Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitensha-bu

The equivalent of booting up Animal crossing in anime form.

Drama free, no enemies, no intense tournaments like in other sports anime. Just a group of friends starting a bicycle club and enjoying the beautiful scenery in the places they visit. This anime is definitely not for viewers looking for high-stakes races against evil antagonists, but great for a cozy watch with enough action to keep you engaged in the story. Fulfilling the requirements for making the bicycle club official is the plot that ties the 12 episodes together, but they also introduce small conflicts that the characters have to solve each episode.

The show loses ... points due to its predictability, and the conflicts felt a bit too childish at times. The characters lack complexity and backstories, and most of their personalities can be summed up in three words or less. However, this simplicity doesn't hurt the show, and the characters are still very likeable because of their kindness and funny moments. I consider it a bit of a hidden gem, and would honestly love a season 2. And a bike.

The concept of cute girls doing cute things never gets old when it comes to an all girl anime, and applying sports makes it click, like how k-on adds the CGDCT and music.

the story is basically a slice of life for me, where everyday they encounter minor problems but in the end they accomplish it. Each episode there is always tips and tutorials on how to choose the right bike how to pedal how to use gears, you can all learn about cycling in this series especially in the end where they chow you the basics of cycling

the art style is pretty good the ... fact that its been aired 4 years ago because of the sport they chosen which is the cycling scenery is a must in every episode, and they hit the bullseye on this one

characters are pretty, yes pretty I didn't expect the animation and the art style of every character to be pretty since, I repeat, its aired in 2017. and the studio who anime this is the same studio who animated initial D so lets give it a little respect.

overall its is a great anime you can learn in this anime and I would probably go back to cycling right now because of this

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.