Fanfare of Adolescence First Impressions

“I want to be the kind of jockey who becomes one with his horse.”

When someone brings up niche sports anime titles, Fanfare of Adolescence or Gunjou no Fanfare is the type of series that fits the bill perfectly, for better and for worse. A story about a bunch of bishonens riding horses is a combination of genre and style that could serve to narrow the audience. However, I find the factors limiting my investment to be a lack of a solid hook to draw me in or an interesting lead to ground the show. Without either of these aspects, I found myself just nodding along as the show went through the paces… There are going to be a lot of puns and potential puns sprinkled through this review. This came up just last night when I told Birdy that some of the visual aspects of the show tended to nag. Nine times out of ten, those puns are going to be unintentional, so you’ve been warned. The point is, Fanfare of Adolescence simply doesn’t seem to be equipped to draw in anyone who isn’t already invested in the niche premise, and I question whether viewers who are already invested in horse racing will find anything that can carry them over to the next episode.

The story follows the former head of a boy band that was called Mr. Doctor after he announces that he’s quitting music to go to a high school for jockeys. This is a rather excessive start, and one that throws our lead, Arimura Yu’s, passion at the viewer in a manner that is frankly unintentionally funny. The episode legitimately begins with a press conference filled with flowery language and visuals, but most of the episode is spent introducing a whole bunch of characters. Many of these introductions are brisk, so the result is that the whole cast feels like a nebulous mass. Even Arimura isn’t given enough time for the viewer to really get a sense of what is going on under the surface. The actual plot for this first episode is pretty straightforward, and mostly follows the events of Arimura’s first day at the school. This is largely devoted to the commencement ceremony and a small disaster that occurs afterwards. The ceremony is unsurprisingly hijacked by reporters looking to get comments from Arimura, which leaves the incoming class with a bit of tension among its members. Shortly thereafter, some equipment falls over and disturbs some of the school’s horses and they run off, leading the students to endeavor to catch them. It’s all by the numbers, but as I said before, there isn’t anything here to really grab hold of. The only aspect that I could see drawing in a broader audience is the hint of yaoi that pops up at the very end of the episode, but I’m not clear if the show is leaning in that direction or not.

The production also hits upon a particular hurdle that might just irritate me and a few others. Animating horses is complex, and there are so many different ways that they can appear off in animation. Usually they aren’t the direct focus, so I can turn a blind eye to the details that don’t seem quite right, but that isn’t true here. The horses just look weird. It’s like an uncanny valley issue, but with an animal. There’s actually mild improvement when the show uses CG to animate them, because they’re shown from a slight distance and, with the exception of their tails, the movement seems better coordinated. Lay-duce is the studio behind this one. The last thing I’d watched from them was O Maidens in Your Savage Season from 2019. I wasn’t a fan of the first episode, but I don’t remember having any problems with how it was animated, and if you set aside my personal hang ups with how the horses look, Fanfare of Adolescence looks relatively good, though not great. Still, it’s worth noting that, for the first time in its history, Lay-duce will be animating two shows not only in the same year but the same season. This could foreseeably result in a drop in quality in either project or both.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• As a sports subject, horse racing is a slightly odd one for anime to work with. Anime usually thrives most effectively with sports that have a dedicated team or club dynamic, and horse racing feels like a bit of an outlier in that regard. I’m certainly not saying that it couldn’t work, but it would take some careful structuring to bring it all together.
• Fun coincidence, my Japanese Word of the Day was じょうば (乗馬) or jyoba which translates to horseback riding.
• One of the issues with this being an anime original is that, as the episode doesn’t set things up well, it’s difficult to guess where this show is going to go or what it even aims to be.
• O Maidens has been one of my more popular reviews, though I don’t really know why. It wouldn’t have stuck in my memory if it wasn’t for the fact that I strayed a bit from the common opinion of it.