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

Kashii, Airi Main

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Nagatsuka, Saki Main

Hikasa, Youko 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

Dec 21, 2018

JuneNephthys

Recommended

Ro-Kyu-Bu! is a cute, eh, sports anime? That features a colorful cast of elementary girls who can unrealistically Michael Jordan a basketball. It’s like Kuroko’s Basketball, if the cast often played the sport in maid outfits and swimsuits. It’s an earnest fanservice series that doesn’t go too far and is family friendly; the seductive subtext is usually implied AT MOSTーif you need an added to connotation to that sentiment, this series is done by the same team AND mangaka that worked on Tenshi 3P.

• The characters, from the first season, are pretty memorable. There’s the lead heroineーTomokaーwho has alacritous desire to become the best basketball player ... that she can be and develops a crush on her coach; this becomes a somewhat detrimental draw-back in the OVA and second season, seeing as she goes from being a sweet, forthright girl to someone who’s so thirsty that her entire motivation is making moves on the coachーan example of this is when suddenly showing up to his house to spend the night in season two, though goaded by her friendsーit’s pretty forward for a girl in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!

• There’s another character, out of the main cast, that’s incredibly lovableーHinata. She’s another sweet, hard-working girl and, unlike Tomoka, she seems entirely aware of her feelings for the coachーoften teasing him coyly or making one-off remarks. She’s the smallest girl on the team and because of that she works very hard to compensate for it and is able to do really neat trick moves.

• Other characters include Maho, the rich, ojou-sama, tsundere, blonde twin-tailーgod, too many stereotypes put into one character! Airi, who has an extreme phobia of people acknowledging her tall statureーbeing a crybaby who just wants to fit in with her friends. Saki, the intuitive one, who doesn’t get as much screen time as the others, but tends to be the voice of reason. And, Aoi, the main character’s high school, childhood friend who managed his basketball team before they disbandedーshe’s feisty, cute, and also serves as an anchor of common sense, among all of the erratic lolis.

• This series is very good-lookingーthough, the second season slacks in budget. There’s an all-star cast of voice actors: Tomoka is voiced by Kana Hanazawa, Hinata is voiced by Yui Ogura, Saki is voiced by Yoko Hikasa, etc. The first season did an excellent job of having cute girls doing cute things in a way that kept you invested in the storyline and the struggles of Subaru’s (protagonist) complex with losing his team, despite dedicating so much time to the sport and learning how to love basketball non-competitively again.

• I watched the OVA after the first season, even though according to the official chronology, it aired mid-way through the second season. While the characters were still adorable, the OVA had too much fanservice. I felt like I was watching Kodomo no Jikan again. Milk splatters suggestively onto a girl’s face, there are ample panty shots, sexual innuendoes, Tomoka’s mother even implies that she improves of their relationshipーdespite Tomoka being a elementary school attendee! It was certainly a disappointment after watching the first season.

• UnfortunatelyーI was further letdown by the second season, Ro-Kyu-Bu SS; the first episode was particularly strange. The pacing was shot-gunned, there’s a dramatic insert songーwithin five minutes of hurriedly resolved drama, Tomoka’s father is built up to be this really big hard-ass that’s going to keep Tomoka from playing basketball with her friends, but all of that is resolved in two minutes because the Subaru helps him find his glasses when he drops them at a fireworks festival… so much for that! I haven’t read much of the manga yet, so I don’t know if that was supposed be a longer conflict in the original source materialーbut it sure felt like it would be!

• The new characters that were introduced in the second season were really underwhelming and were beaten quickly by the main girlsーI don’t even see the point of them being characters. There’s a cute, bratty girl with purple hair and a side-tail; but that pastiche was already taken by a snobby girl with blonde hair, red ribbon, and a ponytailーthat was introduced as a rival at the end of the first season…

• The only thing that second season does right is, in episode six, there’sーhand’s downーthe best onsen episode that I’ve ever seen in anime! It has Monogatari levels of absurdist humor and great development with Aoi and Subaru’s budding relationship, but after that brilliant trip to the hot springsーAoi’s development is completely shafted and never gets focused on again! There are really wonderful Hina moments in season two, but compared to the lack of cohesive plot and the degradation of Tomoka’s personalityーthese moments feel very fleeting.

• Overall, if you’re into light-hearted, moe showsーthis series is a must! The girls are distinctive and likable, it’s motivational, and has nice comical moments intermingled into the loli-ocalpse! The second season should be watched with discretion, but episode six is a must-watch for people who love the first season! I give this sugary crème brûlée of a series a 7/10 for the first season, the OVA is a 4/10ーit’s practically just fanservice with a couple of cute moments, and the second season is a 5/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 23, 2017

AnimeLuv1998

Mixed Feelings

WOW I AM FINALLY WRITING A REVIEW!!

First off before I rant about this anime I wanna just point out how I came across this series.. It was while I was playing Degenki Bunko Fighting Climax Tomoka was in the game it was two years ago I came across it so now I finally finished ahd watched it now onto the review!

WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Story (5):
first three episodes Subaru and the girls go through training everyday but after a certain time he wanted to stop but thanks to his aunt he really couldn't cause she knew Subaru loves Basketball and there was someone on ... the team that keeps him the most on there.. Later on the story kinda got better he was shown there are more people on the team then just Tomoka to think about.. Couple things that irritated and made the downfall for me that kept on repeating was.. 1): Just like in a mediocre harem (sadly it isn't classified or tagged as harem should be) the girl will get jealous mad and yada yada.. 2): Oh boy.. Just like number 1 but you have loli in a harem and you put fan service when they go in the tub at least they censored it many times but it got irritating.. Enough of that I'll get to it later.. The rest they really didn't put much effort into the anime for the rest of storyline after the boy vs girl match it felt eother rushed or not much was explained as in yes its a SPORTS ANIME but show how much you practice and the whole game not skip one frame to another..

Art (6):

Well its not bad I seen worse but its quite decent I wanted to pay attention to the faces a couple times to see if there were any derp faces xD

Sound (7):

Loved the ending song then the opening though I skipped as well but listened fully through on two episodes

Character (5):

As I stated before it got handfully annoying when it started becoming a harem.. First off.. Subaru is dense and not dense he isn't aware of the situation and he is now let me move onto the harem.
Aoi - She is a term of tsundere with jealousy
Maho - Annoying
Hina- freaking adorable
Saki - smart but yet doesnt know what to do sometimes
Airi/Tomoka- they both improved quite a bit but they focused too much on Tomoka character at least Maho and Saki had a bit of development.

Finally the enjoyment (5.5)

There were a couple laughing points but now what I wanna mention from the beginning was the downfalls again.. So you censor it off and add bathtub scenes like 2-3 episode there are.. Quite understandable but you also have them thinking dirty minded and the lolis have a thing for Subaru?! We get it but this could've been a bit different best part of the show was when ( can't remember his name) young boy called Subaru out as a lolicon Anyone else who said it wasn't funny... Then you have his aunt who pushed Subaru back into coaching /basketball but he felt like he wanted to for her yada yada but the plus side there always gotta be a loss so they remember it.. Now I think my rant is over I think you understand whoever reads this and understands how I feel about my little rant..

Final..... !!!5!!!

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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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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