English Dub Review: Ahiru no Sora; “Towards Victory,” “The Boys’ Spirit,” “The Best Start and the Worst Start”

 

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

With Chucky and Nabe being brought back into the fold and Momoharu’s return from sickness, the Kuzu High team is firmly reestablished. Just in time, no less, for the unexpected entrance of a new rival to practice against. 

Our Take

The last we saw of Sora was him chasing after the frustrated Chucky and Nabe who have now decided to quit playing basketball as they feel they can never catch up to people who have been playing the game their whole lives. When Sora catches up to them and sees them dejected he asks them if, despite their lack of skill, they still found basketball fun. They deny this, but they seem to do this merely to get him off their backs. But as they resume their daily lives of meandering and wasting time, they find that all of their habits and conversations still revolve around playing basketball. They’re so very close to being honest with themselves but their dogged obstinacy prevents them from pulling the trigger. 

As one would expect from these two ne’er-do-wells, it will take something petty and immodest to motivate them to return to the team. They then witness one of the middle-schoolers that trounced them before being fawned over by his girlfriend and resolve to recommit themselves to the cause of basketball for the fleeting chance of female attention. Yasu’s reaction summarizes this little arc up perfectly as he doesn’t even bat an eye at their reasoning, fully expecting something like this to happen. Ironically, while this is all patently juvenile and silly, Sora briefly has a somewhat similar moment like this with Madoka later on. 

On the heels of Chucky and Nabe’s rejoining, Momoharu makes his return from his unceremonious hospital stay. With this, the Kuzu High boys’ basketball team is at last well and truly assembled and hopefully will stay that way as they push forward. 

As Nao arrives to refocus the team’s tactics, she brings along her cousin Taro. Taro’s character is encapsulated perfectly in his introductory scene. He is as talented at scoring buckets as he is arrogant and self-important, which results in him challenging the clearly incompetent Nabe to a scoring contest. He would’ve handily won this contest if he didn’t decide to do it while wearing his long, gaudy striped socks, which cause him to slip and fall. Not one to let his machismo slip for even a moment, he generously relents and promises the Kuzu High boys a practice match against his team, Kitasumi High. 

For the most part, Taro serves as a goofy and haughty, but somewhat likable young man with an ardent talent for basketball and, more importantly, winning. However, his character is considerably hampered by the fact that he has a legitimate crush on his cousin Nao, which is gross. And to make it worse, Nao completely rebuffs all of his advances and is visibly uncomfortable when he makes them, which is super gross. 

Very little time passes before we jump right into the scrimmage against Kitasumi. Before the match begins, Nao gives Sora his newly repaired basketball shoes back. As she goes to retrieve her pair that she lent him, Sora insists that he wear them one last time for the match that he practiced in them for. Sora is most likely doing this out of some feeling of devotion or camaraderie. Nao, on the other hand, takes full advantage of this and enjoys this event on a much deeper emotional level, emboldening her crush on him. It will probably stay in the background like it is right now, but a love triangle between Sora, Madoka, and Nao is slowly taking shape. And to make matters worse, Taro notices that Sora is wearing Nao’s shoes and angrily interjects himself into this mix (temporarily, hopefully). 

Another subplot running parallel to this practice match is one between Momoharu, Chiaki, and a boy named Konishi from Kitasumi. They all went to the same middle school where the twin brothers taught Konishi basketball skills. When they quit the team and it disbanded, Konishi remained and forged ahead. Reunited with them for this practice match, Konishi hides his contempt for them for all but a brief moment before digging into them for it and tossing out a heated insult. Even while the unity of their team is solid, Chiaki and Momoharu are still catching flack from their past for quitting. As they haven’t yet found genuine motivation for playing like some of the other members have, this will probably be a ghost that will continue to haunt them for some time. 

The match starts and Kitasumi isn’t taking this seriously at all, forgoing to wear their uniforms as they underestimate Kuzu High. As expected, the Kuzu boys show off their stuff, and it doesn’t take long for the Kitasumi coach to call their first timeout and do a soft reset for the team. The starters are brought in and the real match begins. 

Kitasumi focuses and brings the heat, but Kuzu High doesn’t lose their focus and keeps up with the pace. Kuzu smartly hones in on Taro, who is the clear ace and point earner. Watching Taro make his dynamic approach to the hoop is probably the most engaging aspect to watch in what we’ve seen of this match so far. As he moves, his skills manifest visually in the form of sharp, bright blue blurs that form in his wake as he moves, highlighting his high level of movement as he deftly navigates the defense. Some of his coolness is lost though when he runs out the shot clock by wasting time thirsting for his cousin. 

The match continues with Kitasumi picking up some more momentum and Taro beginning to style on his opponents more while staying strong. Nao quickly reconnoiters the team and readjusts their defense, having Sora keep a constant mark on Taro. Sora takes his defense position seriously, homing in on and analyzing Taro to shut him out of scoring in the first quarter, which he succeeds at. Thus far, we’ve seen Sora almost entirely dedicated to honing his scoring skills, so it’s refreshing to see him improve his defensive repertoire as earnestly as his offensive one. 

However, Sora’s defense comes at the cost of a considerable amount of stamina. Kitasumi’s coach notices this and decides to play into Nao’s hands and keep Taro off of scoring and staying on Sora to start a battle of attrition between them. While this happens, Kuzu takes back some momentum and mounts a more robust offense. In it, we see Chiaki work more of his ball-handling magic and even seen Yasu reaping the fruits of his hard labor by scoring a well-earned point. 

The tide is turning in Kuzu High’s favor at the end of this batch of episodes, but as we’ve only just started the second quarter, so there’s still a lot more of this match to play. As Sora and Taro wear each other out, anything can still happen.