Mou Ippon!

Attachment 2006

"* Based on a sport manga by Muraoka Yuu.

After one last tournament and an embarrassing loss in the final round, Michi decides to call it quits on the sport of judo. Between high school social activities and entrance exams, she'll have no time to compete in the martial art she loves most, but putting aside old hobbies is a normal part of growing up. Still, the love of judo lingers—and it comes back full force when she meets her new classmate Towa, the girl who bested Michi in her final match! Towa wants to form a judo club at their school, but she'll need new members to get it up and running. United by their love of judo, they'll throw in their passions into the ring together and score ippon again!

Source: HIDIVE"

Genre(s): Sports, Slice of Life, School

https://subsplease.org/shows/mou-ippon/
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A sports anime with decidedly unattractive character designs, as if to prevent the girls' cuteness from distracting from the heartwarming coming of age story centered around Judo. I've never seen an anime where background characters have more consistent and attractive features, at least on purpose, as far as I can tell. Cute girls do Judo- what more did you/I expect? Starting with a bitter end of middle school regional qualifiers before the rebirth of high school passion; it worked for me as cliché as it is. The characters are well written and cover some endearing personalities (Genki in denial girl, demure glasses with burning passion beneath, kendo-tsun hang around, and a socially awkward giant genius) that come together into something slightly more than a girls doing a thing, but also not quite a shounen hot blooded sports epic. I can't put my finger on it, but I think that there might be something special here behind the low grade animation (some small sakuga shots are nice, but off model and corner cutting framiness is abundant). For now, recommended.

I questioned myself about why I was putt-off by the character design at first, well seems like I was unconsiously wanting cute girls.
After that realisation, I still watched ep 2 and I like that show like the many others I watched while bored.
Then I learn that around the age of 13 Towa was competing at the national level in the 52kg class.
A girl who is 13 and a strenght/stamina monster weighing 52kg/115 pounds has to feel somewhat bulky and round.
She might even be 55/56 before tournaments and cut some weight right before.
So it's refreshing to have these girls depicted with features that feel more coherent with girls their age/type doing judo.

Judo girls club slice of life ? why not after all

3-7

Checking in, and this show is... really good! Neither leaning too heavily on hot blooded shounen energy (though that is a driving force) nor the cute girls having conversations over food (which is well done enough to not wear out its welcome), what we have here is a bonefied hybrid held back mostly by its super poor animation production. The cell art here is the stuff of memes, if I'm honest, but the earnestness of the story and the girls interactions are spot on entertainment.

From sensei and late comer all the way to the rival schools, I have no complaints story and writing wise, and I'm excited to see the next tournament coming up.

8-12

Well, things are certainly moving. Shounen combat sports tropes continue to carry this where pretty much everything else doesn't. The tournament is neck deep and the combats are... serviceable, but what is keeping me hooked is the unpredictability of the matches. A few upsets and unexpected sweeps are keeping my enthusiasm hot. Not sure how many episodes left, but this is still worth watching if you need an old fashioned sports anime fix.