means it probably will be better than average.
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I'm feeling just the opposite because it's only going to be one cour so there's not much time for this series to grow it's own personality and put it's own twist on the conventional sports anime. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I won't be holding my breathe either.
 
ZetsubouKaiji said:
I'm feeling just the opposite because it's only going to be one cour so there's not much time for this series to grow it's own personality and put it's own twist on the conventional sports anime. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I won't be holding my breathe either.
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Oh, I didn't realise this was only 1 cour. That's quite worrying then, because like you said it will be hard for this to really get anywhere. It'll probably end up like Free, to short for anything good to really develope.
 
I consider Free to be more of a drama than a sports series and I think it did a great job of developing the characters and their relationships in the first season. The second season then builds on that foundation to make something even better. When it does get to focusing on swimming there is a lot at stake and it made me care about the results.

Stride might be able to do the same. It depends on what the series will focus on. If it tries to be a conventional sports anime then I think it will fail because it will have to rush too much or it won't get anywhere in a single cour. If it focuses on developing the characters and their backstories then it might make for some good drama.

Free didn't really get good until quite a few episodes in so it is totally possible for this show to improve, but like I said I'm not holding my breathe for that because if I go in expecting another Free then I'm most likely going to be disappointed.

The other issue with this is the reverse harem and Otome game tags. This is going to end up being pretty bad if this goes the usual route of her being romanced by one of the guys each episode with the Stride stuff just being background. I'm hoping the reverse harem stuff is just going to be background though. I'm also thinking there's a reason Madhouse decided to do this series and I doubt they would pick it up just to focus on the usual reverse harem cliches.
 
Yeh, with the small amount of episodes they really can't do conventional sports anime stuff here. I'm just worried because 12 episodes more often than not just results in bad pacing or lack of content, even more so in a sports series. Even Free I didn't like until the second season. And I can't imagine Madhouse just picking up a meh series for no real reason so this must have something there. At least I hope.
 
lukeycow said:
And I can't imagine Madhouse just picking up a meh series for no real reason so this must have something there. At least I hope.
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I would honestly beg to differ, Madhouse has adapted their fair share of shitty series in the past like this catastrophe for example...and it could be just a cash grab but that's just the cynical pessimist talking in me.
 
GenericUser said:
I would honestly beg to differ, Madhouse has adapted their fair share of shitty series in the past like this catastrophe for example...and it could be just a cash grab but that's just the cynical pessimist talking in me.
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Yeah, as much as I've loved Madhouse's output over the years they are not immune to making poor choices or jumping on trends in the industry. Otome Game adaptations are doing well right now and Madhouse wanted in on some of that cash. Now if only they'd use some of that cash to fun Kaiji season 3.
 
Episode 2:

The girl is so inconsequential that when they needed someone to dress fancy for the photo shoot they just got one of the guys to crossdress.

I thought this episode was pretty dull. I guess it was trying to setup the characters, but nothing about it grabbed my interest. Nothing has been presented that makes me feel invested in these characters. Having a big part of the episode be dedicated to the obvious fanservice photo shoot didn't make things any more interesting.

Next episode has the chance to wow me with the first match. I'm hoping something there will happen to spark my interest because right now the comedy isn't hitting home for me, the plot is barely moving and the characters are just stock archetypes.

Meh, mostly kind of boring.
 
Episode 3:

It took waaaaaaaaaaay to long to get to the race this episode, which is a shame because the stride portion of the episode was pretty good. I thought the dangerous flip on the bridge to take the lead was pretty cool. I also enjoyed the little bits of strategy being used like the guy not only preventing someone from passing him, but literally using his body to block line of site to obstacles. I think the sport could be interesting if there were more thought put into the matches and little details like that. Unfortunately more than half of the episode gets wasted on introducing a not particularly compelling rival team.

Another thing I'm noticing is the hilarious lengths this anime goes to glamorize its sport. This is pretty common in sports anime, but Prince of Stride takes it to a new level. It's a relatively obscure sport and yet large sections of the city are being shut down for the races and throngs of fans showing up for the races. No one would give this much of a shit about a sport so unpopular that all the teams have to combine with another club or risk being forced to shutdown for not having enough members.

Meh.
 
Is this like Free without water? Those posses they do when the cross the line or get all dramatic is a bit much.
 
Episode 4:

Yeah, this is starting to look more and more like a poor man's version of Free. I'm also pretty disappointed with Madhouse's animation. Other than the short racing segments the animation looks very stiff and even the racing segments in episode 4 didn't look particularly fluid or impressive. Say what you want about Free, but the animation was always eye catching. Both series have generic bishounen character designs, but Free's animation gave them a bit more personality and made them feel a bit more unique. Funnily enough I think the gaudy hair in Stride makes them look even more generic than the more realistic hair in Free.

The last two episodes have followed the same formula of a little more than half being slice of life and manservice with the rest dedicated to plot and all to brief racing segments. None of the rival teams have been all that compelling so far and frankly all of the characters introduced are just starting to blur together in my mind. Every team has the same mix of personality types and there isn't enough variation in character design for me to keep track of them all. The characters are just plain uninteresting.

I'm also not a fan of the comedy. It's not terrible, but it's usually pretty bland and unremarkable.

Anyway the nerdy dude jumping through the tree branches was really fucking stupid. He needs to learn to put himself out there more and take risks, but that was just plain reckless and might end up hurting the team in the long run if he can't race.

Meh, this isn't terrible or anything, but it's one of the most bland things I've seen from Madhouse in the last couple of years. Usually I think of Madhouse as a studio that takes risks. The risks might not always payoff, but it makes their titles generally worth checking out. Stride is just playing it totally safe and the result is very boring.
 
EP 4

Yeah, him getting injured the way he did was a bit much to signify he's finally going to do what it takes to be a supporting member of the team. Couldn't they have just made him to some crazy jump vs trying to kill himself?

They also glossed over the fact that, at the end of the race, the blonde guy still had enough energy to turn around and run back at top speed to see how he was doing. If he had that much energy then he should have destroyed the green haired dude.
 
I found a Funimation App on my PS4 last night and downloaded it while I was reading manga. And, I ended up watching the first two episodes of this. That's all that was available to me for my "free preview" version of the App. But, I thought it was interesting enough. I don't generally watch Sports Anime, but this isn't straight out racing, there are wall kicks and unconventional courses. I think it could be interesting.

Was my general thought process last night, but now that I'm posting here I'm a little disappointed to see a couple of "Mehs." I haven't watched Episode 3 or 4 yet, but I will get it around to it before too long. Hopefully it's not too "Meh."
 
I have this on Hulu, looked like something that might be interesting being a reverse harem. I am 2 episodes in and I realize this is no-where near a reverse harem.

I mean, the overall racing parts are fun, but not thrilling. I want more flipping through roofs and such.
Air Gear did a better job for funky racing and that series is like 8 years old.

I did laugh a lot about "relations> this could turn into a fantastic Yaoi title. if they had the balls.
I am not sure it makes much difference why the older brother left. I was hoping he had died, that would have given some better depth...
Animation is very groovy. Tune-voice song drives me a bit batty at the beginning.
 
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