Suzuka

Teenager Yamato Akitsuki has moved from the Hiroshima countryside to Tokyo to begin his high school career. In return for room and board, he has agreed to help his aunt and cousin run their bathhouse and the adjacent girls-only dormitory where he will be staying. On his way to meet his relatives, he passes by a local high school track and is mesmerized by a high jumper practicing her technique.

Later on, Yamato finds out that the high jumper is not just another resident of the dorm, but is also his neighbor. Suzuka Asahina is a heavily scouted track and field athlete who is attending the same high school he is enrolled in. A perfectionist by nature, Suzuka is put off by Yamato's clumsy and carefree attitude and finds it difficult to be near him.

Determined to win her over, Yamato joins the track team after discovering his hidden talent for sprinting. Through his interactions with the track team, his classmates, and the ever-inebriated college students in the dorm, Yamato finds the resolve to become a better athlete and a more suitable companion to Suzuka, even if it means pushing himself to the point of exhaustion.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Asahina, Suzuka Main

Mitsuhashi, Kanako Japanese

Akitsuki, Yamato Main

Nakamura, Daisuke Japanese

Sakurai, Honoka Supporting

Hosono, Yumiko Japanese

Hashiba, Miki Supporting

Hosokawa, Seika Japanese

Hattori, Yasunobu Supporting

Ooyama, Takanori Japanese

Fujikawa, Miho Supporting

Akesaka, Satomi Japanese

Saotome, Yuuka Supporting

Suzuki, Masami Japanese

Asahina, Suzune Supporting

Tominaga, Miina Japanese

Sasaki, Kazuyuki Supporting

Ikeuchi, Ken Japanese

Newspaper Girl Supporting

Nakagawa, Rie Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Maruyama, Hajime Producer

Fukutomi, Hiroshi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Hamano, Kazuzou Sound Director

Reviews

Aug 28, 2024

Shabo-kun

Recommended

This is more like anime analysis between friends than actual review!

Suzuka is definition of teen romantic drama. As I get older it’s harder for me to endure some aspects of it, but there wasn’t any obvious problem in case of Suzuka. Well... maybe except of an MC. Still the combination of sports and romance is new to me in
anime genre and it was working well. To be fair at some times parts which focused on sports thematic interested me more than
this whole love situations.

STORY:7/10
Plot of the show is nothing super-original as it has lot of aspects of classical teen romance like tsundere FMC, ... love triangle, rejections and settle downs,being confused about own feelings and plus some tragic past. On the other hand as soon as athletics came upon a screen I always found myself to be more interested in the episode so deffinitely plus for sports anime enjoyers, but be aware as it is not main focus of the story as it’s more like nice addition. Romantic sideof the story tends to be overly dramatic which also makes it unnecessarily complicated at some times. On the other hand teen romances tends to be just like that so fair enough!

Thing is that from the beginning it’s obvious where narrative goes and how things ends up as it’s typical for shows of this type, so basically you are here more for the process then culmination. Then you need to ask yourself if the characters and their development are interesting enough for you to give it a chance which you find out right after few episodes. Warning! Don’t expect much of an development until latest parts. Otherwise story has a nice flow uniting sports and drama. Plot is light almost type of slice-of-life with every day life problems of main heroes.

I was little bit dissapointed as I was hoping for some development of an MC in terms of fidning out more about himself and his goals.
If narrative incorporated more of his personal grow I would be able to empathize more with his character and he would make better person not only himself, but also for Suzuka.

Characters:6,5/10
First of all Suzuka as the show is named after her. To be fair I’m not that fond of an toxic tsunderes so my transparency cannot be guaranteed. She is cold, harsh, closed in like a turtle and annoying, but neverthless inside she cares for her close ones even for the little puppy named Yamato who still runs after her like a stray dog. In story it was obvious that she was tsundere type before the accident of the senpai, but this tragic situation only amplified her behaviour and spacing. All of this is making sense as I was in similar situation and understand her worries. On the other hand dwelling on past won’t change anything as she herself understands in the end, moves on and like this has most impactful character development. Thing is that her behaviour is sometimes so extreme as she can switch off from acting good to Yamato to acting like a bitch as it almost seems like she’s bipolar. This was probably my major issue with her as sometimes it seemed unreasonable and without impulse, putting aside her at times ruthless nature.

Yamato my guy yea... If I had a dollar for each time I wanted to punch my screen because of this idiot. Now seriously who acts like that and more importantly WHO writes an character like that? This fella single handedly disrupts my viewing experience. Type of guy who doesn’t think about his actions and it’s impacts as soon as it’s late. He is dense, stupid, SIMP, empathetic like a dead frog, loud, annoying, low-key selfish and persistent in really toxic way. Whole personality of his is that he likes a girl and that’s it. Throughout the whole show he does basically nothing for himself as all of his actions spins around Suzuka, Suzuka this and Suzuka that STFU!
How she can like somebody this pathetic? Don’t get me wrong girl isn’t perfect and has plenty of her own problems, but at least there’s tragic reasoning for her behaviour while all our MC is doing is constatly making stupid mistakes and then wondering what he did wrong and pitty himself like a baby. How he acts while dating Honoka was another proof of stupidity, but at least he properly broke up with her as it was the least she deserved, what a sweet girl which is too good for him. You know it’s show about teenage romance so one cannot expect super mature development and characters I get it, but Yamato is easily in top 10 biggest toxic SIMPs in anime.

Honoka is a typical nice girl which is good at chores and smart. Unfortunatelly it’s obvious from the beginning that she never had a chance in competition for Yamato as it’s easily predictable where things are heading to. Normally she would be my number as I don’t have the patience to deal with tsunderes, but needless to say there’s something missing in her character to the point she seemes little bit too bland or artificial. This cannot be said about Suzuka which is bossy and harsh, but not without reason and this makes her
more humane.

Side characters were alright especially Miki which was supportive for her friends and mainly Suzuka although she had little bit of an crush on Yamato herself. She is cheerfull and maybe little bit too much impulsive at some times, but that is part of ther charm. Same can be said of Hattori which advices are like russian roulette as sometimes he’s spittin some real life shit and sometimes you wish he wouldn’t speak at all. All meant in good, because in the end he is funny character and probably true friend to Yamato.

Others are not that worth of a mentioning as they mostly alright maybe except the blond chick Yuuka which pissed me off. You really don’t want to hear lessons from adult woman which comes drinking every second night to the apartment of an minor.

ART:8/10
There is something about these 90s and millenial anime which always caught my eye. For sure the art work is nothing special, but it has this classical millenial fresh breath which perfectly fits narrative. Honestly if there was all that sparkling overly shining efects as many of nowadays romance anime has, it would do only harm. Authors manage to find a good balance between application of some effects like that and still staying simple.

MUSIC/SOUND:7/10
On point throughout the show and nice atmospheric opening.

ENJOYMENT:6,5/10
Sometimes the toxicity and irrationality was little too much for me to handle, whether we're talking about Suzuka switching in her behaviour or completely disgusting traits of an MC. To be fair Yamato was the main reason I had serious anger issues while watching the show. Still there were more enjoyable aspects in the show then bad ones, but unfortunatelly the negative ones were so major I cannot rate too much high either.

OVERALL:7/10
If you look for some typical high-school romance anime with sports sub-plot it’s a valid choice. Just keep in mind that you need to endure some simping and tsundere clichés. Otherwise Suzuka has a lot to offer for average romance anime enjoyers. If you like vibe of older animes the better for you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 25, 2024

sarcasticroman1

Mixed Feelings

Suzuka is a sporty take on the classic high school romance of its era. Its 2005 animation is retro for the modern day, along with many of its episodic plots, but the relationship between the two main leads is engaging and unique. The story utilizes a slightly melodramatic tone throughout, but never to the point of frustration.

The main female lead, the titular Suzuka, maintains her likability through the ups and downs inherent in early 2000s anime while never feeling like a flat character. She is certainly best described as a tsundere character however, which may not be appealing to every viewer. Meanwhile, our protagonist Yamato ... Akitsuki may be one of the more interesting protagonists in the 2000s romance genre. He is a very confrontational character, often to a fault, and this flaw leads to many of the conflicts throughout the series. Because of this flaw, the audience is treated to an unusually active protagonist whom carries more agency than many of his contemporaries.

In short, Suzuka is a nostalgic romance reminiscent of a different time in anime history; it is not, however, a generic story. For fans of the genre, and of 2000s romances in particular, it is definitely one to add to the list.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 27, 2023

DeadgrounD

Not Recommended

This is a romance anime with barely any romance in it. And when romance parts do happen, they are done for the wrong reasons and just to push unnecessary, predictable and poorly written drama.

This anime has 26 episodes, 23 min per episode. That's roughly 10 hours. That is a lot of time for some. So I warmly suggest you to spend few minutes to read my review, and then decide if you want to commit 10h of your time to this anime.
First I will talk without spoilers, but later I will jump into spoiler territory (I will emphasize it).

I don't like giving it a low ... rating of 1 and I'm always looking for something positive, so I can avoid giving the worst rating if possible.
But this anime definitely surprised me.

The story is very simple, a young boy moves from the country to Tokyo to start a new life at high school, and then falls in love at first sight. That's it. But that's not the main problem of this anime. The real problem are the main characters. They are so badly written that I would be doing time in prison if I was to ever hung out with them. Especially Yamato. Whenever I see him on screen I just want to strangle the bastard. He's so dense, pathetic and hopeless it's mind-boggling. On top of that, in episode 18 you will find out that he's actually retarded. He went full retard. No joke. (I will explain in spoiler section).
You will facepalm every 2 minutes if you decide to watch this anime. In addition, the chemistry between two main characters is nonexistent. Keep in mind this is a romance anime. Another big problem this anime has is that it's extremely predictable. When I only watched first 3 episodes, I immediately figured out 100% of plot and what's going to happen. After finishing episode 26 I did not make a single mistake in my prediction. And I am far far from romance/drama anime expert. Similar to this, I have a problem with this anime name and name of episodes (I will explain episode naming problem in my spoiler section).

For example. There is a main character (Yamato) and two love interests (Suzuka and Honoka).
What do you think, who's going to win when the name of the anime is Suzuka??

Asahina Suzuka is: pessimistic, aggressive, abusive, arrogant, rude, impulsive, jealous, disrespectful...etc. Just the absolute abomination of human being.

Sakurai Honoka is: optimistic, loving, caring, helpful, thoughtful, supportive, kind, honest, respectful, grateful...etc. The kind of girl that you would gladly die for.

Now you tell me, which one of these two girls would you pick?
Because Yamato is like: Asahina, Asahina, Asahina, Asahina, Asahina.. Asahina! Asahina? Asahina! Asahina? ASAHINA!!
The guy just can't get her out of his head. He's constantly thinking about her, follows her everywhere and just can't go past her without addressing her.
Now you might think to yourself, what the hell did this girl do to make Yamato so obsessed with her and what made him fall in love at first sight? Well.. she jumped.. she jumped over a pole. . . Amazing right?

Now the ultimate question that you might ask yourself is "Ok, but does Suzuka like Yamato?" I can only answer that in spoiler section below.

--- SPOILERS ---

I will address issues here that I did not want to talk about in non-spoiler section so I can be respectful to people who haven't watched this anime yet.

First thing is naming of episodes. This is obvious, but I will give you just one example. In episode 13 Yamato and Honoka actually enter a relationship (Not that pathetic way like in most anime where they ask each other to be together and nothing happens, no, they actually kiss and start going out together). Episodes 13, 14, 16 and 17 are the best episodes in this anime in my opinion. But, even at the start of ep 13, I immediately knew that's not going to last. You know why? Because the name of the episode 19 is "Break Up". Now can you guess what's going to happened in that episode?? And this counts for every episode, this is just one example. That's why I hate this anime name and naming of episodes.

Remember above that I called Yamato a retard?
In ep 18 "Present" (can you guess what's going on in that ep?) It's Honokas (his gf) birthday and brain dead Yamato decides to go with Suzuka (girl that Yamato is obsessed with, and everyone in this anime knows this, especially Honoka) alone to buy her a gift. Let that sink in. And Yamato sees nothing wrong with this. He's clueless. Even in ep 16-17 he said to himself that he will do everything in his power to not hurt Honoka and make her happy. And then he proceeds to do this. Insane.

Now.. there's one more thing left.
The ultimate question of this anime.
Does Suzuka like Yamato?
Yes.. but (in my opinion) for a wrong reason. She likes him because he reminds her of a guy that she liked in the past, but he died in the accident. I did not like this at all. I would never allow myself to be with a girl that likes me because I remind her of someone else. Doesn't matter, alive or dead.
So to make long story short. She is afraid to love Yamato because she's afraid to experience love again. And that's pretty much it. But the problem here is that she does not gradually let go of her ex and then gradually accepts Yamato. No. She hates him from ep. 1 to 25. even for whole ep. 26. Only at the very end of episode 26 she suddenly and totally lets go of her ex and completely accepts to be Yamatos girlfriend. It felt incredible forced and unrealistic.

--- END of SPOILERS ---

I do not recommend this anime to anyone.
I didn't even know that this anime existed. I was originally planning to watch Fuuka, but I saw that it has a prequel named Suzuka.
Which surprised me. I like to watch anime in order and I don't like to give up on them once I start. But this was a painful experience.
I wish that I had never found out about this anime and I lost all interest in watching Fuuka.

This is my first review, so thank you for taking your time to read it.
I appreciate it and wish you all the best.
Take care.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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