Over Drive

So, I haven't done a review on MAL and I feel like I should have done this a while back after how many times I have put animes I completed after I watched them. I just felt like doing this one because this was to be fair, my friend recommended this to me for months and I thought it'd be alright, and well... actually it was pretty bad.

Overall, the story in the least spoiler way possible but telling you the basic ways of it works is, the main character is the typical shounen anime character (especially in certain sports animes) who isnt particularly good at ... anything, but can cling to one thing. and thats biking. The main character, Mikoto, has a crush on the girl Yuki, and ends up riding the bike because he was persuaded into joining a club so she could get some money. The whole show is a pretty big jumbled mess.

For starters, the beginning of the show wasn't actually bad, it has some very good comedical essences and especially good for its time that it was made. Although after the race starts the show actually drags out. The race took place from around episodes 13 till the end of the series and from that point of the series you're in for flashback mania to go in depth with the characters and their experiences and even about characters that have little to NO impact on the story whatsoever.

The goal of the "Tour de France" was made apparent at Episode 1 but in reality was never hashed onto for the rest of the show which also makes the purpose of the show kinda bad and was never followed through.


Art wise, the character designs in my own opinion, were actually pretty good. However, the animation and bike scenes were pretty bad overall and considering when the anime was made there is actually a lot more that could have been done to make it more visually appealing, but then again, that didn't happen.


The audio in the show was probably the only thing that I didn't really mind, I kinda somewhat liked the opening, and the ending was okay also but as for the actual sounds from voice actors, and some of the music in the anime was just garbage. Very overused music, the voice acting for some of the characters just made you sick of the characters themselves (the main character)

The characters actually were in my own opinion, the worst part of the whole show. The story was a good premise, plot idea, etc. but quite frankly the characters actually ruined the show for me. The main character was as I said earlier, the typical shounen character, and its the same for the rest of the characters. The worst character in the show was probably the main female lead, who the MC has a crush on. She leaves a very crappy impression at the start and actually almost makes up on it somewhat during the race and a bit prior, but seriously, way to go and ruin every bit of buildup at the end, much applause.

and whats sad is, even the characters that made a GOOD impression, had the same downfall, and I ended up just honestly hating myself for admitting but the main protagonist is actually the only good character in the series and he isn't even a very good character.


Overall enjoyment level would be a LOT LOT higher, but because of the horrendous last couple episodes (the race episodes) that ruined everything that I liked about the show and made it dragged on and boring and made me skip half the episode and go onto the next episode only to do the same thing because it was a constant occurrence every episode of flashbacks that have absolutely NOTHING that benefits the story in anyway possible.

The manga is very slow to update, and the anime came out a bit after the manga ended if I recall, and the time spent FLASHBACKING useless characters, could be used to fill the series with stuff that would catch the series up because my enjoyment level plummeted especially near the END and BECAUSE of the lackluster ending. I would have definitely enjoyed this series a lot more if that was the case because the ending was by far one of its weakest points.

Overall, I think the anime isn't THAT bad, and I have friends and met other people who like this series, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. There was quite a bunch of things that in my opinion would be good if changed but overall the anime can be enjoyed if you can ignore some certain things. I definitely would try to watch the series, because its a very mixed opinion, but then again it wouldnt be a bad idea skipping past it either

Yeah this anime is about bikes, no it isn't great, but no it isn't terrible. What I'm trying to say is this anime has great humor and some great dramatic moments, but once they start that whole bike race thing YUCK! Sure it's very dramatic, BUT YOU ONLY THINK THAT FOR THE FIRST FIVE EPISODES OF THE RACE. After that, you realize that this is going to be HELLA boring. The story sticks to the bike race and makes it even worse as they make tiny sub-stories about the characters' pasts for over 15 episodes!

Let me break this down.

-The little comedy in here 10/10
-Action 7/10, ... drags on way too long.
-Romance is 6/10, mostly because the chick is a jackass after the race, and feelings are never really affirmed.

Overall 6/10, don't expect much.

Imma just quickly jump to it. The main character is highly autistic. This anime is only going to impress and encourage you to watch it if you can relate with the main character (the only good quality he posses is his extreme determination)

Story: Asocial and extremely awkward, huge loser and good for nothing main character, he develops a crush on a popular girl at school. Pretty typical shit? She soon introduces him to bicycling and talks about some other deep shit that hits our main character pretty deep. He becomes obsessed with cycling and then enrolls in some local bicycling tournament.

In one instance where the ... leader of the bicycling club (who is his crush's big brother) tells him to look for more members to join. He puts up his crush's sexual photo as an advertisement, though no big deal is made out of it. For an anime attempting to make itself seem realistic, that was just a 'the fuck?' moment.


Art: Absolutely trash. Even for being an old anime the art is despicable. No facial features, background is awful too.

Sound: As bad as the art. Probably hired the wrong voice actors for this shit

Character: This one I rate highly because of the character development over time they showed which was pretty flawless. They focus on each of the characters and often show how they came up to be the person they are. What are their inspirations, their motivations, yadda yadda. You get it by now

Overall: Pretty realistic anime to be completely honest with you. The main character has a burning passion for cycling and he puts it as his number one priority list, the story starts in a very attention grabbing manner, as in, you see the main character winning the race and then you go into his story. Which is all sorts of sad, happy, bla bla emotions.