Ro-Kyu-Bu!

Subaru Hasegawa has the ambition to become one of the best basketball superstars of all time. However, this comes to an apparent halt when his school's basketball team ceases activities for a year. Shocked by the news, he decides not to involve himself in basketball anymore.

One day, his aunt Mihoshi Takamura invites him to coach the Keishin Academy girls’ basketball team on how to play the sport, and he reluctantly agrees. He meets sixth-graders Tomoka Minato, Maho Misawa, Airi Kashii, Hinata Hakamada and Saki Nagatsuki, and begins training them in the sport with one goal: to defeat all strong opponents along the way.

Ro-Kyu-Bu! follows the effort of five elementary girls and their coach as they improve their cute style of playing basketball.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Minato, Tomoka Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Hakamada, Hinata Main

Ogura, Yui Japanese

Misawa, Maho Main

Iguchi, Yuka Japanese

Nagatsuka, Saki Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Kashii, Airi Main

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Hasegawa, Subaru Main

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Takamura, Mihoshi Supporting

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Ogiyama, Aoi Supporting

Itou, Kanae Japanese

Takenaka, Natsuhi Supporting

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Kakizono, Satsuki Supporting

Oogame, Asuka Japanese

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Satomi, Tetsurou Producer

Fukuda, Jun Producer

Fujita, Satoshi Producer

Reviews

Jun 26, 2013

blaZofgold

Recommended

I'm somewhat perplexed by the number of 6's and 7's this anime is receiving. I was initially reluctant to watch this anime because of the score, but I'm glad I committed in the end.

Ro-kyu-bu is a loli/sports anime with a barebones plot and relatively static characters. While some might consider this points to criticize the anime on, I would like to point to the genre of the piece and remind everyone why we are watching this anime. To learn more about basketball? I should hope not. Sports anime is almost always a terrible representation of the actual sport itself. I will smack anyone who dares ... to say that Prince of Tennis accurately portrays realistic tennis matches and strategies with my Wilson K-Blade Team. Ro-kyu-bu is all about the girls. Loli anime is meant to be plain and simple, focusing more on cute art and high-pitched voice acting to attract fans rather than any depth of content.

For a loli anime, Ro-kyu-bu sets a pretty high standard.

Story (7/10)
Art (8/10)
Sound (9/10)
Character (6/10)
Enjoyment (8/10)

The story revolves around Hasegawa Subaru, a 1st year (sophomore equivalent) high schooler who's also a basketball star. However, the high school basketball team/club gets disbanded because the team captain gets caught in a scandal with some elementary schoolgirls. So, what's the most obvious thing that Subaru can do?

I'm sure the author was aware of what irony is.

The driving force behind the initial plot is the Subaru's refusal of playing basketball once the team was disbanded. Which is stupid. What kind of basketball player gives up basketball just because a school team is disbanded? Out of all the possible motivations that the author could have used, this was quite a poor choice, one that ultimately makes the message of the anime (Don't give up on what you love) weak and frivolous.

The actual plotline with regards to the basketball team is, surprisingly, not bad. The girls don't win every single game they play, and success is compounded with failures. While some episodes introduce filler characters, each episode contributes to the plot or characters substantially.

Regardless, plot is merely secondary to art in a loli anime. Ro-kyu-bu has a unique art style that fits quite nicely with the overall feel of the anime. This art style focuses a lot on the eyes and hair - even Subaru's hair is done quite detailed. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about their faces. Some of the angled scenes in the anime result in awkwardly derpy faces, especially for the protagonist. Besides those rare moments, however, the art remains top-notch and well done.

How in the world did they get such an all-star voice crew? Hanazawa, Ogura, Itou, Iguchi, Hikasa - a seiyuu dream team. Needless to say, the girls sound amazing: Maho with fiery zest, Saki with icy tone, and Hinata with breezy pitch.

The OP and ED are nicely done. Usually, songs that are sung by all the main seiyuus of the anime end up with better quality. The OST of the anime is not particularly amazing, which hinders the perfect 10.

I mentioned static characters in the introduction. Besides Subaru, every character in the anime is static and fits quite neatly into stereotypical and preassigned roles. Maho is the loud prankster, Airi is the clumsy well-endowed, Saki is the glasses girl, etc. Natsuhi is the boy rival of Tomoka (meaning they will inevitably be paired together in some way shape or form), Aoi will be tsundere until S2E13, and Miho-sensei joins the ranks of multitudes of teachers who act and look just like students.

Character molds are not a completely negative thing. After all, dynamic characters take more time and effort to prepare, and are likely to be misinterpreted or distracting. However, it would be a nice touch to make at least one of the girls a dynamic character.

On a whole, this anime is freaking cute. And genius. That "small forward" segment has got to be one of the greatest scenes in all of loli anime. I honestly enjoyed watching the characters interact with each other in their various ways, their various personalities and characters complementing each other.

Overall (8/10)
Ro-kyu-bu is not supposed to be some great action story like SAO or have deep philosophical insight like Ergo Proxy or be filled with heartwrenching scenes like After Story or all of the above (Angel Beats). In fact, none of the anime I just mentioned comes even close to Ro-kyu-bu in terms of pure loli goodness. Whether you are a full-blown lolicon or just an average anime watcher, Ro-kyu-bu will satisfy your cute needs for quite a long time. At least until season 2 comes out.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 20, 2013

Orsonius

Mixed Feelings

I'm a big sucker for Lolis and when I found out about this anime I was pumped!

And after finishing it I can say I wasn't disappointed, rather very pleased.

If you are a Loli-lover this is a must watch and one of the best shows in that genre out there.

But lets get to the heart of the review and look on what this show did right and what it lacked in.

Animation
Ro-Kyu-Bu, made by Studio Blanc, which did nothing that I know of before did a generic job animating the show. To be honest, an anime in the SoL pseudo-sports genre will most likely look not that ... exciting, so it's not a shame for the studio.
Everything fits and looks clean, but nothing is memorable or unique.
The quality is so-so sometimes bad, sometimes okay. Sad for a sports anime, but as I said it's more about the lolis than about the sport.
The character designs were decent and cute loli as you might expect. They looked distinct and fit their rolls.

5/10 Mediocre

Sound
I personally didn't like either the opening or the ending. But its electronic jpop tracks fit the show well.
The ost is forgettable, bland and not mentionable. It still worked fine with the show. Nothing stood out.
The only redeeming factor was the Voice Acting cast for the show, with Yuki Kaji voicing the Maincharacter Subaru, and Kana Hanazawa voicing the female lead Tomoka. Everyone else did also a great job being cute lolis.

5/10 Mediocre

Story
A loli bascetball team gets a teenage coach who kinda falls in love with one of the girls who is fairly talented in what she does. He helps them to play in a real professional match.
The premise sounds generic and bad, unless you are into lolis, like me.
It's rather slow and doesn't make too much sense, especially from a sports point of view. But to be honest I have no clue about sports and thus won't judge it on that basis.
Don't take it to seriously.
It does offer fanservice, small bits of romance and here and there funny moments though.

5/10 Mediocre

Characters
When it comes to SoL shows the characters are mostly the driving force behind it. Ro-Kyu bu does a decent job in regard to characters.
They are all likable, show almost normal human traits, make sense though fall into their sterotype archs. They even show character development!

But there is on mentionable character from them all. Subaru for the most likable pervert/lolicon in anime history (at least for me). He is a true rollmodel when it comes to lolis. ... damn I wish I was him...

7/10 Good

Value
I certainly will rewatch it and am excited for the second season. Though no episode stood out in particular to be re watched again. There is basically also no good reason to watch it again besides for the cuteness.
On a sentimental basis it's on a high list, I will certainly remember it for being the basket-lolis anime, and it also was the first anime that made it right when it comes to the lolis.
On a historical basis, well its Studio Blancs first anime as far as I know, besides that. Nobody will remember this show. Way too generic.

4/10 Decent

Enjoyment
My enjoyment was on a constant high, all dem lolis were just too damn cute, and that maincharacter cracked me up. It even had some thrilling moments though were too generic too be regarded highly.
Overall it was a very enjoyable show.

8/10

Overall it scores a 6/10 (though for me it will always be a masterpiece!)

Fair

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 4, 2022

AnimeEnjoyer420

Not Recommended

Funny

Recommendation: Skippable unless you like the specific combination of basketball and lolis.

Positives:

+ Doesn't do much that's new, but effectively harnesses the uplifting sports movie vibe. It's sweet and heartwarming and you'll be rooting for the girls. Unlike many shows of this type, Subaru (the main character) isn't a loser or weirdo, he's a cool and nice guy, so it doesn't have to indulge in the usual harem shenanigans (though it sometimes does anyway, much to my chagrin).

+ Characters have varied personalities and all get individual focus at different times to develop their characters. When they actually play basketball games, it's thematically tied into ... the challenges that different characters face in practice and their personal lives, allowing them to overcome them in a satisfying way.

+ Nice use of background music and the OPs and EDs are all pretty catchy. Hanazawa Kana does her usual good work as Tomoka's VA.

+ Despite the weirdly romantic vibe that it often takes, Subaru and Tomoka's relationship is nice and more wholesome than you'd expect. While it's clear in the subtext that Tomoka has a huge crush on Subaru, the series is never tasteless enough to have Subaru openly reciprocate those feelings, and instead he simply respects her as a basketball prodigy and as a person.

Negatives:

- Creepy amount of loli fanservice. Many completely unnecessary scenes of the girls, who are 6th graders, in the bath, grabbing each other's breasts, etc...

- Cringeworthy and unoriginal ecchi bullshit. They even recycle the same "joke" multiple times, where Subaru discovers the panties of one of the girls on the floor while they're bathing and goes to drastic lengths to try to return them without being seen. I would've rolled my eyes at this in normal circumstances, but the fact that the girls are in elementary school makes everything worse and more uncomfortable.

- Aoi is an underutilized character. A few times she gets moments to do something, like when she coaches up a timid Airi on how to get over her fears, but she gets forgotten for long stretches and her crush on Subaru goes nowhere. Mihoshi, the basketball club advisor, feels similarly wasted and rarely even gets fun moments as a side character.

- The humor in general isn't funny and is overly reliant on Aoi or Mihoshi seeing a sexual misunderstanding involving Subaru and the girls and assaulting him like violent tsunderes.

- Basketball action is occasionally well animated, but is often reduced to being a literal slideshow. It's not like it looks terrible, and it actually looks nice when they put work into a particular scene, but they clearly didn't have the budget to animate this series properly. The overly cutesy "every female character, even the adults, is a loli with a fang" art style is also not ideal.

- The subtitles translate "scoop shot" as "floater", which, first of all, are not the same thing, and more importantly, neither would correctly describe the actual shot, which is in fact a finger roll. As a basketball fan, this bothers me greatly.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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