Iwa Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls

Video games, especially puzzle games, were always at the center of Konomi Kasahara's life. However, upon entering Hanamiya High School, she decides to break away from this lifestyle. As Konomi wanders the halls in search of a new activity to engage herself in, she stumbles upon a gigantic wall owned by the school's rock climbing team. Fascinated, she attempts to scale the wall, discovering that she can use her puzzle-solving skills to help her reach the top.

Certain that she has found her calling, Konomi immediately joins the club. As she strives to improve her climbing skills, Konomi, alongside the rest of the Hanamiya Climbing Team, will learn what it truly means to be a "sports climber" and work to achieve victory in the upcoming competitions.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kasahara, Konomi Main

Uesaka, Sumire Japanese

Yotsuba, Sayo Main

Suzuki, Aina Japanese

Uehara, Jun Main

Ishikawa, Yui Japanese

Sugiura, Nonoka Main

Tomita, Miyu Japanese

Iwamine, Chinari Supporting

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Gotou, Kikuko Supporting

Harada, Sayaka Japanese

Samura, Rina Supporting

Midou, Daria Japanese

Kurusu, Anne Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Kumagai, Chigusa Supporting

Kokuryu, Sachi Japanese

Fujita, Masumi Supporting

Ueda, Chihiro Japanese

Cao, Cong Producer

Iizuka, Aya Producer

Suzuki, Megumi Producer

Ozawa, Fumihiro Producer

Reviews

Dec 19, 2020

Marinate1016

Recommended

Iwa Kakeru! was easily one of my favourite shows this season. It's actually the first sports anime I've ever seen, and I was not disappointed at all. From the characters' designs, interactions to the actual sport of climbing itself, everything was great for me.

Who should watch this show? People who are into CGDCT, people who are curious about climbing or enjoy outdoor activities in general. If you're coming here expecting something to blow you away narratively, you're going to be disappointed. The scale of the show is small and rather self-contained. It's not too ambitious in anything it does, at least in this first ... season.

We follow Konomi on her journey of self-improvement and developing her climbing skills in various competitions. One of the coolest parts of the show is the fact the we actually learn about competitive climbing as a sport, its rules, objectives and team dynamics. As much as I loved Konomi, Jun and the rest of the girls, I loved the educational aspect just as much.

I really enjoyed the OST of the show as well. I feel that's something that often gets overlooked with seasonals, but it can add a lot to the overall experience.

For me, Iwa Kakeru! was one of the best parts of my weekend and I will definitely miss it, here's to hoping for a season 2. Iwa Kakeru gets 10 clears out of 10 from me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jan 24, 2021

jaula_3123

Mixed Feelings

As a rock climber, I can say that this anime was slightly unrealistic. For starters, the protagonist progressed much faster than any normal beginner. I mean cmon, she was leading on her first day and climbing 5.11. That usually doesn't happen unless the climber had prior sports experience. Also, this anime was overly sexualized. I was exited to finally see a female sports anime featuring my own sport, and was disappointed when I saw how much they gave into fan service. Nevertheless, the story line was ok even though it was a bit rushed, so I'd say 5-6 out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 22, 2020

CaptainKenshiro

Not Recommended

As I said in my Majo no Tabitabi review, there were only two shows I was expecting that began airing in fall, one was that show which turned out to be a disappointment and the other was this one which…was also a disappointment, but for different reasons.

To be honest, the only reason why I wanted to watch it is because I saw the poster and the release date being in early October thus I decided that it was what I wanted to watch after finishing September.

So the first episode begins, plays and finish and there’s no fanservice! Sure some may like certain camera angles ... but they hardly count and are excused for the subject matter thus I don't consider them to be fanservice. Compare this show to Keijo or Harukana Receive and you’ll agree with me. Although that was a letdown for me, I have to admit that it was better this way, is a weird case where I was pissed because the show wasn’t worse than it actually is.

Ok, so leaving my hornyness (does that exist?) aside, that was a positive surprise I received from the show, it wasn’t ecchi crap, it actually tried to be an actual sports show with the same motivational train hard, make friends, have fun with them and win competitions type of story.

The negative surprise I received from the show was the completely unexpected gamer pandering, as the protagonist used to be a shut in neet who used to play games 24/7 during her late childhood/early teens until her parents sent her to another school where she joins the wall climbing club and instantly becomes good at it because she’s a pro at puzzle games, well at least there are parents that actually do something for their neet child.

Sorry but no, this excuse just doesn’t work, first, how does changing schools automatically makes a neet to become a social person and change her lifestyle completely? Second, for a girl that used to do nothing but play videogames all day, she already has some muscle before she even begins climbing; and third, she just started in this sport and can already compete toe to toe with someone who has been training and practicing her whole life, completely naive and unrealistic.

And is not that I don’t like what the show was going for, it went for a inspirational message of leaving videogames behind, working out and starting practicing a sport while still retaining the good things you got from them and learned because of them. Is just that the way it was delivered was, again, just too positive and unrealistic.

This is a problem I have with sports anime in general, they try to inspire the audience with their stories but make their disciplines look like a walk in the park, easy to get in minutes and master in hours when the reality is completely different, they don’t show nowhere near as much training and possible consequences as they should. Sure, the protagonists may lose from time to time and cry enough tears to fill a river but that’s about it. Everyone does things wrong in ther daily lives and cry from time to time, that make the shows relatable but can hardly count as inspirational, they are too idealistic, toned down and manipulative instead of having actual exploration of their disciplines and themes.

I mean, having Konomi succeed in conquering the wall while playing videogames in her mind literally makes it look like a game. These segments become another rather minor issue present in the episode and throughout the whole show, I found them silly but not a big deal, but others may find it too stupid and cringy to the point of dropping the show. It becomes even more of a problem when an even better girl reveals that she’s so good at wall climbing because she plays rhythm games and that ultimately led Konomi to repeat PA-PAPAN-PAPAPAN-PA in her mind in the final episodes, ugh.

Other more important issue has to do with the other characters’ backgrounds, none of them is as bad as Konomi’s but they are way too simple, rushed and presented in inappropriate moments such as the middle of a competition thus stailling the plot, and they all come down to I’ve been doing this my whole life and there’s someone I want to surpass, that’s it.

Another important issue is the very first scene of the show spoiling the ending…or is it? This was my second positive surprise from the show, it made it look like Konomi and Jun would be rivals competing against each other in the final episode but they actually become friends and that flash forward was actually showing the middle of the series, not the end of it, and it wasn’t what it looked like at first.

After that we follow the usual route of training, new characters introduced, character bonding, competitions and stuff and there are both good and bad things present in here.

The good part has to do with Konomi actually failing at climbing at first and even being afraid of it thus making it seem like she would grow organically as a better climber, while at the same time developing Jun a little, the only character who gets that in the series and the best because of it, even if her character arc is the typical cold tsundere who becomes more friendly throughout the episodes, before she fails horribly at something, gets traumatized, leaves, gets over it with the help of someone else and returns stronger with a better design (for me at least):

The bad part has to do with how much Konomi improved to the point of exaggeration, she moved from a rookie with potential to beating opponents who have trained and practiced climbling their whole lives and the whole scanning then conquering the walls in one second gets repetitive and unbelievable very fast, it was like seeing a battle shounen protagonist getting a huge sudden power up after just a few days of training, we’re talking about that level of overpowered.

The show tries to excuse it by saying she always had the potential because she used to do ballet but it’s not believable, she did ballet when she was a child before becoming a neet who plays videogames all day and night so no. At least she doesn’t really win, but in a way that feels cheap, and even then it was nowhere near as bad as what they did with Jun, holy crap was there really a need to treat her so miserably? At least it led to her character development and better design.

Speaking of which, truth be told, all the character designs in the show are…decent, they don’t really stand out from the lot that much, and some of them can become ridiculous when resembling animals, but there’s quite the variety in heights and proportions and all of them have their fare share of muscles for they have been training their whole lives. Oh and they are mostly dressed and are never sexualized, except for maybe a certain shower scene, but even then it’s short and you can’t really see much in it. Again, compare this show with examples such as Harukana Receive and Keijo and you will notice that this is the better show at least in both of these regards.

As for the rest of the visuals, they are also ok, simple artwork, good enough backgrounds, well made but kinda silly special effects, serviceable motions. The sound is also ok, voice acting is nothing much but sound effects and music, while not being anything to write about, are fine.

Eventually the biggest issue the show has is how rushed it feels in its second half, showing the outcomes while barely showing the matches, and having a very cheap finale, I mean come on how did they even win? They lost 2 out of 3 competitions, and then the show just…ends.

So in the end Sport Climbing Girls is a show full of both good and bad surprises leaning a little towards the negative: It doesn’t have fanservice (+) but it panders to gamers (-), it has a good inspirational message (+) but its crappy writing does not support it in the least (-), it seems like it spoiled its own ending (-) but in reality it doesn’t (+), a good chunk of its characters have their backgrounds revealed (+) but they are terribly rushed, simple, and even dumb (-), the main character is overpowered (-) but not really (+) but actually she is indeed overpowered (-), it makes her and her friends fail and not winning all the time (+) but does it in cheap and miserable ways before rushing the ending (-) and it has character development (+) but only for one of them, and it isn’t much (-).

Ultimately, for every step the show takes forward, something else was making it go backwards, essentially failing at what it was trying to do but not to the point of making it atrocious and it was still better than what I expected and is among the better really really bad sport anime with women released in recent years. Now, on to the moe hockey on ice anime that will be released next year.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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