Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitensha-bu

I'm sure every person here has, at one time or another, gorged themselves on something sickeningly sweet and ended up making themselves feel really ill. Well, this anime has the same effect. The main character is one of those nicey, nicey types who smiles with their mouth wide open. It's supposed to make them look adorable, but actually creates the impression that they're a brain-dead halfwit. A lovable one, of course.

This anime was so annoyingly nice, and everyone was so loving and friendly, after only a few episodes I wanted to set fire to my television. It was cringe-worthy. ... And yet the worse was still to come. In episode 8 an American appears. Sally. For those who can't abide dubbed anime because the horrible, valley-girl accents make characters appear one dimensional, dim-witted morons, her inclusion is horrifying. Although she speaks in Japanese, they made her accent that of a dubbed anime character. That's right, she spoke with that infuriating, moronic valley girl voice that has ruined translated anime since the dawning of time. I still don't know how I got to the end without shooting myself. It was horrible! Please, give this anime a miss. There's a fair chance it'll make your flesh crawl.

Excuse me, I need to go and throw up.

Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitenshabu, in my opinion, only has 2 things going for it. It's incredible art design and background details, and how well they cast English speakers in their Japanese dub.

Of all the characters in Minami the only one I truly liked was Sandy, which is a shame since she only appears as a main cast member (and having any lines outside "KUMA!") starting in episode 8. Emiko Takeuchi did an amazing job making Sandy sound like an America who is fluent in Japanese but with a very obvious accent. Sandy's English was also incredibly well done as it sounds authentic. Anime generally ... have Japanese VAs who have very obvious Japanese accents dub English lines, or they miscast the character completely (an American having a British accent for example). Minami not only has a very well cast main character but even the tourists in Episode 13 who speak English have proper accents and pronunciation (assuming they are stereotypical Americans).

Speaking of characters... Hiromi, the first character we meet in the entire anime, is a complete an utter moron who is so stupid its irredeemable. She shows her stupidity many times throughout the anime but the worst is in one of her very first scenes in Episode 1: She forgets how to ride a bike and is shocked to remember bikes require pedaling. How does someone forget that bicycles require you to pedal them? It's ridiculous. Having a dim main character can be endearing but dear god. Hiromi herself knocks many points of this anime because she never shows to grow as a character or anything, outside learning how to actually ride a bike again.

The artistic direction is sometimes breathtaking and quite unique. It can be a bit jarring seeing super cartoony anime characters superimposed over a very detailed, realistic back drop but it somehow works most of the time.

Other than these few points Minami is fairly mediocre and sometimes boring. Besides Sandy, Hiromi, and to a certain extent Sensei, all the characters are rather bland and the sounds design is pretty meh. Not amazing but Sandy saved it for me.

5/10 because of Sandy, otherwise would be a 4/10

Cycling is actually one of my few big hobbies and their are a lot of "hobby" anime but they rarely overlap with my interest. After I petered out on last season's Long Riders, I was hoping for something a little more interesting and fulfilling but it just meandered too much and felt bogged down by the typical high school club genre tropes echoed constantly in the past decade. I was ended up giving this show a longer shot than Long Riders but only by a few episodes. The gorgeous backgrounds are the show's biggest stand out that helps capture a very unique slice of rural ... Japan with the type of attention to detail that breathes life into the scenery. A big plus if you've ever been biking before (scenery is a big part of the experience). The characters, while they still fall into the typical archetypes (the genki, the oujosama, the tomboy, the megane, etc) they felt a little more dimensional. Now while I enjoy shows like K-On that don't have to constantly be about the club/hobby (soft rock music) the show is based on, whenever this show stopped being about biking it started to slowly fall apart and lose my interest. From the buying of the first bike, to the meeting the other club members, to the deciding to form a club, everything begins to feel like a paint-by-numbers kind of show. It never really got back to it's strengths that could be gleamed from moments in the first episode of exploring a unknown yet beautiful new world and the joy and excitement that brings. I guess if the show is confined to the school grounds and surrounding area it's harder to consistently make good on that promise. It may improve later but the pace is too slow and characters too simple to make me care enough.

I watched Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitensha-bu (including the Taiwan special), also known as Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club. Here are my thoughts:

The title of this anime accurately describes the content. There's minimal 'filler' material in here – the screentime is nearly always focused on cycling in some way. I appreciate anime that consistently stick to their theme, unlike so many other highschool anime which devolve into formulaic episodes unrelated to the show's main selling point. Minami Kamakura Jitensha-bu could be described as formulaic as well, in the sense that the storyboard is what you'd expect for a show about novice cyclists, but ... at least you won't have to suffer through a culture-festival episode or a typical beach episode. I was apprehensive about the highschool setting but thankfully there's barely any classroom screentime in this. As you might expect, various landmarks in the Kamakura region are featured throughout the cycling activities. It does sometimes feel like a thinly veiled tourism advertisement, albeit not overly so and my enjoyment was never impeded by this.

I liked the brief live-action segments that play at the end of each episode. They mostly consist of various cycling-related conversations in a bike shop. These live-action segments are both informative and cute and I enjoyed them, especially because they seemed endearingly loosely scripted. This anime is fairly educational for cycling – although I already knew much of what is explained regarding bicycles, it was still entertaining to see things rehashed. This show does a good job of teaching the viewer about cycling while still being entertaining. This could serve as a kids' show. There's minimal sexualization, and the character interaction is very simplistic and straightforward such that a child could understand it easily. This anime's characters are quite tropey and there's barely any character development.

Minami Kamakura Jitensha-bu comes up short in the production-value department – it could pass as being 15 years older than its actual production year. The character designs are retro, and CGI is sometimes used to animate the cycling scenes. The landscape and setting do sometimes look nice though. I found the voice acting mediocre and was also disappointed by the crummy low-budget soundtrack.


My overall rating: 5/10
If I didn't like cycling, I would have dropped this. This anime really doesn't have any selling points aside from the bicycle theme, which it does focus on consistently. This show does the bicycle theme well and is filled with lots of cycling scenes in various contexts, and also informs the viewer about some technical aspects of the activity. The characters and their interactions are tropey and simplistic. Production quality is lacking in many ways, however the Japanese outdoors do sometimes look decent.

People who like cycling might enjoy this anime. It's also suitable for a child audience while still being entertaining for a viewer of any age. I liked Long Riders slightly more than this anime – you should give Long Riders a try first if you're looking for a cycling-themed show.