Ace wo Nerae!

Dezaki Osamu is my favorite anime director. I still haven't seen everything from him but now I got around to Aim for the Ace!, somewhere in the middle in terms of how well known it is among his works. His most known works tend to be more lenghty so let's talk how a more simple show about a girl discovering herself via the world of tennis played out.

The premise itself is simple. We follow Hiromi, an innocent girl joining the tennis club of her school Nishi High because everyone including her admires a girl there known as Madame Butterfly aka Ryuzaki Reika. We also immediately ... get introduced to Munakata Jin, a former professional as he is assigned to be the new coach of the tennis club. Then throughout the two cour runtime we see these characters interact, grow, form rivalries and much more in between.

The characters for the most part are well written although maybe not always the most likable. There's a good amount of development for the main cast and even for some seemingly unredeemable side characters. However, I personally felt there were a bit too many plot conveniences revolving around Hiromi. Many of them get resolved later but they still gave me mixed feelings.

The show actually is more of a drama than a sports show. Every episode has something dramatic happening. And when I say dramatic, I really mean it. Unfortunately the show suffers from the really old trope of overly dramatizing even mundane things that Shoujo anime from back then had a habit of doing. So as someone who isn't a huge fan of melodrama, this was probably my biggest issue with the show. That being said there were a lot of good drama too so it's not all bad!

And on the topic of the show being very old, visually it sadly hasn't aged super well. Most of the time it wasn't an issue for me as I've seen quite a bit of old shows so I'm used to it but during the actual tennis matches I definitely felt it. Janky movement, stills, stock footage and bad sound design galore.

Regarding the ending of the show, I thought it was a fitting conclusion but at the same time it felt abrupt. I know there are other entries too (a remake possibly?) that might go even further on the plot but I was hoping for a bit more conclusive of a feeling after finishing. Still a decent finish overall.

Overall I enjoyed the show despite my issues with it. Although it would go on the lower side of Dezaki's shows to me. For anyone wanting a sports themed shoujo with some meaningful character growth, you could do a lot worse than Aim for the Ace!

Ace wo Nerae! tells of Hiromi Oka's experiences while she is in her school's tennis club. Personally, I think the anime wasn't anything special and it didn't really stick out to me. I gave the anime a 5/10 overall.

The story was standard for most sports anime. Hiromi Oka joins her tennis team with no skill and eventually becomes better through hard work. There was little romance, but it was entertaining. The tennis matches were also enjoyable.

The art was nice for being from the 70s. The character design reminded me of other 70s anime such as Rose of Versailles. None of the art really stuck out ... to me.

The main character, Hiromi Oka, was very annoying. She cried over everything and the only person who could give her motivation was her crush. All the other characters were pretty boring and monotonous.

Overall, the anime was mediocre and I didn't really enjoy it. If you like 70s anime or sports anime then this might be a good fit for you but other than that there isn't much else this anime offers.

Ace wo Nerae! is an iconic sports series that has been famously referenced in series like Urusei Yatsura and Kill la Kill. Osamu Dezaki, the director behind Rose of Versailles and Oniisama e…, has a directorial style that is notable for using a lot of stills and focusing on dramatic angles of a characters’ personality. I personally am not a fan of his. I think the directing in Ace wo Nerae is artrocious. For a sports show, there is barely any animation in this series AT ALL. When a character hits a ball with their tennis racket, it pans up a still ten times ... and then switches over to character making a shocked face or something comparably outrageous.

• Ace wo Nerae did many things that Ashita no Joe did, at the time, except it had much lower quality and worse writing. This series is like the bootleg Ashita no Joe, but with girls and tennis. I appreciate the avant-garde moments of this series, like there’s a terrifying scene where Hiromi is surrounded by a gaggle of faceless girls and there is eerie music droning in a monotonous humーto represent her feelings of social alienation. Moments like that rarely happened though. There are primarily lackadaisical moments of artists not wanting to draw a characters’ body, so they zoom into a stretched out face while dialogue blares in a beat of faux surreality; this technique is used over and over again!

• The characters are nothing out of the usual. I think Ace wo Nerae was one of the pioneers of a prodigy versus their wealthy, upper-class rival―hence why Kill la Kill used it in a parodical fashion during a tennis match between Ryuuko and Satsuki. The tropes in this series were very worn and scenes always linger on much longer than they need to be. Unless you want to laugh at the absurdity, this series is a bit of a snooze-fest.

• There’s only a small amount of romantic tension is between Takayuki and Hiromi, and it is completely dispersed when her coach tells her to not pursue romantic relationships and the heartbreak leads to Hiromi being able to beat Reika in their last match. That’s a pretty lame motivation for beating a sworn rival. This series carries a very goofy 1970’s vibe, reminiscent of Creamy Mami, and the audio quality is filled with ear-splitting echoes that mirror the original Doraemon (1979).

• Overall, Ace wo Nerae is very plain compared to Dezaki’s catalog of other series, I thought Oniisama e… was full of flaws, but I would suggest watching that or Rose of Versailles over this series any times of the day, his Golgo 13 OVAs also aren’t the worst thing in the world. Unless you want to get your classic shoujo fill, I wouldn’t suggest this series. I give Ace wo Nerae a 2/10.