Iwa Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls

Iwa Kakeru! was easily one of my favourite shows this season. It's actually the first sports anime I've ever seen, and I was not disappointed at all. From the characters' designs, interactions to the actual sport of climbing itself, everything was great for me.

Who should watch this show? People who are into CGDCT, people who are curious about climbing or enjoy outdoor activities in general. If you're coming here expecting something to blow you away narratively, you're going to be disappointed. The scale of the show is small and rather self-contained. It's not too ambitious in anything it does, at least in this first ... season.

We follow Konomi on her journey of self-improvement and developing her climbing skills in various competitions. One of the coolest parts of the show is the fact the we actually learn about competitive climbing as a sport, its rules, objectives and team dynamics. As much as I loved Konomi, Jun and the rest of the girls, I loved the educational aspect just as much.

I really enjoyed the OST of the show as well. I feel that's something that often gets overlooked with seasonals, but it can add a lot to the overall experience.

For me, Iwa Kakeru! was one of the best parts of my weekend and I will definitely miss it, here's to hoping for a season 2. Iwa Kakeru gets 10 clears out of 10 from me.

tldr: The animators are a bunch of gumbies.

Climbing is a very technical and subtle sport - unlike football, where the team plays out clear tactics and strategies that can be explained and visualised relatively simply, climbing is more to do with balance, body positioning and coordination. Now, these things could be impressed upon an audience but would require pristine animation and direction which, unfortunately 'Sport Climbing Girls' doesn't have a lot of...

It seems to me that whoever thought up the whole premise knew something about climbing but the staff actually making the anime haven't a clue: puzzle games to climbing is surprisingly more realistic ... than it sounds - 50% of climbing is problem solving, working out the correct and most efficient sequence of moves to reach the top; lead climbing takes a while to learn and can't be done without training as is shown in the anime, the girls back clip which can be potentially very dangerous, their footwork is all over the place and body positioning is generally not shown very well.
And as with all sports anime, the Miss MC is stupidly op. I don't know much about other sports but in climbing it takes a very long time to get good; it uses muscles not often used in other sports and building finger strength takes years - if you go too hard your tendons WILL pop (trust me) - so sending a V6 highball after a month and a bit training is stupidly unrealistic.
The competition setting is fairly unrealistic too. The climbing community is generally very supportive and friendly which isn't really represented in the anime.

From a generic anime standpoint it's pretty meh. The animation is bland and uninteresting, the character design is whack and the story is pretty generic - mc wants to be best in japan, makes friends and rivals along the way - but if all you're looking for is naked feet and tight fitting sportswear with convenient camera angles this anime is for you. Hopefully it gets people interested in climbing like Dumbbell did for weight lifting but I'm afraid it's sub-par in that regard.

This show is a lot of fun, and brings a lot of interest into rock climbing in general. Along with it being a fairly decent show when it comes to the usual all girl do a particular kind of task type of shows.

The story follows our MC looking for a club, and ending up getting involved in rock climbing. Being a novice and all, it follows her and her new more experienced teammates, as they go about rock climbing, where that be for practice, or at actual events, as they aim to compete and win against other schools. But what pulls it for me, is ... how it's presented. It actually feels like natural progression, rather than just one or two eps, then but boom suddenly the best at it. Big props to the anime for that. Learn and grow as you go along.

The main cast are an interesting bunch for sure from the weird but interesting backstory of our MC, with how it sorta helps her when it comes to Rock climbing in general, to how her teammates are wonderful in their own right, and how they be great mentors to our MC. A good cast all round that really mesh well together.

Art and sound are top notch as per usual. From the slick movements when it comes to the climbing itself, to just them standing on screen, it's all well done in a pleasing matter, much like the sound. It's good quality stuff far as I am concerned.

I'd say give it a go, while it won't be a super amazing show, it's certainly fun so far, and a pleasant watch all round.

This is a quick review.

"Iwakakeru Sports Climbing Girls" is an interesting show, it tries to explore a relatively unknown sports called "Rock Climbing". I absolutely had no idea that even this game is played on highschool level. Rock climbing, well as the name suggests, is about climbing rocks. To achieve this, you need to have strong muscles as well as strong observation skill to know where you are stepping in next. You need to be physically strong as well as have to develop strong mentality. It interests me to this level, that I want to learn how a player can gain admirable skills to ... achieve his goals, aka reaching the peak.

That's of few positives this show has carried so far.

To talk about the negatives, just reminding you it is an anime, means you are getting to use both audio and visuals for your storytelling. Unfortunately, Iwakakeru fails in both category. Visuals are cheap, and it doesn’t help elevating its storytelling. Audio is rather forgettable. Rather good visuals, we get some good fanservice. Muscled girls with strong legs and busts, it is sexually arousing. The focus on cleavage and butts can easily distract you to concern with the characters.
Talking about characters, the design is so ugly! I don't know if it's intentional or not, since I will remember their design more than generic anime designs, it doesn’t help to enhance my enjoyment. Rather it's disturbing. Characters themselves aren’t anything special. Lead protagonist,Kasahara Konomi is an ex hikikomori, and a national champion on Candy Crash 🙂 with enrolling into highschool she wants to change herself. Why she wants to change her lifestyle, why she ran out of interests with mobile games, is surprisingly unknown. We are just asked to believe it since everyone knows what development means to a hikikomori. The 2nd main girl, Jun (voiced by Ishikawa Yui) is so serious on rock climbing that she poses strong problems to newcomers in order to prevent any vagrant kids to join. Like many characters voiced by Ishikawa, she is another emotionless teen ager whose asked development will be, learning emotions. Amongst the 4 main girls the president attracts me the most, I feel there are lot more hidden with her abilities and it is engaging to know more about her. Side characters are forgettable too, except for one that's so scary to look at and another (voiced by Dio) who is the only male character in the show and is too hot for any girls, despite being a father of a 10 year old girl.

Animation, is quite good compared to its low effort on visuals. There's a cut in first episode where Konomi tries to solve a rock climbing route using her knowledge with Candy Crash which was impressive. Camera movement is nothing special, usually it stays focused on busts and butts, though it moves and that makes it better than most ecchi shows.


My final verdict for this show is it brings something new to table, it's refreshing to know more on athletic sports and how it ensures growth in its players, how they become a better human being and how it helps us to understand more varieties among humankind......but It's ugly character design, bad visuals and forgettable soundtracks surpassed the few good things. You can say it has good concept but the execution is lackluster.

In my opinion, this is a good anime because it has an Antimainstream Sport topics. Visual, Character, and Art very very very beutiful.

Just like other sports anime, the plot that is presented is not far from the beginning of training, forming teams, competitions between local schools and the national level. Such is the plot that is presented, but here the drawback is that the plot is like it was made too fast to fit the 12 episode load, so it is less exciting and less tense.

Then what makes it interesting here again is the main character who has never tried this sport before, as ... if he wants to introduce the audience as well as about this sport.

I Hope this anime have to Season 2

As a rock climber, I can say that this anime was slightly unrealistic. For starters, the protagonist progressed much faster than any normal beginner. I mean cmon, she was leading on her first day and climbing 5.11. That usually doesn't happen unless the climber had prior sports experience. Also, this anime was overly sexualized. I was exited to finally see a female sports anime featuring my own sport, and was disappointed when I saw how much they gave into fan service. Nevertheless, the story line was ok even though it was a bit rushed, so I'd say 5-6 out of 10.

I don't normally write reviews, but I wanted to for this series. I would like to hopefully encourage people to try it themselves before writing it off, as with only one episode left to watch when it airs, I've enjoyed the show quite a bit.

I'm not going to rate the show by different categories, as I tried that and it sounded boring, but I did find it more enjoyable seemingly than many other reviewers here did, and wanted to express that.

It doesn't stand out too much in any area, and I doubt it will join anyone's list of favorite anime, but I've found it surprisingly ... entertaining and a fun watch so far at episode 11. I enjoy many of the characters, the arcs that some of them have had, and the actual climbing parts are very engaging to me, despite my complete lack of background in or knowledge or the sport. Although the climbing is not shown with too much detail I imagine compared to the real sport (I don't feel like I've gained a whole lot of knowledge while watching or anything), the characters' motivations and stories help make it entertaining.

Also in case the poster art made you think of avoiding it because it would have heavy fanservice, fear not. I actually don't think the fanservice is very heavy at all - despite some angles while climbing seeming a bit that way, the show itself seems quite intent on depicting the characters' stories seriously and not undermine that with leering camera angles the majority of the time.

One moment that made me a bit uncomfortable and wish it hadn't been included was *SPOILERS* one of the characters - who is played as a bit creepy, but in a funny way - punishing a climber who tried to sabotage a promising newbie. She creeps up behind her and scares her by not letting her collar go (and also being creepy is kind of her gimmick, but usually in a pretty harmless way), then when the girl insults her, she says "Come with me to the dressing rooms... I'll give you a good dressing down there." She then drags the scared girl away with her while creepy music plays, while the girl screams things like "Spare me!" This is the most uncomfortable moment in the show in my opinion, (with the exception of one more moment I will mention next), so unless you're very sensitive to this type of "joke", it's quite easy to look past in my opinion. It's just a shame, as if they'd just left out the threat of being forcibly undressed, it would've just been a funny scene where someone got payback for trying to sabotage a fellow climber, but as it is, it's a small blemish on the show in my opinion.

The other uncomfortable moment in my opinion was *SPOILERS* when a character is called "chubby" with no visible chubbiness to speak of. This happened in the middle of a training episode, and while the character definitely needed extra muscle to be able to compete, she never appeared even close to "chubby". To add insult to injury, I can't even tell a difference between her weight before and after she gets stronger, so not only is it worrying seeing a visibly quite thin girl being told she's "chubby", her body when fit is drawn the exact same anyway, indicating it looks plenty thin enough to be fit for competition before. This is another part that I just have to sigh and ignore, as it is only a few times in the episode it's mentioned, and weight issues, from memory, are never mentioned again outside this episode, so it's quite easy to pretend this is her teammates positively encouraging her to gain muscle and increase her fitness, rather than making someone think they're overweight when they're perfectly thin already.


Overall, I don't think you should enter this show expecting to love it, as I don't think its appeal is that broad or strong, but I started it just wanting a simple show about a niche sport, and I came to really like it. To me, it's one of those shows you don't really include with your favorites, but because they were such a pleasant surprise, you become a bit of a special series anyway, and I hope this might encourage others to give it a go and maybe come to like it as well.

Listen, do you like Muscled girls or nah? There is simply only one reason to watch this gorgeous piece of art, and you either came for it, or are uncultured.

This show has very detailed muscles that, ah one might say, starts my engine so to speak. They are also anatomically correct, something that many shows get wrong.

I could get overly analytical about this sure, but i'll spare you all. Basically, if you are a cultured individual that likes muscular women, you will like this show. Story? people climb large rocks. Sound? the sound of people climbing rocks. Art? Lenny face. Enjoyment? Sky high. That is ... all there is to say. Goodbye.

As a amateur climber myself I was excited at the announcement of this anime as I'd imagine most niche hobbyist would be at a media depiction of their somewhat lesser known activity.
In actuality though its a bit disappointing.
The Story and Characters are rather standard fair for sport characters throwing in a host of personalities and skill in an attempt to cover the basic bases of the kinds of people and their specialties' so as to showcase the widest range of actions possible in the sport. Though added on top of the diversity is an frankly distracting addition of animalistic qualities that further "define" each character ... and their skill set. Worst of all is the girl who talks like a cat for really no reason. What is seems like they've tried to do is make an idol show of skinned with a sports show.
The climbing itself is decently done but not showing things consistently accurately enough for me not to nitpick at certain details nor actually animating moves in a way to show what they are actually doing instead opting for anime jump cuts with blur lines for "umph" factor which really doesnt work in the majority of cases where its used.
It doesnt take the sport its depicting seriously enough while try to appear as though it is serious.
Not really bad but its probably better for those with much less knowledge of the sport than for those like me who have actual experience with it. Hopefully it will at least spur some newcomers to try it out.

Ok, so another sports theme anime with a josie genre has ended and as one top reviewer said " The animators are a bunch of gumbies," well, I couldn't agree more. since it kind of look like that, given that the original creator of this series, Ishizaka, Ryuudai, wasn't much of a good story teller in the realm of sports, and just like the highly recommended anime " Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? " the original creators tend to give out helpful instruction, that weren't very much of factual as compared to the actual sports itself, the said 'helpful instruction" were just a means to give ... something for other support characters to voice out their own genius opinion, when in reality the sport itself was just a simple as it gets and the reality of sports climbing is just as simple as "American Ninja Warrior" it's all about grip strength, flexibility, timing of the jump from one position to the other and upper body strength as well and nothing else, in fact when that weirdo support character with a weird hairdo, Nakada, that one's height could be a challenge , well, he was absolutely wrong cu'z being tall can be very much an advantage. Now, I don't know about you guys out there, but IMAO, that alone goes to show that the original creator of this series, has no idea of what he's talking about....so, here's how I see this cliché shit:

Story- Mediocre 5: Cu'z it was just too cliché to begin with in fact the plot itself has already made too obvious to begin with.

Art-Fair 6: Half of it features the usual eyecandy that can bee seen in every sport theme anime with a josie genre, But half of it, basically shows girls with muscles and I'm talking about, Jun Uehara , Iwamine Chinari and her lackey Kumaga Chigusa, those kind of girls in general were a turn off for a Die hard otaku and who can blame them having muscular girls scares the shit outta them.

Sound-Mediocre 5: Ok so this has the usual sweet girl protagonist sound, a tsundere who has to sound like this dead serious about the sports she plays , someone who has to sound like royalty and someone who has to sound like a loli...and let's not forget the antagonist, Cool Kurusu!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Character-Mediocre 5: Ok, so what do we have around here?

Karahara Konomi- The usual protagonist, who should be the one who should have all the aired time and be the winner in the end.

Jun Uehara- The usual serious face tsundere who thinks highly of herself.

Sayo Yotsuba- The usual club president, who has to have a bitchy demeanor.

Nonoka Sugiura-The usual member who is the lowest girl in the totem pole.

The Antagonist: The problem with this series, was that it has put a lot of antagonist that it never consider competing them against another....IMAO, if that original creator just pit them with one another this would have been much better, cu'z it would been exciting if Cool Kurusu takes down everyone of them one by one where this series would have had such piazzas if we can see that she gets to own Fujita Masumi, Oba Kurea, Sato Maruno, Kumagai Chigusa and Iwami Chinari....TBFH, Cool Kurusu's character was a complete waste.


Enjoyment-Poor 3: Let's be honest, it was only the eyecandies that were the enjoyable parts around here, everything else were just a chore.

Overall- Poor 3: Given that the original creator's, Ishizaka, Ryuudai only has 2 works one was this cliche and the other was Hanekoi Lion both weren't much of a success, well, we can definitely say, that this is were his career in the manga business ends......poor guy, he simply just doesn't have any talent for story telling......


COOL KURUSU.............................

Seems like the writers have put a bit of effort into learning some of the random climbing esque sayings and such but I'd pay cash money to see someone with 2 days experience learn to lead climb so quickly.

The lack of pump complaints hurt my soul.

The framing of enemies within the series makes sense in a competition based system but in any real world climbing the community side feels lacking here.

The whole team comradery thing from the start is awesome, any climber who's series about it wishes they had people that could tell them the what's what of what they're doing/not doing properly so ... seeing that was the series was admirable.

Overall, it seems like if you're a climber the series is probably going to be more enjoyable than what the majority would see.

On a side note, if you haven't gone rock climbing before strongly recommend. It's a great time.

This is my first ever review (and english isnt my first language, sorry if I dont write all correct).

I am a climber, I were climbing for more than 5 years now and since I start watching anime I search an anime/manga about climbing and more specific about climbing competitions.
This is literally the first one I found (Kokou no Hito is a manga about climbing, but personally is overexaggerated).

I have to say that I wasnt expecting this anime being this good in the realism. They make something enjoyable and all the thing they do are in the majort part real (excluding the fact of the overpower ... protagonist and the amusing
climbing facilities of the school of the girls for just 4 girls).
All the tecnics, the things they say about the climbing in general is very good, I really dont have anything to say to criticize the "technical" aspect of the show.

Another thing that I love of this anime were the caracter, not because all the personalities, that also were good, but because the way they present the different types of climbers so well (obviously overexaggerating).

The things I dont like are the parts when the protagonist is like analyzing the problem and the wall becomes like a game, but overall I thing is really fine.



To sum up, I was expecting a mediocre anime about climbing, but found a very entertaining anime to enjoy my favorite sport.

Fall 2020 really is a letdown in terms of animes and this one is an example of it.

Like the title says, its an anime about girls climbing or more specifically, bouldering. Story follows Kasahara Konomi, a girl who dedicated her life to video games, competing in many tournaments and always come out as victorious only to give up on them due to her grades being very low. So to kill time, she joins the Bouldering club where she finds love for the sport.

While the concept doesn´t sound bad, it sadly is poorly executed. For starters, the manga for this anime only has 4 ... chapters which cover only the first 2 episodes so no idea where they got the rest of the story. Second, the studio managing only has about 6 animes which were pretty forgettable.

Storywise, its your usual sports anime. MC starts attenting a sport and becomes deus ex machina at it. Problem is, our MC becomes op because of her connection to games...to some that may be okay but to me, if you´re going to base a character´s personality by her past instead of giving her new ways to shine, its an off putting. Characters are a weak point; none of them despite Konomi or Jun(and even them aren´t that intresting) make an impact whatsoever, most are just there to make 1 second cameos. Art is very inconsistant specially when it comes to how the characters look, some look good but some don´t even look normal like Jun who looks like a skeleton. On the other side, the animation is focused on ass, boobs and midriff shots. Really, expected from an ecchi anime.


The only parts that are decent is where the "drama" shows up. Its classified as drama but in reality its just 2-3 of someone crying and getting back on their feet but in these last episodes, they seem to have put a more emphasis on that so not all is lost. With that said, if you´re still wanting to give a shot at it, you aren´t going to get much in return. Its yet another anime to be lost on the pages of history.

Lot of people dislike it because it's not entirely realistic, they don't like the art, they don't like the sound/theme song, they think it has generic characters, they want to know more about the characters.
It's not realistic but it's not the point, it's suppose to introduce the world of professional rock climbing while being relatable and enjoyable, the first of its kind. Going through the arduous process or showing episodes of intense training without any relatable motivation would turn off viewers. Just overlook this fact for the story.
I actually liked the art, it seemed better than a lot of shows I watched so I'm not ... sure where that complain is coming from.
The character sounds and voices are very pleasant to hear. The theme song doesn't seem too bad, not fantastic but I usually skip it anyway.
The story of an overpowered character starting from the bottom is the same with most sports shows. I mean, a mediocre character would never make it to pro, which is again the point of the show.
Character development is important, but I think the main point is the rock climbing. I actually would like to know more about the main character 5 episodes in, but I know enough and am learning more in other areas, like the climbing and their training/process which is just as important.

Overall, I really enjoy this anime. Someone is struggling to achieve their dreams and you get a macro view of their process doing it. I learned a lot just by watching this fun anime. I enjoyed the motivation and thought process of the main character. I actually went rock climbing a 2 times over several years $5+ per try, never did well, and this explains a lot about how it's suppose to be done. This anime did a good job targetting the audience, pretty anime girls, a MC who is a gamer who is also a bit overpowered, struggling to achieve a goal. If this show was watched by more people, I bet it wouldn't be rated 6.2 like it is now, but then again sometimes my opinion differs.
So far, watched Baby Steps, Fastest Finger, March Comes like a Lion, Kuroko no Basket, and a few others. I would say this is different but good and very enjoyable.

Note: Review is based off memory. My memory is dodgy at times, keep that in mind. SPOILERS BELOW.

Sports Climbing Girls. More like Sports Climbing SHIT. This is quite possibly one of the worst shows I have watched, and will have ever watched. After 7 episodes of pain and suffering it was time for this show to go.

Objective Score:

Plot and Story Structure- Girl fails at climbing tournament. Girl works hard and wins climbing tournament. Simply mind-blowing stuff. (2/10)

Characterisation and Character/ World Development – Every time I saw the characters on screen I felt nothing but rage and agony. (1/10)

Flow and Depiction of Ideas and Content- Through ... the power of working hard anything is possible, what a message. (2/10)

OVERALL OBJECTIVE SCORE: (1.67/10)


Subjective Score :
Engagement – Put this on at night. It’ll either help you fall asleep or give you nightmares. (1/10)

Character/World Attachment – Forgettable bozos. Except for DIO/Zeke. +1 for the GOAT’s appearance. (2/10)

General Enjoyment – Bleach my eyes. (1/10)

OVERALL SUBJECTIVE SCORE: (1.33/10)


Technical Score:
Sound/Voice Acting- Subpar voice acting. Goofy ass sound design as well. (3/10)

Art- Animation isn’t great. Same goes for the art. (4/10)

Openings and Endings- The opening gives me PTSD. (1/10)

OVERALL TECHNICAL SCORE: (2.67/10)

BASE SCORE: (1.73/10)


Bonuses and Penalties:
Random ass balls appearing on screen which somehow reference a video game? Fuck yourself. -0.25
OP and ED. -0.25
Discount Mai Sakurajima but as a spider. -0.25
Once more, DIO. +0.25


Total= -0.5

FINAL SCORE: 1.73-0.5= 1.23/10 (1/10)

This is what lays at the bottom of the deep, dark pits of anime. I’m feeling a strong 0 to a light 1 on this one.

This will be the first and maybe the only anime that i'll write a review for, only because I think it's such a travesty that such a unique premise has been done in such a poor and uninteresting way.

The story follows Kasahara Konomi who, while trying to find a school club to join, comes across someone doing rockclimbing. It escalates quickly from there, she joins the club and starts to enter competitions and the entire story is basically following Konomi and her team as they participate in and try to win tournaments against other rival schools.

The anime takes obvious shounen route, in that Konomi is ... instantly good at rockclimbing after 14 minutes of practice and rivals some of the top climbers after basically 1 competition. How is she so good? Because she used to be a pro gamer when she was younger. Yep! That's it! Somehow, her analytic skills of her puzzle game escapades are easily applicable to a completely if not total opposite sport requiring an enormous amount of physical endurance because all she has to do is look at a wall before climbing it for 2 minutes and she's mastered it better than any of the others that have been doing it for years.

Here-in lies the problem; because Konomi is already good at rockclimbing there is very little room for character development. Whenever she has problems with a wall, there's a 5 minute training arc devoted to the problem she had and she becomes a master. Nevermind the months and years it ACTUALLY takes to get good. The other characters are even worse, showing 0 evolution. The girls from rival schools are all totally generic "how is this girl so good, I need to do better!" characters, where they get slightly sad for losing and then you see 5 minutes of backstory trying to make you feel sorry for them even though the MAJORITY of the time they show up, it's to just taunt and ridicule Konomi. There's one seen in a recent episode where one "rival" completely antagonizes Konomi to the point she breaks down in tears, only for her to not only NOT apologize, but just pretend everything is alright. Konomi never points out how awful any of the other characters are, she's constantly in an "it's all my fault!" mindset throughout the entire show.

In a quicker summary, let me bullet point this:
- Konomi is a character that shows 0 evolution throughout the entire 10~ episodes I watched and is so unrelatable it makes watching any scene with her annoying.
- Almost all the other characters from rival schools are generic borderline INSUFFERABLE, with the only exceptions being the top climbers (who are good enough that they don't need to spend ever 4 seconds ridiculing Konomi)
- The art and animation is overly simple, with many of the action oriented scenes relying on the tried and true freeze frame on one shot with motivating music and some camera pans. It's the kind of animation anyone could do.
- The soundtrack was so unoteworthy I can't even comment (although the OP and ED are pretty good).

Overall, I can not recommend this AT ALL. I only started watching this because i'm a weeb one loves anime girls and I thought it would be similar to the recent gym anime that came out, but instead it's a sob story of a girl who spends every waking second feeling sorry for herself while she gets teased by every other character.

First up a slight spoiler warning, and now the conventional summary. This show is about four girls in a climbing club, they enjoy both indoor and outdoor climbing but the series sets its focus on indoor for the sake of national high-school competitions. The art is nothing special, but not too bad either. You won't find much fluid animation but for the mostpart I think the overall design works out fine. The audio? I can't say I remember anything aside from decent voice acting. The characters are way too barebones, I have yet to really enjoy getting to know any of them, and there are ... reasons for this but more on that later. The enjoyment level is average, at most I think it'll be a slightly more enjoyable watch for those like me who have tried climbing indoors (or outdoors probably).

Story
Don't expect anything here. Really. The pacing of the show is so fast you never get time to settle down and enjoy anything other but the most superficial characteristics. I did enjoy seeing a gamer girl get into climbing and using her skills to solve the challenges as puzzles prior to actually doing them, but the pacing is so unrealistic I actually don't want to use this show to introduce someone to the sport. I can enjoy exaggerated abilities a fair amount, but the main character is overpowered to a fault. They never make a mention of her having a great physique, yet she gracefully uses techniques that take... well... err... would normally take years of training and practice to fully pull off, not only technique-wise, but through training itself. Layer some completely unnecessary fan-service on top of that and any thought I had of showing this show to a potential future kid is gone, I just get sad. I love shows where sexuality is a theme of the show, like Kakegurui, but in shows like these I just enjoy the show less and feel my depression come on even stronger.

Art
Meh. It's okay, the visuals for the main character's zone mode are pretty neat but there's really nothing to write home about here. You won't leave because of the animation, but you won't stay for it either.

Sound
I guess there are good voice actors, but otherwise this is a completely mute point for this show.

Character
All of the cahracters in this show are either superficial or superfluous. Not one of these characters are compelling enough to make you come back and the overpowered nature of the main character actually makes you feel bad for the more relatable side characters. To see these characters who have practiced their whole lives get run over by a newcomer would be exciting in many other shows, but the way this show does it just makes it depressing to me. The main character has nothing special about her physique, and we don't even really get to see her grow, we just get to see her be awesome... which, ironically, doesn't really feel awesome.

Enjoyment
It's okay. If you have practiced or are practicing the sport I'm guessing you'll be happy to see it represented in anime. That's how I felt at first, but as the show drags on I can't help but feel it would have been fine to leave it alone if they were going to care this little about the execution. There are also quite a few techniques mentioned which could provide hints for a beginner, but they never really delve into them so... it just feels like they gave an itch to scratch at the surface.

Overall
From :) to :-/

I chose to watch this because I thought rock climbing was really cool, so I was super excited when I saw there was an anime about it! I found it exciting to watch the girls climb and learn new footholds and strategies. However, a lot of the plot felt mediocre at best. Specifically the rivals/“villains.” They were very under developed, which took away from a lot of the potential of this anime. With sports anime, challengers make the plot much more interesting, so their underdevelopment definitely hurt the show. I also found that there was a lot of opportunities ... when the show could have shown character growth, but skipped over those moments. Further, the fan service (while not as bad as some other anime) was definitely another thing that hurt its score. Overall, it’s not a bad watch if you’re not worried about the plot and characters development. The music and animation were actually pretty good!

Welp, with the 2020 Fall season coming to an end, I think its safe to say that this was by far the worst and least interesting season of the year. The best shows airing were continuations from summer and all the good shows meant to release this season were postponed to 2021. That being said, the absence of anticipated shows allows for lesser known studios like Blade to really shine, so what's their big title? The most painfully mediocre attempt at a sports anime in the history of television. It's a damn shame that this will probably become their most popular show.

Continuing ... with the mediocrity of Iwa Kakeru!, the show has literally zero redeeming aspects. I wish I were kidding, but I sat through twelve episodes of this to be thoroughly disappointed every Saturday. Everything this show did, it did in the most uninteresting and conventional way possible. If you told me this entire series was generated by an algorithm, I might just believe it because any upstanding human being would have at least tried to expand on the very basics of storytelling.

Story - 5

Dare I say, it's mid. The overarching story is pretty damn basic for a sports anime or really any shounen. The "goal" is to be the best, or in this case the best in Japan, which normally means that the overarching plot takes a backseat to the episodic plot lines of each competition or tournament arc. In the case of Iwa Kakeru!, the episodic plot lines are incredibly monotonous. Each side plot is heavily based on character development, which can sometimes work, but not if it happens ten times in a row. I get that this is studio Blade and their budget restricts them to such tame scenes, but Jesus Christ could they at least try to make it interesting. I felt like I was watching a soap opera written by a ten year old who had never met another human and decided to conceptualize what human interaction must be like.

Art - 5

Budget was pretty spread out so there were no scenes with clearly rushed or haphazard drawing, but It wasn't that impressive either. There was a lot of potential for some nice backdrops or establishing shots but they were just never included. Pretty much exactly what I'd expect from a studio this size.

Sound - 4

Music wise, I think they made some pretty bad choices. Some scenes just seemed completely out of place with the music being played and in other cases the same cue would play within 4-5 minutes of each other which should be illegal. OP/ED were both bad, but I can't say I expected much, just would have liked to have something fun to listen to before my hopes get let down.

As far as actual sound goes, it wasn't too far off from what you'd expect from rock climbing. Still not a lot going on though.

Animation/Direction - 6

I think this is an important category to include as it covers the Studio's ability to properly adapt the source material. The animation throughout was pretty consistent, but I will say that outside of competitions and during dialogues, the characters weren't really moving at all. I would have liked to see a bit of movement in episodes with minimal rock climbing because without it the show becomes a glorified power point presentation. However, the competitions were actually handled quite well, with some nice scene/palette shifts which only lasted a few seconds.

Character - 3

By far the low point of the entire series. I absolutely despised 90% of the characters and their developments that were introduced throughout the show. They follow the most basic tropes of sports anime and every single one seemed to be experiencing some inner turmoil which would be addressed for two minutes and then completely forgotten about. I hated the way the other team members besides Konomi were treated, especially Jun. Picture this, new kid shows up and absolutely rocks you in competition despite the fact that you've been training your entire lifetime. You don't even get closure, just a dumb fucking montage in the final episode.

Enjoyment/Overall - 5

Despite everything I've pointed out, I still somewhat enjoyed watching this. Seasonal anime gets the privilege to be mediocre because the mediocrity is spaced out. If I had tried binging this, I would have definitely given up no more than three episodes in, but because of the wait between episodes, it was easier to follow along without getting bored. Also, another opinion, there was a complete lack of fan-service whatsoever. I really don't get it because upon first seeing the show, I thought that's what it would be centered around, but I guess I was wrong.

//Spoilers//

So looking back at the last episode, what the fuck was the scoring in the final round of the competition. I just wanna take a moment to point out just how imbalanced the scoring was. Kakureikan absolutely destroyed Hanamiya in speed and bouldering, but they still lost? I get that its a team competition, but still. Also, how tf did Konomi get second in the individual. I was so aggravated by this that I re watched the scenes where they showed the scores for each event and tried counting them up, but for some fucking reason they just excluded all the side characters and skipped straight to Konomi. Either way, she was far from second place going into lead and the other competitors should have been pretty far ahead of her. I just don't get it.

This is my first time writing a review, and my reason for actually wanting to write this one is to ensure people aren't deterred from watching this anime due to the negative feedback from people and the bad scores.

I was almost put off by this anime because many were comparing it to keiijo (which is not in the least bit true) and called it "ecchi". Like most anime about a particular sport, this anime is solely about its sport: rock climbing. There are no ecchi scenes what so ever and the characters are not sexualised at all. The anime is a genuinely enjoyable and ... fun thing to watch. Its not anywhere near the level of excitement of other sport anime such as Haikyuu or Yowamushi pedal, but it is still a good show nonetheless.

The character development is very pleasing and there are those cool, hyped up moments that you would find in most sport anime. Since it is sports related there is next to no storyline, which is what you would expect. However, that doesn't imply that it is boring. The anime develops really well and at a good speed too.

If there were any negatives, I would say that the "drama" was a bit haphazardly placed throughout the show. Not that it was bad, but the timing of everything seemed a bit off. Not like this is a deal breaker though

Overall, this anime is not in the least a disappointment nor is it anything unethical or ecchi. I enjoyed watching it quite a bit and the rock climbing was really cool. Please don't be put off by the score given or other people's negative reviews because you are gonna miss out on a fairly good show. I personally would give it a 7.5 but I round it down. You really should give it a watch and believe me, it won't disappoint you