Ahiru no Sora First Impressions

“Five-on-one is fine. I’ll take you all on at once!”

If there is one weakness inherent in sports anime it would probably be their tendency towards being formulaic. This can be problematic, but isn’t guaranteed to be. Most sports anime hit roughly the same beats, but it would be grossly shortsighted to suggest that all sports anime are the same. I say this because Ahiru no Sora doesn’t actually do anything to break the mold and may even bear a few too many similarities to another recent sports title, but the end result is still a pleasant enough watch. Plus, if you’re looking for a more grounded, modern take on basketball than what was offered by Kuroko no Basket, Ahiru no Sora looks like it will be able to scratch that narrative itch.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Kurumatani Sora is a highly enthusiastic fan of basketball who aspires to stand victorious alongside his high school basketball team. However, his diminutive size (149 cm or 4’8″) make him an unlikely basketball star, and the high school he has just become a freshman of hasn’t had a winning team in years. Also, he has a habit of talking about his “wings.” I figured we should get the Haikyuu!! comparisons out of the way early. I do wonder if Haikyuu!! took some inspiration from Ahiru no Sora, and, no, I didn’t accidentally reverse that sentence. Ahiru no Sora’s source manga evidently predates Haikyuu!!’s by nearly a decade. Still, it serves to illustrate the extent to which Ahiru no Sora is sticking to the tried and true story elements of the genre. That being said, the show forges its own identity where it counts. Kurumatani Sora may be a bit brash and overeager, but he’s a very different beast from Hinata. Kurumatani’s unwillingness to back down is tied to a personal desperation that’s only hinted at in this first episode. Depending on how the show plays it, I could definitely conceive of this going the tear-jerker route. The rest of the cast currently consists of bullies and a peculiar, aloof upperclassman. The bullies push the boundary of being cartoonish, but the writing is delicate enough to prevent them from crossing that line. That being said, are there any bridges in Japan that don’t have a protagonist being beaten up underneath them?

The production in this first episode does the job, but I’m not entirely sure that Diomedéa is up to the task. They aren’t a studio that I associate with high-quality kinetic action. They mostly work with slice-of-life & comedy titles, and the few exceptions haven’t stood out to me. In fact, given that they were the studio behind Earth Quake: Hand off my Purse to a Lonely Doorman, I think it would be fair to say that I haven’t associated them with quality, period. I may be picking on them a bit more than it warranted though. I noticed a few moments where they used strategic cuts to force the viewer to essentially imagine the action rather than having to animate it, but the episode never reached the level of feeling cheap. I’m not a huge fan of the character designs though. The mouths can feel a bit too wide, most notably in the case of the character Chiaki. To put it bluntly, the visuals aren’t going to rise to the level of polish expected of some of the big Shonen Jump titles, but none of my issues with them rose above the level of nitpicking.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• Chiaki has a recurring gag in this episode where he gets Kurumatani’s name wrong. I hope this doesn’t continue into future episodes, because it could get annoying… unlike my many affectionate names for Hurled Grape: Marry and Nurse back a Swollen Foreman.
• The cover image for Volume 1 of the Ahiru no Sora manga bugs me. Sora’s eyes aren’t level. The entire thing has a pretty off quality. I wonder if that is representative of the art in the manga. *One quick Google search later.* It’s not. The wide mouths seem to be a common feature though.
• I’ve mentioned my preferences in past reviews, but I tend to favor sports series that favor realism over cartoon superpowers. In other words, I’m more of a Big Windup! fan as opposed to an Eyeshield 21 fan.