English Dub Review: Skate-Leading Stars “Finals”

Overview:

The order for the tournament is decided by lottery. Ionodai will be going last which is just fine with Maeshima. Kuonji is now commentating on the tournament. Apparently, Shinozaki’s team is looking to compete on the world stage not just nationally. Every single team wants to beat Shinozaki. The tournament starts next time.

Our Take:

Well, this is probably too little too late. They finally put out a good episode, and finally, show some character motivation from Shinozaki. There are only two episodes left and I am left wondering “where was this like eight episodes ago?” In trying to keep Shinozaki a mystery they almost dehumanized him and made him one of the worst rival characters I have ever seen in anime. He was just nonexistent for most of the show and now they’re building up to some kind of showdown.

With everyone focusing on the nationals leave it to Shinozaki and his team to be condescending. “Actually… We are focusing on the world tournament” okay guys way to give yourself an out. There are very few characters to even like or root for in this and that’s what makes it a failure. Even getting some backstory from Shinozaki wasn’t enough. Sure, he apparently loved skating with his brother Sasugai and that is where his love of the sport started. He still just views people as stepping stones, but we also have no idea where that behavior came from. His childhood apparently was pretty good so what left him so jaded?

You see the problem right? For every positive step we take with this show it seems we take multiple steps back. I will try to be excited about the upcoming tournament but I am finding it hard. As I said this was a pretty decent episode but only compared to the rest of the series.