Dive!!

Dive!! is a sports anime that isn’t. Just a few glaring flaws:

- Not enough energy / adrenaline
- No explaination of scoring / scores
- Hardy any explaination of techniques + why they are difficult
- Lack of development of rival oragnizations

BUT I Dive isn't a sports anime. It is a character-driven story about the coming-of-age of our main characters – and it does this very well. Instead of a focus on one main character, the show introduces, and heavily develops multiple characters, showing them experience new things together and alone, growing as teenagers. It is a brilliant coming-of-age story with unique, no cliché characters, using competitive ... diving as a prop for development. I see it quite similar to Yuri on Ice. It is not about a sport, it is about the characters playing the sport. If you come in expecting a sports anime, you will be disappointed. If you come in expecting a great cast of characters, good story and decent art, you will love the show.

So.

Story: A super interesting take on the less glamorous side of high level competitive sports – discussing issues like fairness and touches on using connections to get unfair advantages in the selection process (in this case, the Olympics). Ending… :(

Characters: 10/10. Unique, uncliched characters, each of which is grounded in reality. It honestly feels like the characters are real, with real motivations, setbacks, emotions, and logic. I never feel that any character chooses to do something completely unreasonable, and I never feel the show uses any ridiculous coincidences to push their development. Instead, the show focuses on the coming of age of the cast and it is such a wonderful story.

Art and Sound: Eh. Decent art, although sometimes quality drops / some CG that looks slightly out of place. Music is nothing special, although shout-out to the voice actors, I think they did an absolutely amazing job of conveying the characters’ emotions and general feel.

Overall, I went into the show expecting a competitive diving sports anime and was sorely disappointed. Instead, I found a criminally under-watched story about the growth of a brilliant cast of unique characters that really made this show the hidden gem of the summer 2017 season. I would give it an 7/10, but I would 10/10 recommend giving it a shot!

I suggest to those who love sports anime, please take this as just another sports anime. If you're here to watch and compare Dive to other sports anime like Haikyuu, Yuri on ice, Free!, you'll be sorely disappointed. But if you take it as a normal sports anime, without holding any expectations or benchmarks, this is a very good anime that you can take quite a bit from.

The character development was great. I can say that this was pretty realistic in showing the diving industry in Japan especially if you're not very familiar with it. The characters all managed to change and improve in their ... own ways. They're not super flashy about it but if you pay attention, you'll definitely see them grow.

The art was simple but beautiful and the OP and ED suited the anime very well, in my opinion.

I would say give this a chance. If you're someone who can appreciate a unique sport that is neither flashy nor dramatic, and if you can keep an open mind, I think you will enjoy this.

This is definitely not the best sports anime by a long shot but it was interesting enough to binge and be somewhat engaged with. I was intrigued with the plot and actually wanted to know what was going to happen. However, it definitely had its boring, generic moments and everything felt contrived, from the fan service, to the dialogue, to the "convenient" ending. You'll know what I mean if you watch this...

I think you should watch this if you like sports anime and enjoyed Free, but expect way less entertainment value. It's a low-budget version of Free tbh.

I thought the art was nice, but ... there was less emphasis on the actual diving portion of the show. Other sports anime actually go in-depth on the sports and explain the scoring, and take you into the inner psyche of a character before they perform, but this was mostly about their life outside diving. Even then, there was barely any character development or backstory. We never saw a single parent figure. One little thing happened with the main character's brother at the beginning and then we literally never saw his brother again.

All in all, I am glad I saw this, it was on my list for a while, and I don't regret the time I spent on it, but it's a solid 7.

I binged the show I think it's a good show, but not a masterpiece and not many people may like it because the anime has some negatives in my opinion which can be a huge turndown for some people.

Let's start with the negatives:

- Rules of diving and the scoring system are not explained. This is a problem because not everyone who will watch the series is a fan of the sport and it's not famous or intuitive enough for people to understand the sport.

- While I think the main cast is good enough, the secondary characters are in my opinion not well developed and/or ... serve just to drive the story forward and put struggles to our protagonists.

- We don't know enough about the personal lives of the three main characters except for Shibuki. We do see some bits like Youichi being the son of one of the coaches and Tomoki being left alone with his brother. However, I think we need to know more about these two. I know because they are competitive divers they don't have a lot of free time, but that doesn't mean they don't have any private life.

And here are the positives:

- The art is very good in my opinion. I like the aesthetic design of all the characters. And the diving animations look good in my opinion. However, I didn't like the reflection of the water on the character's skin.

- I think the story overall did a good job in portraying the growth of Tomoki, Youichi and Shibuki. Both in their athletic improvements and personality.

- I think it does a good job at showing how terrible the life of a young professional athlete (they aren't paid, but they are aiming for the Olympics) can be. Because you give up a huge portion of your free time which could be used to spend more time with some of your friends, relatives and studying a little more if needed. And many times those efforts do not pay off.

Even if the number of positives and negatives I listed is the same. Personally, for me, the positives outweigh the negatives. I think the series is good, but I think it's a bit of wasted potential. I think 12 episodes just weren't enough for the series and should have been more.