Prince of Stride: Alternative

This review contains minor spoilers.

After watching "Haikyuu!!" I became so hyped up about sports series that I decided to try "Prince of Stride: Alternative". I can't say I'm disappointed, but compared to aforementioned "Haikyuu!!", "Prince of Stride: Alternative" looks bland and, on the whole - average.

The story is as generic as it could get. It revolves around the new extreme sport called "Stride" which is similiar to parkour. "Stride", however, is not new, neither it is extreme. Sadly, the runners just run, sometimes they jump over some obstacles and somehow, this attracts large crowds and makes runs a big city event.
As with all school clubs ... in anime there is a girl, and a boy and another boy who have always dreamt of running in "Stride". They join the "Stride" schoolclub which, obviously, is running out of members and our protagonists miraculously save the club. Then, all of them are training and running. Also, in each episode there's someone talking about how "Stride" connects people with a mandatory, super-cringeworthy shot of high-five of the runners in the background. And that's pretty much the story, or what supposed to be the story. Very predictable and unoriginal.

The art is mediocre. It has its ups and downs but there's nothing particular in it. The characters' faces seem really weird as they look like they have different shapes in different shots, but overall the characters are nicely drawn. Run sequences are fairly well animated, although there is too little running and too much thinking-while-running shots.

There's also nothing particular in sound. During the run sequences there's always some music but in my opinion it is there only because it would be awkward to listen to the boys' gasps for a few minutes.

When it comes to characters, there's absolutely nothing original in them. There's the female protagonist, who is there only to be a narrator and has no personality whatsoever, then there's the overly enthusiastic guy, the manly guy, Haru from "Free!" and even Sephiroth from FF7 - pretty much the characters we've all already seen elsewhere. Each character is pretty much one dimensonial and is involved in some backstory which is absolutely forgettable and is meant to add depth to the characters but unfortunately fails to do so. On the other hand, some of them are sometimes funny.

Having completed the whole series, I can say I generally enjoyed it despite its flaws. There definitely are better sports series, but also there are definitely worse sports series. "Prince of Stride: Alternative" is by no means a masterpiece, but it's not a bad show either. This anime just doesn't shine in any way. If you have some free time, give it a go. Don't expect too much, though.

(This is my first review and I'm not native English speaker so there probably are lots of mistakes, so sorry for that.)

Likes:

The art was fantastic. It was my favorite part of the show. With bright colors and more realistic looking characters, you could really see the story in HD. I can't watch animes with odd styles (it distracts me from the story and characters), so this was tailor made for me. I really loved the character design for Riku. On the other hand, Hozumi looked too much like Armin from 'Attack on Titan', and Takeru was practically Haru from 'Free!' If you're trying to prove the likeness to 'Free!', you've got it.
Kuga and Heath's story was intriguing. They had a lot of backstory. And I loved ... it. Their friendship and determination. The connection between the two. If anything, these two were 'connecting emotions', not anybody else. Throw in Hozumi's distrust and there's a hot pot of backstory.
I described 'Prince of Stride: Alternative' as parkour on crack. Though, it's more like free running. Free running follows a more artistic approach compared to parkour. Parkour's goal is to get around as fast as you can. That's why they have wall climbs and whatnots. It's easier than walking around the wall. This anime has all the basics of parkour or free running with double the running. It's an obstacle course really. The first episode really caught my attention with the jumps and flips the runners did. It was exhilarating. Live vicariously, you know?
Dislikes:

Takeru, Nana, and Riku all knew each other. And all have connections to Stride. But act like they don't. When Nana and Riku meet in episode one, they acted like strangers, but they knew each other. I felt like the creators just threw in the promise at the end to make you feel more for the trio, but all it did was annoy me. It was a subplot that no one cared to expand on. The quick shots of fireworks on the beach meant nothing. If you're adding this in, at least give it some depth.
The plot revolves around the End of Summer games. If you look closely, there is a lot of time between each round. A few days would be fine, but a week or more is insane. You're giving the revived Honan Stride Club too much credit. If they were that good, they'd have practiced before. Anyways, didn't the show start at the beginning of the school year? They had more than enough time to get ready for the End of Summer games. They didn't need all the between EOS games training. I get the emotional block for Riku, but everyone else was in tip-top shape. Or did we skip the training between the beginning of the school year and EOS?
Nana kept saying that Stride is all about 'connecting feelings'. Can I just say that's a bunch of baloney? Stride is about stamina and skill and balance and timing and about everything but connecting feelings. I didn't know why they needed a Relationer anyways. They could have handed off batons or even just high fives each other. Why did they need the Relationer, and by default, Nana? I thought that the creators wanted a female (because all the runners are seemingly male) who didn't run because that would take away the need for Kuga or someone. So the Relationer job was born. Nana was highly useless and didn't even need to be in the anime for the show to go smoothly. If you're trying to add in a girl, do it successfully or not at all.
And if we're talking about useless characters, take a good, long look at Ayumu. The cheerleader. He started out as a runner, but he ended up being a cheerleader and Hozumi's bae. (And that's another parallel to Free! Gay characters. Or, at least, fanon gay characters.) He had no use. I was getting tired of seeing him. Just take him out. Geez, is that so hard?

Prince of Stride: Alternative may be labeled as a sport anime, but it is more than that really. For half of the time, it is about the main characters competing in a sport named “Stride”. The other half of the time is used to show interactions between the main characters and relationship with one another. At time, it does both of those work well enough. However, for most of the time, the two parts of this anime do feel lacking. The anime used a fair share or sports clichés to get the job done. Still, Prince of Stride manages to be an okay anime despite ... its flaws.

~{Story}~
In Prince of Stride, the main premise is about a group of students who form a club/team that competes with other teams in a sport called “Stride” (which really is just relay with parkour). However, this is just the backbone of the anime as the main focus is really the relationship between the characters. The whole Stride aspect is used to keep the content fresh. At times, the whole slice-of-life moments can feel like a drag, so the Stride moments do keep your interest. The plot isn’t anything special, due to the fact that this is a by-the-books sports anime. It’s just like any other sports anime you’ve seen; main characters are practicing to get better at a sport, wins some, loses some, practices to get better, flashbacks are given to the characters to give “depth”, gets better and proves to be the best. The plot has a fair share of clichés and they end up pulling down this anime.
Story: 4/10

~{Presentation}~
For the most part, Prince of Stride takes a slice-of-life approach. Most times, the main characters are either fooling around or training to get better. The tone-shifting at times can be pretty noticeable. At times, you’ll get some serious competition, next, you’ll be seeing the main characters chug a bucket of shaved ice… yeah! It starts to get irritating when you get something that seems very filler-y when you should be receiving a tension. However, when they’re consistent with the tone, the lighthearted parts do work, but the more suspenseful moments (such as the Stride races) are even more entertaining. The buildup is okay and the way they incorporate flashback during more intense situations work well enough, except in the last episode. Also, this anime feels like a combination of shounen (getting better at something, the power of friendship) and shoujo (strong bromances, slight shounen ai vibes) tropes. The direction in the end episode felt lacking as there was absolutely no tension at all and it felt very melodramatic.
Presentation: 5/10

~{Character}~
For an anime that primarily focuses on the main characters and their interactions with each other, it is important to have good characters. Prince of Stride is mixed bag in this. The main protagonist of Prince of Stride is Sakurai Nana, who is the relationer (someone who signals the racers on their team when to start running, in order for two racers to make contact with each other) of the team. She ends up being one of the blander characters of the anime as she doesn’t have any traits that makes her stand out much. Next is Yagami Riku, who follows most of the clichés of an energetic, carefree character. However he stands out in the cast of characters well due to his more energetic personality. Next is Fujiwara Takeru, who is one of the more organized and quiet ones on the team. Then you have other characters like Hasekura, Kadowaki, Kohinata and Kuga, which don’t play that big of a role except for doing their best during stride races. Most of these characters, if not all, follow a fair share of clichés as mentioned before. And their character relationships are the cliché “nakama powers” for most of the time. At the end, the characters are enjoyable at times, but they are very, very cliché.
Character: 4/10

~{Art}~,
The art is pretty good for most of the times in Prince of Stride. Character designs (though you’ve seen designs like these before) end up being decent. The backgrounds do feel a little lacking at times, and the architectures (though for style) looks very simplistic. Many objects are just given a plain color texture and it’s a little disappoint, especially when Madhouse is behind this. However, the art style is great. It has this sort of vividness to it, but at the same time, the art looks bleached out. The color palette is purposely limited to those bleach out colors. This unique art style adds to the effect and works really well during Stride races. Although, the art style may not be the ideal one during its slice-of-life-y moments.
Art: 6/10

~{Animation}~
Probably one of the better aspects of Prince of Stride, the animations for the most time is great. During the laidback scenes, the animations quality is just as good as your average school anime. However, when the Stride scenes happen, the animation quality boosts up. Even though in these scenes, for the most time you just see the racer’s torso moving around, but it done really well. The character movements are really well depicted and it really does feel they’re running their fastest. And when they do their parkour movements, it’s really fun to watch being the animations are top notch. The fluidity between character and object movement is very good. However, the animations in the final episode felt a little weak, since it took the easy way out.
Animation: 7/10

~{Voice Acting}~
The cast they got for this anime is really impressive, as it’s filled with A-list seiyuu. Hanazawa Kana does Sakurai well. Her character isn’t very special, but she manages to do a good job with was she has. Then you have other well-known seiyuu, like Okamoto Nobuhiko, Ono Daisuke, Shimono Hiro, Ono Kensho, Suwabe Junichi, and Kimura Ryouhei, which all do a fine job at what they need to do, even if their characters are clichés. The seiyuu make the characters better than what they originally would be. Even the supporting cast is filled with well-known as really loved seiyuu, such as Sakurai Takahiro, Miyano Mamoru, Suzuki Tatsuhisa, Matsuoka Yoshitsugu, Hanae Natsuki, Okiayu Ryotaro, Eguchi Takuya and Ishikawa Kaito and they all do a good job… obviously! In the end, the great cast manages to do a good job with their characters, even though they could have done something great.
Voice Acting: 6/10

~{Music}~
The music is probably the strongest point in Prince of Stride. The OP, “Strider's High”, is fantastic. It’s super upbeat and catchy. It really sets the mood for the anime. It ends up being one of the best OP of the season. If you’re not going to watch the anime, at least listen to the OP. The ED, “Be My Steady”, really good as it’s really funky and catchy. Who doesn’t want to hear popular seiyuu sing together? The background music used is really good, especially the one used during the Stride races. The music used during those races are catchy, upbeat, and set up a tension and excitement for those scenes. Also the placement of those background music is great. Even the more slower music used for the “emotional” scenes are good too.
Music: 6/10

~{Enjoyment}~
At times I really do enjoy Prince of Stride, but only at times. The Stride races are pretty enjoyable at times, because who doesn’t want to see a parkour version of relay? However, the final Stride race was very lackluster. The more slice-of-life moments, with the main characters interacting with each other is at times entertaining and at times frustrating, because in the end, all you’re seeing is clichés interacting with more clichés. The music and animations helped a lot, but they couldn’t cover the content much. The melodramatic scenes didn’t work well either, as it was hard to care about these characters.
Enjoyment: 5/10

Prince of Stride is something that you’ll like depending on your preferences. Prince of Stride is cliché heavy, and isn’t very unique. It does stuff you’ve already seen many, many times from this genre. The characters have overused traits, filled with so many tropes. The art and animations stand out and the Stride scenes are pretty fun for most of the time. The music and voice acting is also really good. However, the ending is very lackluster due to poor direction. The epilogue hit too early and the final Stride scene couldn’t be more pathetic. And the melodramatic scene didn’t help either. In the end, Prince of Stride is all style and no substance.

+ Good art and animations and most of the Stride scenes are really interesting
+ OP and ED are catchy and the background music is energetic and well-placed
+ Good voice acting due to a large A-list cast of seiyuu
- The story isn’t anything new and is cliché heavy
- The characters are filled with common tropes and are uninteresting
- Ending felt lackluster due to poor direction

Overall: 5.4/10

prince of stride doesn't really stand out to me that much. it's plot follows that of a standard sports anime, and although there are a few differences, the plot can be deemed kind of boring. the art is okay as well, and the sounds aren't that bad. the opening and ending is one of my favourites.

overall, i would rate it a 7, if not for one thing: the characters.

the characters are actually not bad, other than the fact that there is very little character development, other than the main protagonists becoming better and stronger. another thing that pulled down the score for it is the ... amount of characters implemented.

in those short twelve episodes, too many teams were put into the anime. that was the part about it that made me really confused. i mean, yes, they are opponents of the main team, but the matches happened too fast and it seemed quite rushed.

although prince of stride does not stand out to me that much, there is plenty of fanservice, and like i said before, the storyline is okay, so overall i rate it a 6/10.

Let's start with a small summary of the anime : The anime is based around of stride, which is a combination of parkour and free-running, it's following the story of a club named Hônan stride and their goal is to win the EOS, simple right? However, the plot itself is weak and makes no sense.

The first couple of episodes were okay, it actually looked like this is gonna be a good sports anime, but it turned out to be otherwise after the 6th or so episode because you realise this anime has stupid plot which makes no sense.
All the characters have their own problem/background ... but the problem here is that it's not bad or something, it's rushed, the whole anime is rushed and you will notice it very well throughout the anime by half-animated races, rushed introductions and background story which makes the characters very lame to watch.

The art was not very flashy (as in outstanding/something new and not the light because it was certainly blinding) or something but they did mix it good with the running, so no complains here.

A positive point about the anime are their soundtracks, i did enjoy their soundtracks and they were well made, if only the anime itself was a little better.

Overall it's an mediocre anime, their biggest problem is that they rushed through things too much and tried to focus on the runs/background story which they also rushed through..

Prince of Stride: Alternative is an anime produced by Madhouse and was released in Winter of 2016 with 12 episodes. The premise is about Takeru Fujiwara voiced by ''Nobuhiko Okamoto'' and Nana Sakurai voiced by ''Kana Hanazawa'' trying to recruit members to their Stride Club of Honan Academy. What is Stride?, it's an extreme form of running and parkour involving 6 runners running relays throughout the town. Takeru and Nana request help from Riku Yagami voiced by ''Ryouhei Kimura'' to compete in the "End of Summer", thee top school competition for Stride in Japan. This anime adaptation is based off an otome visual novel and ... it shows!.

Now LA will note immediately that LA isn't much of an anime sports fan, LA goes with some of the more "irregular" ones such as ''Saki'' or ''Walkure Romanze'' though LA watched ''Free!'' and it's second season. What a person who doesn't look at sports anime looking at Prince of Stride?, well there was one element that LA gotten into to watch the entire series but that will be for later.

The plot by all means is a typical "underdog" team with the goal to win a huge competition, from the asshole teams to the friendly rival teams they meet in one or two episodes to bringing us the team dynamic of the main cast from some of the team member's past and backstories to their own "character development" episodes are there, how they USE it however is actually an entirely different matter. LA says this as although it is focused and ''dramatized'' when it NEEDS to, the story does tend to fluff around during the middle of it and resolves ''some'' obstacles as quickly as the episode ends sometimes leaving no room for development. Ohh sure the entire main cast of Honan Academy gets focused and developed hugely both as a team and individually but by the near ending (for LA) you tend forget even some of the main characters NAMES and why they are there besides "winning the competition" as "they are in the team so of course they have to participate", but LA gets it, it's about the team...and three of your main characters, but the team nonetheless.

Well LA is rambling on, let's actually move to the characters. The characters are by in large feels like an otome visual novel characters just mixed in with the typical characters you usually see in a sports anime. LA won't fault this anime for trying something like this and for the characters who get the most development get to be the most memorable thus Nana, Takeru and Riku are seriously the only characters LA remembered by the end of the anime as for the rival school characters?, besides the one or two that really matter to drive the plot forward, you'll forgot about most of them due to either the huge cast of characters as a whole for this series or the lack of ANY development outside their likes and quirks.

Well you want to know why LA wanted to watch this anime all the way through?, the animation and to be more precise the animation when it goes into a match, that is the main reason why LA watched it, typical of Madhouse to make even running both fluid and exhilarating at the same time and LA loved watching it merely for that, on speaking of the animation, the character designs do look slick and fits into consistency when it needs to although some of it's animation do get slightly lower quality at times.

The ending actually felt lackluster and again LA will say that word again "typical" and what's worse is that considering that the match in question is built up so much, the ending result although heartwarming didn't leave the same as when LA first started getting into the Stride matches, what's the word "rushed?" is best. This anime does have some pacing (drum beat) issues from handling the drama when it occurred to just having filler episodes here and there, sure at least the comedy is the typical running gags from the main cast, but LA got bored from all the development, drama and filler shove into the anime and just wanted what the anime's focus was...the god damn Stride matches.

Overall, this sports anime DID still entertain LA, it has it's faults and some faults were actually a GOOD thing (heck we all need character development and drama for the characters and plot no?) but La will say this about ''Prince of Stride'', if ya want to see an otome-ished typical sports anime involving running and parkour with Madhouse's animation, then this anime is something to run for, if not...best to walk this one out.

Stride. A trail created by relaying trust and connecting emotions. Or, more specifically, a relay race involving five people, combined with parkour and obsactles through various enviroments.

Story;3
Strides story is a simple one, three people meet on the first day of high school. Two, with the intention of joining the renowned Honan High Stride club, and one who was forced into joining. These three are our stories main characters, and throughout the 12 episodes of this series, we see them grow as athletes, as people, and as friends. EXTRA emphasis on the friend bit. Advancing this group's friendship is a massive part of the story. ... as they work to their goal of winning the renown "End Of Summer" tournament. On their journey the race many times, getting just a little bit better every run. now if I made it sound better than I rated it, here's why. Strides story is ONLY what I said, there's not much to it. Race, get rivals, get better, repeat. And every god damn episode they spend half the time talking either about Yagami's (the character who was forced into it) brother who is the king of high school stride, friendship, or running. While all of these plot points are what drive the characters, it gets a bit too repetitive.

Art:7
it looks decent usually, which is 75% of the show. But, when stride kicks in the art gets quite good, not amazing stuff but it took time and effort to make all of those complicated race courses, tracking shots, and a seemingly 3D environment. You can tell that plenty of time was spent animating this show, and none of it spared by CG characters. The character design is, well its good but its very cliche. however, it does fit the character types they set out, and everything looks pretty good so no real complaints here.

Sound:4
The opening was... well it was pretty good and got the tone set for the show well, but the use of English was. Interesting to say the least, and i found it kinda broke the mood of what's actually a pretty good op. Background tracks, none of them really stood out to me, I didn't actually notice them there to be honest, which is a good thing! They blend in well and didn't break immersion. Actions scene tracks, there was one particular one that when listened to actually brings back the emotions of the show with it. which I consider to be a success in a musical sense. The ending track, it had a good groovy feel to it and showcased everyone's favorite rivals, Saisei High. The track had stylish animation to boot, and I would listen to it again.

Characters:3
Like I said previously the characters a VERY cliche. You've got your upbeat comedy relief duo who are more emotional than they show of nerd in glasses and a girly boy. A manly captain who cares more for his team than he lets on. Your long haired mysterious cool guy alumni that talks about the wind constantly. Your overly cheerful girl who always says Ganbare! And tries her best to "keep up." Then your have your two main characters, the competitive rivals that get better because of each other. All very cliche and not much in the unique department is shown here.

Enjoyment:6
Now while I wasn't a fan of most of the stuff this series did, and admittedly, I texted through half of it. But when everyone was running at their best, I'll admit I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. While the concept is unique, everything that was stride was just blah. But if you're into shows that showcase nice animation and rivalries, I actually think its worth a try.

Overall:5
I kinda already did an overall in my enjoyment sections. But I think that I liked this show, even though I hate super cliche shows like this it wasn't THAT bad. give it a shot, but be warned, the show gives off some pretty god damn gay vibes. be careful.

With that i end my review, i hope i helped in some way on whether or not you decide to watch Stride. Thanks for reading if you got down this far and sorry for it being so long!

Prince of Stride talks about a very original sport to the anime world, different from the common volleyball/basket/baseball, but let's give it a look to each of its parts:

Plot [5]
Well, when we talk about plot in a spokon we don't really have to think to something too complicated since it usually follows the standard of a team competing in a tournament and this show doesn't make an exception, so why have i considered this plot a bad one?
There were some episodes which could have been deleted and none would have noticed that, or better, they could have payed less attention to some events ... and more to some others.
Also, the final was something unwatchable but i won't spoil it.

Characters [2]
Characters were the thing i hated the most about this series, they were flat as hell and never changed their behaviour throughout the series, Sakurai Nana is the biggest example of this problem but also the main character was the same.
One of the few, if not the only one, thing i liked about characters is that supporter characters weren't forgotten, any character will play an important role in almost every episode but..yes, since they were so badly developed i didn't consider this as a remarkable thing.
I blame this point to Prince of Stride because i think in a spokon characters are always the most important thing to make well and this anime failed overall in this.

Art [7]
Madhouse did a nice job with Prince of Stride, the competitions were well represented by the direction. The thing i didn't like much was the chara design.

Sound [7]
Also here we have a good technical equipment with a very energic opening and some very good OSTs which were one of the thing that made me enjoy this anime a bit more, the bad side is that we miss good ones for the common events but competitions won't miss them at all.

Enjoyment [6]
I won't say Prince of Stride was horrible, i followed it without any problems but, as i said above, characters are the thing i care the most in sports animes and because of the poor development i couldn't relate to any of them nor make any of them like to me so i felt like they were acting just because they had too, for that reason i didn't enjoy it very much.

Overall [5]
As a conclusion, this anime is something you can skip without any problem but if you really like spokons then try to take a look at it since it also talks about a very uncommon sport that is new to the anime world, just don't expect any kind of deep plot/characters because you won't find them here

Prince of Stride has such a kickass sport. The sport is running in the streets like a quasi-stunt person in a relay style, with perfectly timed “passing of the baton” communicated by a Relationer.

The art style:

It’s borderline blinding but makes the sport itself cooler by a factor of 100. As edgy as it may look, it puts the show into a “this is ridiculous and can’t be taken seriously” territory.

The characters:

I guess a huge plus is that none of the characters seem to have annoying tendencies, but these characters can be summed up fairly easily too: they seem nice. With the rushed backstory and introductions, ... it can’t be helped that they feel one dimensional.

The story:

We have teams that run in a relay fashion with a Relationer that ultimately connects each of them. However the basics and techniques of the sport are never explained. I appreciate that the show tried to add some soul into running, but then it’s weak writing from there. For example, when we learn the reason why Kyosuke lost the right to be a member of the Stride club and his dark past- the reason was lame. This was made worse when it took like five minutes of the episode for Heath to man up, to give a supposedly deep speech, and for Kyosuke to join the club again. Zero tension built. I didn't even have time to be sad, haha.

The runs:

Only the two main characters have characteristic running styles, but everyone else? They. just. run.

The music:

The music score is comparable to elevator music- without it there would probably be some very awkward silences and even drier conversations.

Overall:

Despite all I’ve said, I realize this was adapted from a game so expectations must be low. Is it totally watchable? Yes, yes it is. I can see this as something for guilty pleasure. I mean if the guys and nice/easy music are what you like- then whatever makes your fries crisp! That’s probably enough of a reason to watch, cause why not!

Prince of Stride is your typical sports anime, nothing all too special. It fits right in with all the others like it, but that's not a bad thing.

While the story is like any other sports series where we focus on the team practicing and getting into drama amongst each other, the concept of the sport is unique. If anyone realized already, "Stride" is a fictional sport (a mixture of relay and parkour). One of the more positive things I can say about the show is the execution of the sport, which is also its strong point.

Other than that, the backstory and drama has been done ... before, but it still fits in this case. Though, I will say some of these recycled plot elements felt like they are added there only to get emotion from the viewers. One in particular (which I will refrain from mentioning), brought onto us during the last few episodes, gave me that notion. Also, the series suffered from a rushed ending that had not much of an impact that it could have had.

For characters, I could only vouch for the Honan team (our main set of characters), because they are the ones we focus on the most. We also get their backstories, why they are on the team, as well as their personalities. Their opponents, not so much, save for one that appears more than the others.

The animation, at best, is adequate. It might come as a shock to many when they see that this is a Madhouse production. Still, I will not point fingers for not making the greatest animation (there's at least one with every studio). However, much like how the races are the strong point of the story, it is the same in regards to the animation.

In the end, like I said before, the series doesn't really stand out, even amongst all the other sports anime out there. Again, this doesn't make it a bad series, nor does it make it a good one. Despite that, I would still recommend this to people who are into sports anime. But, for me, it wasn't anything all that special.

Prince of Stride may be the most appealing anime this 2016 and I actually fell bait for it. Initially I didn't want to watch it but I was kind of forced to and actually enjoyed the first episode but as I was going along with it, then, well, the every hole starts to pop out.

Story (6): Fair enough the story of Stride is pretty decent. It's your typical friendship through sports sort of show. Unfortunately, it's trying to show some sort of fanservice, with beautiful men and amazing legs. I dunno. The saving grace of the story would have to be its random bursts of ... comedy and recurring gags. The friendships were cute too but it didn't make me burst to tears or wipe away any snot from my nose. Sports anime should be riveting through its story. This didn't make it happen.

Art (8): The art is definitely the reason why this show makes quite the impact. It's beautiful, colorful with hints of cool tones and how can you not like beautiful bishie boys. The stride animations, the running and the tricks were pretty solid and I think that they pushed to make it at least work in order for it to be appealing to sports fans.

Sound (6): If we're talking voice actors, this show is peppered with all of my favorite seiyuus... Well, I LOOOOVE ALL OF THEM! But it was the only thing that was memorable. I don't remember the background music. SFX didn't seem to be a huge deal and I'd skip the OP and ED, though the OP is kind of nice.

Character (7): The characters of this show are weird. Dedicated to their sport though and bloody entertaining, Ayumu and Kohinata. You know what? The reason I even finished this show was because of these two adorable cuties. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have survived it. It's either I'll drop it or give it a really low score. But yeah. Like I said, there's so many seiyuus in this and so there are tooooons of characters because teams. you know. but they don't necessarily leave a mark. I'd be screaming when I hear a character speak because their seiyuus are my fave but other than that, I'd be disappointed by how little they actually got to do. They couldn't leave a proper impact.

Enjoyment (6): There were moments were I would enjoy the show and then skip to certain parts. It's such a waste of time to be honest, so just skip some of the parts. I only enjoyed the running parts and the Ayumu x Kohinata duo but more than that, I'd say, it's a pretty shallow show.

Overall (6): I think I've rated this pretty fairly. It was okay. Maybe you'd still like it. Personally, I didn't like it as a whole but there are bits and pieces that worked for me so I survived.

***THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW***

Prince of Stride is a show that seemed to have shown so much promise in the early episodes but soon driveled out into a bromance, low intensity “battles” anime. I was waiting for that super intense, heart pounding race to occur; maybe in the second season?

Story: 5/10

So the main thing you need to know about the show is this; highschoolers get together to run in “Stride” races against other highschools. The main characters Nana, Riku, and Takeru form the main core for the show to present itself with. The supporting cast is there and does a decent job but ... it's obvious that the show is appealing to a demographic that I'm not a part of. The bromance aspect of the anime is almost suffocating which would not be a huge issue IF it did not impede on the story of the anime. Literally after every race there is a plethora amount of bromance crap that clutters the closing minutes of every episode. Also the whole “We have to get better” aspect of the show was in my opinion not done very well. It seems like the Honan (main school) team just gets unbelievably awesome in the last 2 or 3 episodes out of nowhere.

I wanted to like the show because the other elements seemed so great but all I was left with was an uninteresting friendship story that had lots of running in it.

Animation: 6.5/10

I feel that I have to rate this harder than normal because it is MADHOUSE we are talking about. The studio that has brought us No Game No Life, One-Punch Man, Chihayafuru, and so many other breathtakingly beautiful anime have come up pretty short in the animation department. The scenes are fluid which is important in an action orientated anime but the art quality seems pretty disappointing. Character models and scenery seemed pretty lackluster especially when comparing it to No Game No Life (which I just finished re-watching). MADHOUSE can do so much better than this.


Sound: 8/10

The music, soundeffects, and voice actors are pretty good in this show. Music seemed to hit the mood right on the tee, voice actors did a pretty good job expressing their characters, and the sound effects were very impressive. The element of wind, running on different surfaces, and landing on platforms/rails was spot on.

Characters: 6/10

The characters melded well with each other but unfortunately I just could not get myself to give any s***s for them at all. It's not that they were generic it's just the whole package of the anime just didn't hold my attention.

Overall: 6.4/10

It's an average anime to be honest. It has a very predictable outcome, average character development, and sadly average action scenes. I was hoping that the ending would blow me away but the final race is quite the disappointment. If you are expecting something great like with other MadHouse anime then I would skip out on this one.

Enjoyment: 4.5/10

Thanks for reading my review! If you liked my writing style, would like to see some other reviews, or just want to talk, please stop by my page!

Sincerely,
Awesome Drummer

I went into this anime intrigued at the concept of stride. This anime had potential, given stride as a sport is very interesting. However, the plot seemed extremely shaky and was rushed way too much.

The anime makes the sport of stride to be about connecting with your teammates all while running, doing parkour and relaying to the next person. Sounds cool right? It sure would have been if there was slower character development, more build up, and a better plot line.

The basic idea of this anime is good but the followthrough is poorly conceived.

The plot line is rushed. A large amount of ... critical events happen in the very first episode, all shoved together one after the other instead of spreading it out, putting in more effort and building up to it. It makes the dramatics seem almost silly given the amount of time the team has been together. This is the case a lot of the time. The dramatics wouldn't seem so stupid if there was more build up and more struggle from the characters. If they had gone through a harder time and experienced more loss before honing their skills the dramatics would seem completely justified.

The soundtrack to this anime I found was very well done. The song, "Gotta Show Me" is a really great choice while seeing the characters running and connecting with each other. It really provides a certain energy that translates to the viewer and gets them pumped up about the competition. Many of the songs have a similar effect in this anime. I also found the intro song, "Strider's High" very enjoyable. Overall, very good choices.

The characters personalities are stereotypical and mostly unexplained. The main character, Riku Yagami is an all around nice guy, very silly and athletic. His foil is the stoic Takeru Fujiwara whose only interest is stride. Like hardcore, he thinks of almost nothing else ever, though it is only vaguely explained why later. Nana Sakurai is the only girl on the team and joined a school because she thought the stride team was cool. She's extremely eager but only touches briefly on why she likes stride and never fully understands it herself until about midway through.

The three original members, and our main characters senpai's are, Heath Hasekura (Captain), Kyousuke Kuga, Hozumi Kohinata. I find Kyousuke's 'delinquent with a heart of gold' personality the most irritating. He gives no reason as to why he likes stride, we are given no explanation of his background, and he says very little overall. He comes in to replace Ayumu Kadowaki, a character I felt could have developed a lot more if given the chance. Instead they replace him with Kyousuke the first chance they get, whose skills are already fully formed rather than pursuing Ayumu's character anymore. Ayumu still participates in his own way, more as the comic relief and cheer squad but overall his character was wasted.

The most enjoyment I got out of this show was watching the races, seeing the characters push themselves harder and successfully pulling off their parkour moves. Although I feel if there was more parkour training and more gimmicks successfully carried out in their competitions it would have been way more fun to watch.

I still believe this show had potential, it was just not carried out well and was rushed too much. I think had their been more episodes it would have been a better build up, that way certain characters could have had an arc in which they evolved and grown as an athlete and as a person in order to get a better understanding of themselves and their team as a unit. It would have made for a better payoff later on had it not been so squished together. More character development is imperative, and a more steady pacing when it comes to critical events. Overall not a complete waste of time, but not exactly good either.

This anime was overall good and fun.
The pacing could've been slower, the character developed could've been more action based/experience accumulation rather than dialogue/flashback heavy. Their skill development could've been more defined too, technical wise it wasn't clear how they improved other than improving their speed. No tricks/techniques were really established, as there weren't many training sessions to begin with. In terms of hurdles - I felt like they were not really well drawn out? Difficulties concern being slower than the other team and not winning, but other than that there's pretty much nothing else. There were personal struggles, but rarely does it span for more ... than 1-2 episodes.
The character are also quite flat. The MC's backstory was fine - typical overshadowed by sibling trope - understandable, but for the other characters there's not much explaining for their personal motivations or wants or backgrounds. Most flashbacks propels relationship development - perhaps on theme with the whole "connection" motif. I only know they like doing stride with friends, want to win, full stop.
Relationships are pretty well developed though, albeit quite cheesy at times the dynamics and interaction were cute and wholesome enough that they work (at least for me).
The art style on the other hand - amazing. Reminds me of the film "Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop". Can't believe that the anime is published over 8 years ago (as of the writing of this review). The races and environment looked very vibrant and packed - the racing scenes are well-drawn overall but at times i just feel like there's just guys running without any anime aspects going on (like real life...).

Final note - this anime is not top tier and have many flaws, but it was a fun ride. I did watch the whole thing in one sitting, but maybe I was just bored.

I'll preface saying that I'm big into running, so it's likely that I got more enjoyment out of this show than just a general sports anime fan. That being said...it's not that great a show.

I think the parts where the characters are actually competing are quite nice, but most of the character development and whatnot in between is meh. The biggest detractor imo is Riku, as I find him incredibly annoying throughout at least 80% of the show. The rest of the cast are generally fine, but no one is really great.

Plot wise, just take what happens in almost every sports anime and change it ... to parkour relays. I'm sure you can guess how things will play out through the show.

Show is basically Run With the Wind with parkour and worse characters. It's watchable if you like sports anime, and decent if you're big into running. But if you're a runner honestly just go watch/rewatch Run With the Wind.