Suzuka

There's something wrong when my favorite character is the cat.
I didn't really like much about this show. I thought that the music could be better. I thought the art wasn't anything to talk about. I wasn't all that crazy about an of the characters, and I think they cheated on the plot a little.
First off they dedicate a lot to track and feild in this show. And yet in the end it's sorta ignored for other things. I couldn't stand Suzuka half the time and Yamato wasn't my favorite character in the later part of the series either.
My major disliking for the ... show is Suzuka. One second she was warm and then she was cold and you never got to know her well enough to understand. You know next to nothing about her but that she's mourning over someone that she can't let go of. And yeah I can understand that but she had mood changes that made me want to just give up. Yamato was childish and ended up hurting people. He was also selfish and even though he said he got it he never really did. I didn't like the plot. I didn't like the characters, and by the end I was totally disintrested. Maybe this show is for some people but it's not for me.

The ultimate story of a fucking simp and an indecisive bitch. The MC is pathetic as fuck, she rejected you already - stop about thinking of confessing already and the fucking bitch ,I get it you are sad over a dead dick , so when you have already once rejected the MC stop giving him false hope every now and then. I can't believe i sat through all of these, Habisu was a good friend , Yobinasu should have punched the fuck out of the pathetic MC, Honoka's characters is nice , she is better than Suzuka ( fight me ) , just lacking in ... confidence and dominance.

Never have i been so frustrated at a main protagonist. Self centred,naive and oblivious are some of the characteristics i would best discribe Yamato,a high school first year student who in order to "chase" a girl he likes (Asahina), joinned his school's track and field team. The reason i called him oblivious is that he fails to read suituations and react like any normal human being would do. Case in point,which guy in his right mind while giving his current girlfriend her birthday present, actually says while getting that said present,had such a good time with the girl that he used to like.Even though he ... admitted lying that he had an appointment with someone else,rejecting a date with the girlfriend (Honoka) in the process, one has to be pretty naive that he doesn't realised the reason why the Honoka might be angry and sad after what he had just said.There are also other instances where Yamoto doesn't know why his friends are reacting in the way they did,like Yasunobo getting angry for making Honoka sad yet Yamoto thinks he is wrong (self centeredness).I think that the writers of this anime is trying to portray Yamato as someone who is ernest but its to the point of making him look fake.This is the first time i actually felt that the male lead in an anime should just fail in everything he does so that i can see him cry. Even though the main protagonist is irritating,what saved this anime was the supporting cast like Yamoto's good friend Yasunobu and also Asahina's friend Miki whose views of the suituation involving the two main charactors,are level headed and often giving good advices. Overall,this is pretty ok given that it has sports element incoperated into a rommance anime but i think the writers could have done better with the way how Yamoto should have better closure with Honoka. 6/10 (would have been higher if not for the main protagonist)

Warning possible Spoilers

The only reason I watched this anime is that it was the prequel to Fuuka so I decided to see how her parents got together and OH MY GOD!!! was it a pain in the ass to watch.

The story starts with Yamato Akitisuki going to school one day then suddenly he see's Suzuka doing her Pole Jump and is completely immersed by her so he decides to fall in love with her and embarks on a long journey to claim her love.
Lets start by saying this story could have been cut down to like 13 episodes instead of 26 because there's a point ... in the story where something happens that felt like complete filler it was unnecessary and the way the story progressed was so painful the amount of times Yamato tries to make Suzuka like him was so pitiful it either ended up in him being rejected or actually being slapped and by the end of this anime I was worn out and an anime hasn't done that to me for a good while.

I wish I could say the characters were good, but they weren't far from it, look I like most Tsundere's but Suzuka to me will be remembered as one of the worst because she is so infuriating you find out that she keeps seeing Yamato as someone she knew who died a few years ago and she didn't want to go through that again I understood her decision, but she really bitches about it and it pissed me off. Yamato doesn't help either he's supposed to be the guy you support, but his decisions were stupid and he never keeps his mouth shut especially when he needed to it was so annoying.
The supporting characters were actually ok hell I was supporting Honoka until she eventually went out with Yamato and then they broke up over stupid reasons but luckily the breakup scene actually felt mutual which was alright.

The Romance in this anime went up and down throughout the show whenever it concentrated on Yamato and Suzuka it was just awful I didn't want to support the relationship at all, it's funny how a love triangle made things better for this area.

There is also a Sport aspect which is the saving grace of the show and it was actually interesting seeing Yamato improve his time on the 100m sprint and seeing his rivalry with Arima Emerson actually spiced things up a bit.

If you're looking for a good Romance with Good characters look somewhere else because this isn't the place, but if you're interested in Love triangles and Sport then you might actually find something here, but for me this was just one painful journey.

Suzuka is an anime that initially shows great potential but then slowly ambles its way across the finish line. The drama in this show comes from the troubled romance between the main characters and the complications that they mostly create for themselves. In some cases this can be funny and interesting, particularly when the characters are likable and you want to see them succeed. However, in the case of Suzuka, both of the main leads are highly unlikable people and you sort of want to see them jump off a tall building - preferably together.

The supporting cast isn't much better, being littered with typical one-dimensional ... anime archetypes that seem to exist only as backdrop to occasionally poke Yamato or otherwise torment him.

The only standout character is Honoka Sakurai, who starts off as a typical anime ingenue and love rival for Yamato's affections, only to grow and mature into a young woman who moves past the indecisive and careless Yamato at practically warp speed. Honoka - wherever you are, you dodged a bullet girl.

Frankly, the best part of this anime is the title song by COACH, "Start Line". It's great and really deserves a better anime.

To be honest,I don't watch a lot of sports anime.The only sports anime I have watched were the awesome show, Bamboo Blade, that abomination called Wanna Be the Strongest in the World, and the OVERhyped recently aired show Yuri on Ice. Sports isn't my niche, since every sports movie I have watched ever had to do with either some team losing and then winning or some person being crap at sports and then getting better. But, this show is NOT a sports anime, its a really subpar romance"dramedy" with a stupid protagonist and probably the most insufferable girl to ever come across as a love ... interest.

I'll try to make this as quick as possible to save your time.

The story is about this boring guy named Yamato who falls in love with this track star Suzuka and pretty much falls head over balls for her and you think she would get the message but I guess it was her job to act like a bitch for the sake of the plot.Thus we have dumb characters making even dumber decisions that affect the other characters who don't get even a quarter of screen time as these two idiots.:oh and also there is some track sports introduced too.


The animation is mediocre which doesn't make sense at all since this is a sports show.It has that budget that would be right for a romance but not enough to make a sports anime. BEGRUDGINGLY, the art really looks gorgeous during those scenes that take place at night with fireflies.(which happens like once in the whole show).

The highest point of the show is it's soundtrack because believe it or not, its actually not bad, the Suzuka theme is nice to listen to, and the opening was really catchy.But that part only lasts for a moment before the insufferable characters,

speaking of which......The characters,

the main character, Yamato, is an idiot.He immediately falls in love with this girl jumping over a pole bar for some reason.And every time he makes a move, Suzuka acts like a bitch towards him either it being drama or being comedic.There is a whole reason why she acts like that and it's explained eventually but its so unbelievable and makes no sense.Then around the middle of the series , Yamato turns into Mokoto from School Days for some reason, and there are other characters but lets face it... you don't really care about them.

The whole reason I watched this show was because it fitted in one of my favorite niches: slice of life. but I had no idea what I was in for when the back of the dvd said "love is not a spectator sport" but the way this show depicts love as American football in which two teams spend their time running into each other to achieve something but goes nowhere and leave everyone else hurt for nothing.
Oh and that freaking stupid ending......the show STRUGGLED soo much to have this romance happen between these two idiots and Suzuka decides to act like a bitch at the wrong time and that chemistry just evaporates.It may not sound like it, but i do not completely hate this show.it was just disappointing. No matter how bad a show is, i am a musically inclined person so this show was lucky to have good music otherwise i would have crucified this show.

Overall-5

I think the romantic tension between Taiga and Daiki from Kuroko no Basket is more interesting to see
so, watch that instead.

I'm going to be really bland here.

Overall this anime is not as good as I expected. Like normal, the male MC acts stupid as fuck. And the plot is also kinda shit. I love short haired anime girls, but this one was kinda shit to be honest. But the thing that makes me feel weird is that, I feel like I want a second season to see what kinda happened after the ending. Fuuka is like a second season, but you'll understand if you watch that after watching Suzuka.

Overall I rate this a 6/10. I just don't really like the plot, and I did ... not enjoy as much as I expected. But don't turn away from this anime just by seeing this review. Try it, and maybe you'll like it better than I did.

We all have that anime that struck gold with us upon first viewing just as we were burrowing downward towards a rabbit hole. We also may have that same anime, once an absolute favorite, fall out of favor over time. It should be more than assumed that Suzuka was that for me. The show hasn’t entirely fallen out of favor for me over the past 7 years or so, but I wouldn’t quite again refer a friend to watch this either.

But there was a time where I was referring my friends to watch this. Asking that they sit down and watch a few episodes with ... me since there was nothing else I could provide us to rid of boredom. I sold this show as being a smarter romance, sports anime than its contemporaries. I not only gaslit those friends into thinking they were about to watch something like Haikyuu, before that show was even adapted, but I was also blinded myself.

Suzuka was shown to me at a time I was new to anime. I was ignorant to the medium and the what to expect other than what I knew from watching Toonami, Adult Swim, and the stigmas that trailed along from it all. I wasn’t against anime and manga, but I didn’t quite consider myself “all in” with it either. I had friends show me stuff before. Friends who were apart of the casual Ghibli guild and friends inside the cult fo cosplay; I had a myriad of sources showing off the best anime had to offer at the time. It wasn’t until around Suzuka, however, that it all started to click with me.

I must also deflate that last sentence and say Suzuka wasn’t what won me over, nor would I credit it being a major factor in why I felt that infectious otaku sensation, but shows like Welcome to the NHK, Beyond the Boundary, Neon Genesis, and funnily enough Sword Art Online. Suzuka did however provide a deeper connection with me as it felt so removed and separate from the anime I was watching. It was the first slice of life, sports, and romance anime I watched plenty of and inevitably became enchanted with its simplicity and interlaced drama. I was stricken with the mundanity of our character’s lives, that of Yamato and Suzuka, and the pitfalls they fell into for the hedgehog delima they share.

I feel like nobody, that once knew it, remembers this show. Perhaps that’s because there truly are much better shows out there that have a wider appeal and aesthetic to themselves, but I can say for myself this show was presented to me with a coat of paint that didn’t match the accents. What I mean is: Suzuka is not a sports anime and it’s certainly not a romance anime either. Like shows, outside of OG Gundam, that are labeled mecha, the mechs involved in the script are used to enhance said script. They are used as props to elevate the key themes and overall plot for the essential characters’ stories. The narrative is essentially the same but with big-ass robots fighting each other being a metaphor for the duality of mankind’s love of life, or whatever. Suzuka does this with sports. Yamato’s love language to Suzuka is his ability to run really fast, but, again, this isn’t a romance (at least not in the way I feel other shows are handled).

No matter how smooth Yamato can spin dash into Suzuka’s rear view as she pole vaults over the emerald hills, he will never exceed past her blind spots (the sports in which they play at their high school making up only a small fraction of the overall show). This isn’t a spoiler, and I’m only generalizing, but this is a dramatic take of teenage relationships between two friends that, at first, can’t seem to connect. This show is certainly no subversion either for it definitely has its tropes and well handled elements to those tropes, but the show get so different to everything I had watched previously, in a time when I wasn’t as hyper aware of anime and during a time when I felt most vulnerable too and was able to self insert so easily, even making the same dumb decisions Yamato found himself in.

And Yamato isn’t even dumb. That’s one of the best parts. Even today I genuinely believe both Suzuka and Yamato behave like realistic teenagers and not like complete idiots. Macross comes to mind in terms of a well handled relationship between two characters and in Suzuka our two main characters are tasked to make mature decisions and even tackle deep, tragic topics and handle them well without the writing completely taking dump over any of it for a punchline. I still enjoy both of their characters too and like how things end up so patiently and methodical by the end of the show. I think Suzuka deserves just a little more credit is telling a cute story that involves teenagers in a drama (and that’s not teenage drama that I’m referring to either).

Suzuka though does stumble about a lot. It’s art is boring to look at and has no real identity to its style and aesthetic. When Suzuka was brought to my attention, I was told the animation and art where really good, but none of it really is. It’s mediocre at best. I don’t quite see how this 26 episode show wasn’t allowed a larger budget but that’s not up to me I suppose. The music is rather boring and despite a single tune, I found nothing of note about this show having a good soundtrack with some tracks overstaying their welcome and other times being awkward, dead silence. But it’s not just that.

Suzuka has some of the more boring and annoying characters I’ve laid witness to. The first episode introduces us to an egregious scene where Yamato is caught off guard by a sexual deviant senpai who surprises him by unrealistically teasing him as she is naked with her giant tits hanging out. Pure comedy. Stuff similar to this happens a few other times but aside from those the show is inoffensive. Yamato’s chad friend evens him out and at least serves a simple purpose to show Yamato’s maturity and contrast is well enough but he quickly gets lost in the background to make room for the most unremarkable and unnecessary love interest just to create further tension and therefore extending the love triangle between Yamato, Suzuka, and Suzuka picture frame into an actual love triangle with Yamato, Suzuka, and this home wrecker. I don’t think anyone shipped those two and nobody who watched this whole show came out of the other end thinking it was a good idea in the first place either.

Without getting on that tangent, I do wish to express the relationships between Yamato and the others all conclude... with satisfaction, in my opinion. I don’t want to sell Suzuka as a romance anime because if you’ve watched good romance anime you’d probably say “this just ain’t it,” but I dig it. I like Suzuka as for the love that the characters ultimately have for each other. I fully admit that I’m still insufferably defensive to a degree with this show and would rather fail to properly commit to the idea that this show is anything less than a 6. But it’s also not a 7. But I do like this, and I think if provoked about this show again, I’ll recommend it once more.

The anime is good for an old one. I realy like the strive of Yamato and his determination to do everything to get what he wants but I dont think that Suzuka Asahina deserves it because she in not a Tsundere she is just a BITCH. For a sport/ romance anime is good for its time , but I would have liked a diferent ending. It gives me the OREIMO disappointment from the ending. I think the ending is too forced and too predictable. Just look at the girl on the cover and you will know how it will end. I think I can say ... I enjoyed Suzuka. It provided what I was looking for: No violence, just calm and serene scenes. I liked it, liked the story but HATED the ending. I would not rewatch the anime because I think its not worth the time invested for a rewatch but It's nice to watch the anime for the first time.

Suzuka is an anime with the rhythm and aesthetics of its time. I think her protagonist is an excellent example of what she defines to be a Tsundere, with solid development and noticeable gradual transformation. The secondary characters contribute in the right measure and the idea in general makes sense.

The main problem is Akitsuki. The story is told from his point of view and the reality is that in the 26 chapters that this anime lasts we see little growth, self-criticism and desire to be a better person on his part. The only thing that matters to him is to be reciprocated by Suzuka, and ... he can't achieve anything in life if he doesn't receive her support or approval generating embarrassment in the viewer at times. However, I must admit that Yamato's thoughts and attitudes correspond to those experienced by any young person at that age. I just would have liked to see some development and growth on the part of this character.

The anime changes as the episodes progress: in the first half it gives the idea of being an ecchi comedy, something similar to what we see in Golden Boy. This all collapses as soon as we first see the second ending, the drama kicks in and at times we think Akitsuki has matured enough to be able to properly address a woman (wrong, even in the last episode he's still immature in this regard).

To summarize, I think this work is a good example of what goes through the mind of a young man when he is in love, but represented in a rather flat and, at times, exaggerated way. I recommend watching it if you are used to romantic drama, otherwise you may end up leaving the anime.

Animations are very dated and the resolution is pretty low. However some of the backgrounds are pretty good and the characters are well drawn... as long as they're in the foreground. Characters in the background are certifiably jank. Speaking of jank, the running animations. Some of the running animations are okay, but a lot of them are not very fluid and janky. The characters have depth, but they tend to be a bit cliche. That and the quality of the character depth is somewhat lacking. The story is kind of basic and cliche, and it would still be pretty decent if the show was eight ... episodes long. Unfortunately it's not, so the plot just rinses and repeats the same points until literally the last five minutes of the final episode. It gets a little old to say the least. The pacing from episode to episode is actually pretty decent though, and holds your attention. The pacing moves along the plot at a decent pace, but too bad the plot is circular. Voice acting is fine, the casting is fine, but the performances are pretty average and unimpressive. The soundtrack is pretty solid, but the op and eds are a little dated and average. Also it would be nice if we could leave the songs in Japanese, but they don't sound awful in english, even if some of the lyrics are trash. Overall it's a somewhat decent rom com, kinda cute, but really rough and dated. Also, Suzuka is not a very likable, she is kind of a baby throughout the entire show. If you really like rom coms though, this might be a worthwhile watch for you. If you're more interested in the sports... don't bother(although I will say what information is given about running is decently accurate). 6.05/10

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.