***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Ro-Kyu-Bu. Reader discretion is advised.***
Series Synopsis
Subaru Hasegawa (voiced by Yuki Kaji) is a basketball ace. Due to circumstances though, he is unable to play the sport he loves dear. The fallout of which has left him lost and passionless.
To help him out of his slump, Subaru’s aunt, Mihoshi Takamura (voiced by Shizuka Ito), makes him an offer. He only needs to coach the Keishin Academy’s Girls’ Basketball team for three days. Hesitant, Subaru agrees, assuming nothing would come out of it.
On his fist day, he meets an earnest, but otherwise rusty group of players. Of the five members, four need a ton of work. These are Maho Misawa (voiced by Yuka Iguchi), Saki Nagatsuka (voiced by Yoko Hikasa), Airi Kashii (voiced by Rina Hidaka), and Hinata Hakamada (voiced by Yui Ogura). They lack the practice, but none of them lack the drive.
The fifth girl, however, catches Subaru’s eye. Tomoka Minato (voiced by Kana Hanazawa) is a prodigy and has a deep-rooted love affection for the sport. In many ways, she is how Subaru once was.
The original deal may have been three days, but the girls grow on Subaru. He sees greatness within them. With a little effort, this team could be a force to be reckoned with.
And as the girls grow stronger, Subaru beings to remember why he fell for basketball so many years ago. Series Positives
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| Subaru |
I’m also thrilled since this series helps support my thoughts on fan service. Regardless of how tame or extreme a series may be, service should only ever be extra. If taken out, would there be something left? Or is it just pleasing wrapping for an empty shell?
When it’s the latter, you get garbage like Maken-ki or Prison School. When it’s the former, then you open the door for something decent. Much like Ro-Kyu-Bu.
Although I have things to say about the fan service, Ro-Kyu-Bu is on the lighter side of things. Yet at its core, this was a sports anime. A pretty good one at that.
Basketball, the love of basketball, the love of the game, these were at the center. Teamwork, sportsmanship, self-betterment, these were the themes of the show. Gaining confidence, staying calm under pressure, overcoming preconceptions. These were all here.
A good way I’ve found to gauge a story with any kind of competition is one specific question. Before any match, game, what have you, ask yourself this, “What’s going to happen?” If you’re confident in your answer, yes or no, it’s not a good start. This means the story will need to focus on a lot of other things to make up for the predictability.
When you can’t answer this question with any certainty, you need to ask yourself another question. “Do I care about the outcome?” If you say yes, you’ve become invested. The story’s grabbed a hold of you and its outcome is up in the air. This is what happened with Ro-Kyu-Bu.
Phrasing the series as I did makes it sound much deeper than it was. Yet these were legitimate aspects that made this a fun show. Along with it being funny and cute. More was going on than what was on the surface.
The Characters
If a series wants to focus on a team sport like basketball, then the team better be worth following. That said, the characters of Ro-Kyu-Bu were its strongest feature.
The Keishin Girls Basketball Team and it coach were fantastic. By the end, we learned a lot about them. It was amazing too. This series managed to give decent characterization. As well as dilemmas, obstacles, and other problems that needed solving. And it did so in a short amount of time. This show managed to do this through the use of two rather clever tricks.
One, the main cast was small and remained small. Second, the main cast got introduced in the first episode.
If you were expecting something much more complicated, nope. It really was that simple. Yet for some reason, plenty of other show screw this up. Particularly, the show with short episode lists.
Sorry, this is a huge pet peeve of mine. So, it was refreshing to see Ro-Kyu-Bu, a type of series prone to this kind of nonsense, not do it.
And besides, this isn’t the reason why this was a great cast. The relationship between Subaru and the basketball club was enduring.
Let’s clarify a few things first. Did Subaru find himself in predicaments that would cause someone to scream inappropriate? All the time. Did he forget he was talking to kids who were young enough to only see things at face value? Yes, and it was funny whenever the series called him out on it. Did he have lolicon tendencies? I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he found those type of qualities cute. Rather than attractive.
I never expected this series to be above any of that. What I didn’t see coming was how strong the mentor-mentee connection would be.
Not for a second do I believe the basketball club formed any sort of harem They were, though, Subaru’s girls. He loved and cared about them. He was proud of them and of they were becoming. He was troubled whenever they were troubled. He was happy whenever they were happy. He saw untold potential in them all.
My absolute favorite scene of the series didn’t even involve basketball. The night before a big match, the team fell asleep while discussing their strategy. Subaru came in and put them to bed. As he did so, he couldn’t help marvel at how far they had come. He couldn’t help but acknowledge how much each of them had grown. It was like watching a parent care over their precious daughters.
This wasn’t a one-way streak either.
The girls looked up to Subaru. Granted, they all developed a crush on him. But that’s beside the point. Each of them had different personalities and levels of temperament. Different things made them excited, scared, or worried. Yet they all fed off Subaru’s praise. They cherished his advice. They were quick to forgive him whenever he made a mistake. They were fast to say sorry whenever they got mad at him for saying something that needed saying. And they wouldn’t hesitate to defend Subaru.
And surprise, surprise, Ro-Kyu-Bu didn’t do this once. It did it twice.
There was a point where I thought Aoi Ogiyama (voiced by Kanae Ito) was going to be annoying. I thought she was going to be nothing more than a thorn in the team’s side. I’m so happy I was wrong. Aoi was amazing. Like Subaru, it was wonderful to see her grow as another role model for the girls. And also like Subaru, it sweet how much she came to cherish this team.
I’m not going to lie. There were times in this series where it got silly. Except Ro-Kyu-Bu always came back around. At no point did I ever dislike this show.
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| From left to right: Airi, Hinata, Tomoka, Saki, Maho |
Series Negatives
I wasn’t sure how far it would go, but I was aware Ro-Kyu-Bu would have fan service. See, I said I had things to say about it. What I didn’t realize was what this show meant by that.
Hearing the words “elementary schoolers” took me back a bit. It’s bad enough with middle school and high school students. It’s kind of hard to explain the awkwardness away in cases like this. Thankfully, the show didn’t even come close to what I feared. Although, what causes me concern is more askew when compared to your casual anime watcher.
Ro-Kyu-Bu was at its most face-palm-ly with its older characters. That included a few actual adults. Or at least this was true about ninety percent of the time. There were one or two set-ups that made me think, “It would be real dumb if they went through with that…God damn it.”
When it was all said and done, I don’t believe Ro-Kyu-Bu went too far. Interpret that, however you wish. I bring this up because it is something you should know going in. And to give better peace of mind, this was never distracting. The fan service was always secondary.
Besides, there are other things I can talk about.
For example, this show was incredible in how sappy it was. I mean it laid it on hard. There may have been plenty of heartfelt moments. Except they weren’t all like that. This was a sports anime through to the end. It makes sense for these types of moments would be here.
And since this is a staple of the genre, there may be a reason why there aren’t many sport anime reviews on the site. But perhaps this is me getting too nitpicky.
Something that did bother me was Saki. It was nothing she did wrong. I liked her as much as the rest of the team. Saki was great. I only wish the series spent more time with her. The other members got whole episodes dedicated to them. So why not her?
I think Ro-Kyu-Bu realized this too. The show tried to shoehorn something in with Saki near the end. It was a nice effort don’t get me wrong. Too bad it wasn’t a full effort.
The last thing I want to point out is about the final match. More to the point, the lead up to it. This was a combination of out of nowhere plot turns and overused clichés.
For the former were talking random appendicitis. Not sure why that was needed. The latter was something I thought the show was going to skip. While not diving head first into it, Ro-Kyu-Bu did get its toes wet.
For the former were talking random appendicitis. Not sure why that was needed. The latter was something I thought the show was going to skip. While not diving head first into it, Ro-Kyu-Bu did get its toes wet.
The final match up had the girls going up against a nationally ranked team. No one was delusional. They all knew it was going to be a hard fight. So then why did the other team have to be jerks? Granted, the vast majority of them weren’t this. But the ones that were, made up for it.
It seemed unnecessary. This was a chance for Ro-Kyu-Bu to be different. How everything played out was fine, but it could’ve gone a different way.
And that's it. This was all I had negative to say about this series. As a whole, it was more solid than not. The issues I do have weren’t that bad. And who knows, they may get fixed.
Final Thoughts
There’s a season two. Alright, I’m down. I want to see where this series goes.
Assuming the worse and season two turns out to be trash, this first season is more than enough. For this was a strong sports anime. The story stayed on point. The characters were a lot of fun. There was a nice, wholesome message to take out from this. The fan service wasn’t overpowering and didn’t take away from the actual point of the series.
All in all, Ro-Kyu-Bu is worth checking out.
All in all, Ro-Kyu-Bu is worth checking out.
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