SK8 the Infinity First Impressions

“Even if an amateur, if he gets on a board here, he has to skate. That’s the rule.”

I’ve traditionally favored sports series that approach their subject matter with a sense of realism, but there is something to be said for the spectacle of going for broke with ridiculousness. SK8 the Infinity starts off with one of our leads racing skateboards against a guy who I think might have been the villain in the first episode of Trigun, which ends when the lead gets firecrackers thrown in his face. This kind of wackiness doesn’t usually doesn’t work for me, but with enough sakuga, the sheer bombast can potentially carry the show. That’s not to say the writing for this show isn’t really good, but all other things being equal, if this was animated like this season’s Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town then I get the feeling I’d be much less fond of it. Still, I don’t want to sell the competency of the writing short as the ridiculousness of this premiere could only carry the show so far without likeable characters and compelling writing.

The aforementioned lead, who was in a high-speed skateboard race against a 6 and ½ foot man in clown makeup who was dressed like a Mad Max villain, is Kyan Reki, a high school student and employee at a local skate shop. Local skate enthusiasts often hold exclusive races at an abandoned mining facility in the town, and he ultimately gets himself injured and loses. The next day he meets a new transfer student, Hasegawa Langa, who is a half-Japanese student who grew up in Canada. Langa had intended to get a job while attending school, but the calligraphy company with which he had applied is forced to revoke his hiring upon realizing he is a minor. Upon running into Reki, Langa quickly jumps on the opportunity to get hired by the manager of Dope Sketch, where Reki works. The manager tasks Langa with making a special delivery of a board to the same facility where Reki injured himself. A customer has a race there and needs the board delivered shortly before the race begins at midnight. Langa takes Reki with him to make the delivery, but Reki accidentally grabs a bag containing his old board instead of the client’s. Enraged by the mix-up, the client insists that Reki skate in his place, but Langa steps forward and despite being a novice when skateboarding volunteers to compete. When describing the narrative of the story, many of the story beats would sound at home in any other sports series. It’s really in the trimmings where the ludicrous elements lie. A high stakes encounter with a rival is a trope that appears in more sports anime than I can count, but how often is that rival a tall clown in post-apocalyptic garb?

Bones is an anime studio that I’ve always been quite fond of, but hasn’t been releasing too many titles that have caught my interest in recent years. I fell off of My Hero Academia, so the last title I took particular note of was Mob Psycho 100. As a result, it’s nice to see a new title that has caught my attention. Even if a narrative falls flat, Bones is the type of studio to ensure that it will at least look pretty. SK8 the Infinity definitely enjoys showing off its visuals, and Bones brings a kinetic frenzy to the movement of its skaters. The OP is as stylish and tightly constructed as one may expect from the studio that brought about the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, My Hero Academia, and Mob Psycho openings. The ED is more simplistic but has a charming beat and cute central conceit of showing off photos of the wipeouts of the show’s primary cast of skaters. This may sound more like an America’s Funniest Home Videos or Jackass segment, but the execution imbues it with a sense of low-key, behind-the-scenes silliness.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• It appears the administrator of these races is a Dracula-looking weirdo who dances to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony while watching a wall of screens filled with race coverage, in case I hadn’t conveyed what kind of show this is.
• I wrote this entire review spelling Langa’s name Ranga before I realized they have the English transliteration of the names in the OP and that they had gone with the “L” spelling.
• This season’s 2.43 went for hard drama with its approach to the sports anime, while Skate-Leading ☆ Stars was a little more silly and over-the-top. SK8 sprints down to the extreme end of that spectrum by making Skate-Leading ☆ Stars look outright morose by comparison. I think of these three, I’d give the win, by a hair, to 2.43’s premiere with SK8 in second and Skate-Leading ☆ Stars taking a close third.
• This is probably the last straggler of Saturday’s shows that I’m going to look at, as I’m already well into the following week. I might check out Hidden Dungeon, but I suspect that’ll fall by the wayside in favor of more recent releases.