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First of all, if I had to describe this anime to a friend in a really succinct way, I would describe it as being a "shittier version of Free! since it has more cardboard for characters and less of a plot."

I enjoy sports animes immensely and it's definitely one of the genres which I enjoy watching more/give higher ratings to. So when I heard that Mad House was making a sports anime, I was hyped. That coupled with the amazing voice actor cast this anime has, and I honestly had no doubts that I would at least enjoy it even if it turned out to ... not quite meet my standards.

I was wrong and I'm saying this as someone who did low-key enjoy Free! as a guilty pleasure.

The first half of this anime feels incredibly tedious. I was bored whilst watching and didn't find any of the comedy stuff funny at all. The first half focuses quite heavily on characters since there are quite a few character introductions. Usually I wouldn't have a problem with this but when your characters are pretty much cardboard, it's just a waste of screen time. I think it was around episode 8 for me when I realised that I was so apathetic towards all the characters that I actually didn't know any of their names. Obviously this is a major problem for any anime, but especially a sports one. An aspect which makes a sports anime so enjoyable to watch, is that you want to root for the characters/teams because they're likeable and you want to see them achieve their goal of victory. An especially good sports anime in my opinion will also have the side characters developed so you don't know who to quite root for... but in both regards, (of having both the main and side characters developed), this anime completely failed. After just finishing the anime, I can only recall the names of 4 characters max and that's probably me stretching it to be honest. I didn't root for anyone and I didn't care about anyone. The characters are quite literally just their character designs - 'pretty boys' so fujoshis can ship them together and probably write fanfiction about them.

Also, I'm not someone to question 'anime logic' but the realism of some the stunts displayed is practically non-existent. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite the fan of Prince of Tennis and KnB and both of those can be pretty ridiculous at times, but the ridiculous things which happen in those series can sort of be accepted because of how they are set up. In those series, the special moves which some of the characters do are sort of justified by, (all be it - complete bs), stretched physics logic/explanations. There is none of that here. A dude jumps from what looks like some cliff edge and lands on both his feet without breaking anything and continues to run without any sort of explanation? Oh he also swings around a flag pole a couple of times even though he's seemingly only ever been in the track club his entire life, not gymnastics or whatever. Sure anime sure. (Me nitpicking but it's something which personally bothered me.)

There were also some emotional conflicts some of the characters went through and some pointless backstory sort of crudely thrown in half way through which I felt didn't really add anything at all except maybe help some of the ships sail. Didn't care for these plot points at all and again, I was bored whilst watching these parts.

That being said, towards the end of the anime, I was getting some sort of enjoyment out of it. The races in the last few episodes I found myself actually getting a little hyped and I was actually looking forward to the final race... but then they ruined that too. How you think it's justified to NOT show half of the final race in favour of some shitty monologue is absolutely beyond me. Honestly I was appalled with how that final race was showcased and how the anime ended. When the entire goal of the characters, (and thus the anime), is to complete the End of Summer race and you don't even show HOW the race ended just the end result in a magazine? Absolutely dreadful.

Okay so on to some of the few positives of this anime - nothing wrong with the voice acting. Just look at the seiyuu cast and that's not really a surprise. The OST was fine too and the track played during the races did it's job in getting me hyped. Not really a fan of the OP or ED but I don't think they're particularly bad, just not to my taste.

It's mad house so the animation is fine. Honestly, the blues and greens in this anime look absolutely beautiful to me. I'm not really a big fan of the sort of 'white-wash' look they have going on with the character's skin tones though... but again that's personal preference and possibly me just being nitpicky. Character designs are fine. Nothing too special about them but they're clearly suited for the demographic this anime is obviously aimed at - fujoshis.

My personal ratings for this anime:
- Story: 3
- Art: 7
- Sound: 8
- Characters: 2
- Enjoyment: 3

So overall I would give this anime a 4.