Wave!! Surfing Yappe!! (TV)

that's probably one of the worst anime i've ever seen. And this thing came out in 2021? What a shame ...

Story : 2
Is there a story ? I forgot that the MC wanted to surf with his "friends" before they left for their studies to enjoy the "magic of surfing"

Art : 5
For the moment the animation is not that bad, waves and sea are pretty clean for the moment, even if there is some unnecessary 3d at some moments...

Sound : 3
No particular intereset on the soundtracks, at least my ears are not bleeding, unlike my brain. The opening is why not-tier.
...
Character : 1
let's talk about this terrible MC ... You guys imagine Naruto but with sakura as the MC ? That's even worth. No chara-design, no background, corgi is just a frustrating and hateful character. This anime would have been great if the two other useless friends of the MC didn't saved him ep 2 ... Think about it.

Enjoyment : 3

Thank God this anime deals with Surf, this solo fact carries the show. But what a throw, it's been so long that I'm waiting for an anime about surf.



I think I'll just watch some AMV from the surf scene if I let these things drop, cause I don't know why I would continue ...

Wave, follows the main character Masaki Hinaoka on the beginning of his surfing journey. At the beginning Masaki didn't have much interest in surfing until he experienced the surfing of his soon to be friend Sho Akitsu. The beginning of the show follows through the friend ship of the trio, Masaki, Sho and Nalu and the bond between them and surfing.

When I first saw this series announced on twitter I was over the moon, seeing the teaser art and characters slowly being revealed gradually built up the hype more and more. The three part film was released in Japan last October and to everyones surprised ... they soon after announced the tv series for the film. Although I remember it causing some panic to the viewer at the time because there might be some missing plot holes because of the film but in this case it seems like the series is a possible adaptation of the film its self? I could be dumb by saying this since I haven't see the films though..
Continuing on the original hype of the series I was counting down the days for the first episode to come and when it finally did, did I feel disappointed? Not quiet, when I finished the episode I was almost left with some kind of emptiness inside of me. The episode was far from great but it also wasn't bad. I really wanted to give this long awaited a chance so I continued watch it.
Most episodes felt like they dragged on a long because I just could feel entertained as much as I thought I could be. When I originally saw this anime my hopes were high, for the past seven years I've been a massive fan of the free ! franchise so I believe a lot of my hopes for this series was reflected from how great that series was.

story 5/10
As one of the first surfing anime it has a lot of potential, I feel like this series was rushed and also low at the same time. It also have a generic plot of ' mc who's never done it before is great at it almost right away' kind of like Langa in sk8 ( but unlike our mc he has somewhat knowledge in a similar sport..) which is kind of drag after seeing it happen in lot of series before..

art 6/10
The art isn't bad as such, it isn't my favourite style for an anime but I've seen a lot worse. The animation isn't as good as I had expected to be, as noted before I had pretty high expectations for the water and surfing animation from free but other shows have nailed that kind of animation in things like beach episodes but its been pretty disappointing.. I don't think the CGI is too bad but again it could be better, if you want a show to watch bad CGI in you should probably go and watch Ex-arms and complain about that

sound 6/10
There isn't much to note here that others haven't done already, there isn't much soundtrack to the series and the op and end song are pretty average

characters 5/10
Is it me or are some of the characters just empty? By appearance of them you can probably guess what their like from stereotype etc.. but I don't feel like they go into the character too much? Mc is a 'corgi' like character hence his nickname and loves surfing and what else?.. Some characters just seem overly under developed which I hope changes in the future episodes.
Im also not too much of a fan of Mcs almost permanent blush but some people might like that

enjoyment 5/10
As mentioned before I found that the episodes have dragged on a bit they don't really grab my attention as much as I had hoped it would, its not extremely bad but I wish it was better

overall 5-6/10
I don't believe the series is as bad as some other people make it out to be, its defiantly not the best show of 2021 but its obviously not the worse ( cough cough ex-arms..) even with whats said in this review I hope that the series picks up more with the up coming episodes,,,

I never realised how much hand how much hate this series had until now. I had only seen happy things in the comments of each episode and on the bird app.. But its sadly not the only show to receive hate this season,,,

sorry if this review isn't too great ,, im not the best at writing heh

Genuinely awful....
I already disliked it from the first episode but I tried giving it a chance and I will still finish it. Usually if something like a sports anime doesn't have good plot it doesn't really bother me, anime's like that are more about enjoyability. However this lacks in every department possible.

The Pacing:
What could have been fit into half an episode backstory or something that spread out through flashbacks was dragged out for 5 episodes. There's only 12 episodes in this season. By the time we finally get to what I assume is the actual plot were already halfway through the anime ... and for those 5 episodes I was confused on where this was going.

The Plot/Writing:
I have no idea where the plot is going. It feels like each episode was written episode by episode with no planning or end goal. This feels like a rough draft I wrote 5 mins before it was due in middle school. There's also lots of plot holes and just completely unnecessary things that happen which I will further elaborate on later.

The Characters:
They're poorly written to say the least. Most of their actions go without an explanation and they don't really have a backstory or anything. The main character himself wasn't that bad but the side characters got little to not attention in trying to write well. We don't see into their lives at all. While I am looking forward to seeing the new characters that were introduced in episode 5, I am not expecting much out of them.

The Soundtrack and Art:
There isn't really a soundtrack besides the opening and ending which aren't bad. For the most part the animation isn't bad but when it switches to 3d while they're surfing its pretty awful. I understand its much easier and cheaper to do 3d animation on those types of scenes but its just visually appalling.

So many unnecessary and random confusing things...
There will be spoilers so be warned but honestly this isn't worth the watch at all so I don't feel to bad. I'm left with a ton of things that made no sense and a lot of questions.

- Why did Sho kill himself and what did that have to do with the plot at all? They just randomly threw that in and I at least expected it to have some sort of significance or add to character development but it just didn't. Maybe it was my fault for not paying enough attention but he just randomly started getting sad with no explanation and then boom was dead. If it was to leave ukulele boy and Sho behind so Corgi could move on, why didn't they just do what they did with ukulele boy and make him go to another school.

- This isn't that big of a deal but wouldn't the dude with a robot board or whatever like,,,,get electrocuted in the water. Also the fake typing he does every 5 seconds is so annoying and stupid I wanna punch him.

- When Corgi when to go kill himself or whatever why was he magically saved by the entire cast. Where did they even come from, its established later on they live like hours away. Why were they necessary they had 1 interaction with Corgi previously and its just extremely unrealistic that they all showed up including his parents and ukulele boys parents. How did they know he would be there and why was their solution to him being miserable over the death of one of his best friends to go surf. Like I understand but it could have easily just been done with ukulele boy and made a lot more sense. They both were friends with Sho and had a previous connection. Having 5 other side characters jump in who we've barley seen and also had a singular interaction with Sho and Corgi just made no sense.

- Also when Sho died ukulele boy wasn't effected at all let alone any other character like Corgis sister, they all just acted like nothing happened.

- This is also dumb but they keep going to the ocean with no board, wet suit or anything and then magically appear surfing in their wet suits.

Overall this just really sucks no matter what your watching it for. Its probably one of the worst anime's I've ever seen and oh boy have I seen some bad anime. I will still finish it and give it the benefit of the doubt that they will somehow turn this around for the better but I am very doubtful. Honestly it has a lot of potential it was just so poorly written and paced. I would have loved to see this as a final draft rather then the messy rough draft I feel I've just watched.

I am... dissapointed to say the least. I've been looking forward to a surfing anime for years, and when I finally saw this announced a while back, I was so excited, I spent months getting excited, for the first episode to come out.
While watching it, I felt bored by it. Still, I hoped that it would get better in the next episodes, but I was sorely mistaken. I've watched the first 3 episodes so far, and honestly, I can't remember much of what actually happened in it. The plot is just not strong enough.
The character design is alright, the characters don't look exceptionally bad or ... too similar to each other, but they're nothing special.
Overall, I give this a , because although it isn't terrible, or particularly bad to me, I juts find it a bit boring, and bland.

YAPPE...a surfing anime! Let's go ride the Waves! Surfing Yappe!! Show must go on!
...only except that this is not only just bad, but it's boring also, catering to the niche audiences. And being the TV version of a 3-part film trilogy released in October 2020, I'd presume that the reception for this is moderately lukewarm (when COVID is still a thing), but who the hell was thinking to green-lit the "complete edition" TV version to milk more of the mixed-media project. This should've just stayed in Japan and not come out either way, we don't need mediocrely bad shows like this to waste our precious ... time.

There have been many sports anime, but if there's anything to prove this Winter season, is that the unknown have risen and emerged from the depths of the sports themselves, from volleyball to figure skating, and skateboarding to surfing. But as one can say, those representations are nothing if the shows they come from aren't as good as they are, and in the case of "Wave! Surfing Yappe!", the case in point inferred is true. There's no story for this, it's just the usual shenanigan case of a newbie being invited to the world of the sport, learning tricks and treasuring friendships along the way. Think along the lines of Sk8 the Infinity, only that it fails to do everything decently, despite being faithful from the supervision of the Nippon Surfing Association, the supervision cooperation of Surf Magazine and Murasaki Sports.

I've gotta say that this show knows how to "bait" a story just because there's nothing going for it, but through the characters instead:
- Your typical newbie Masaki Hinaoka who is drawn to the sport and giving it a try before being fully immersed in the sport. But Oh My Gawd, never have I hated such a character playing the usual tropes and cliches, just in a very irritating manner that with Tomoaki Maeno's voice, increases the cringe tenfold. What's the point of repeating the show's tagline and the same quote umpteen times over when once is already excruciatingly bloody to the ears? This is not how you want to paint the central MC as a young, angsty happy-go-lucky teenager, and that to me, is a make-and-breaker.
- Thw two initial surfers alongside Masaki, Shou Akitsuki and Nalu Tanaka, both pro surfers, but with the former looking like the most gay and pretty Bishounen and the latter, a foreign student who's well-versed overseas. Also, please don't try to "bait" people by removing characters off for seemingly no rando reason for the sake of character "development", it just doesn't work that way (unless you can call it anime logic).
- The rest of the pro surfers ranging from a reigning champion, an otaku, the analyst, and much more. Needless to say, these characters are all cookie-cutter ones just for interaction purposes and give some "Wave!" of steam for the surfing competitions. Just very mediocre.

From a production standpoint, Asahi Production will definitely not ring a bell of hints and whizzes, because most of the works that this low-budget studio have done over the years are objectively uninteresting, boring and at times, unappealing. Heck, I'd even say of the 2 shows that this studio have pumped out this season, I'd recommend Tenchi Souzou Design-bu (a.k.a Heaven's Design Team) as the better show anyday, indefinitely. Honestly said, it can tackle some good 2D animation, but the 3DCG (especially on the sea of waves) is pure poggers bad, more than looking unremarkable, prosaic, and unrealistic with the way these Bishounen characters try to ride the waves just for the looks.

Of all the things that this show managed to ace is the music, and for good reason: it combines the songs that it uses for both versions of the same source material. But even then, it's full-on Bishounen stuff so I can't imagine the general populace will like tunes like these that only appeal to either the Shoujo or the Josei audience.

I've already stated my case earlier, and I'll emphasize again: this TV version should have been completely canned since I presume that the film trilogy didn't do all that well in Japanese theatres. It's only because of COVID and decent backing that the TV version is made accessible as a means to watching the complete 3-part film in 12 episodes, with the same overall content combined time. But whatever it is, please go surfing at your own leisure. This show is an easy skip for all the right or wrong reasons, and I can't fathom people watching this will be satisfied on a decent level.

[SPOILER WARNING! There are spoilers written under the story and character sections of this review, so if you haven't watched Wave, you'll be fine if you skip those sections. I don't ever write spoilers in my reviews, but for this show it's ridiculously unavoidable, so I apologize in advance.]

[Content warnings for Wave!!: mentions of suicide, but other than that, you should be all good.]

Overall: 4/10
All I can say is... what...? I've been so excited to watch this anime ever since I saw an announcement around September or October in 2020, but it was a huge let down. The story is painfully dry and jumps from ... place to place with no real motivation or reasoning. I don't particularly recommend watching this anime.

Story: 2/10 [SPOILERS]
I've never watched an anime and truly said, "This story is terrible" so this was a first for me. The first episode made me excited, but that was really it. The only point I really liked was the decision to split up all three of the MCs (ie. Masaki going to school in Shonan, Nalu moving to Hawaii, and Sho "dying"). I thought it was a really bold choice that you don't see very often, but it was all erased in the last episode where all of them are seen on the same beach again. Sho's "death" is BY FAR my biggest issue with the show, though. Why did he kill himself? It was briefly suggested that maybe he didn't have a very good family life, but he was happy with Masaki and Nalu. The show never shows any signs of Sho being unhappy or desiring change at all. And besides that, where was Sho staying the entire show while he's "dead"? It can't have been at home because his brother clearly didn't know he was alive as seen in the last episode, assuming Sho's parents would've told him. The anime also tried to have character development skipping from person to person, but none of them made any sense. Yuta wants to quit surfing just because he thinks he's peaked, which is absolutely ridiculous. What kind of person who's THAT smart would assume he's peaked at age 15/16? And Naoya's episode where he is depressed because of an ANIME CHARACTER? That is insane. Bro, that's a whole 2D person, get yourself together. I literally couldn't stop cringing.

Art: 5/10
The art was fine. The water's animation is very pretty and the characters look pretty basic. The thing that really ruined it for me were the ridiculous 3D models during nearly every single surfing scene and the recycled animations. Usually in other sports animes I can tolerate recycled animations since they usually change them up enough or use them in a different enough context to make it unnoticeable, but in Wave, it's just the same animation over and over and over again. It was so distracting. And the 3D models just looked terrible. They appeared so out of place and stiff.

Sound: 6/10
The opening to this anime is actually pretty good. It's catchy enough to where I won't skip it every episode but forgetful enough to where I can't remember it in any other context. But I will bop my head to it when it comes on. The VAs also did a pretty good job. I can't say much on their acting since I don't speak Japanese, though. The only thing I wasn't really a fan of was how Nalu and Tadao just randomly broke out English phrases. Like, I get Nalu was practicing to move to Hawaii, but it just always felt to out of place and awkward.

Character: 3/10 [SPOILERS]
The MC, Masaki was my least favorite character. He was so basic. Painfully basic protagonist. The only characters I really liked were Sho and Nalu, and they disappear halfway through the show. Most characters were annoying or a drag (Yuta, Naoya, Fuke, Bill). Kosuke was fine, but wasn't spectacular or anything. All of their motivations were pretty weak. What? They all promise to compete at world just... because? The power of friendship? Rivalry? The love of surfing? Yuta is an annoying, stereotypical glasses character. His "smart" personality is way overexaggerated. He literally is a human calculator and it seems that's all he's good for. There's nothing remarkable about his or Kosuke's backstories. I don't even want to talk about Naoya. His obsession with Miruru is just embarrassing, and Kosuke's bitterness annoyed me. I would've even liked it more if the anime just stopped focusing on Masaki and centered around how Nalu adapted to living in Hawaii or more of Sho's backstory or what he did after he "died". And, I'm sure they're just keeping all of Sho's story a secret to set up for a second season, but the lack of context in the first season is just unbearable and made it nearly unwatchable. Sure, it leaves us wondering and wanting a second season, but it's more infuriating than intriguing at this point.

Enjoyment: 3/10
I probably would've enjoyed this anime anime in another life. Or if its plot and characters were just completely rewritten. Or if I watched it with my eyes squinted so hard that I couldn't see anything. Okay, but in all seriousness, I barely enjoyed this anime. None of the jokes landed, the only part I smiled at was when Naoya lost his board in the wave. That was sort of funny. I'll probably be watching it if a second season ever comes out, but only out of sheer curiosity. If you haven't watched this anime yet, I wouldn't recommend starting.

I'm surprised at the amount of hate for this series. The episodes do seem a little rushed in places, but the characters are appealing and have their own quirks. I find the character designs very attractive as well, almost like an otome game (if I had to choose... Tanaka or Sho hehe) The animation for the sunny ocean is beautiful!

It's nice to see a sports anime where the protagonist isn't consumed with self doubt or agonizing about his past and just wants to have fun. :) Would I die if I went surfing after 20 minutes of training? Probably. ... But this is anime! Just enjoy the waves and the sunny beaches. Also, from episode 4 onward there's a little more plot to sink your teeth into so I'm looking forward to seeing where this series is going. ^-^

This anime really had me thinking that they were pulling something interesting in the middle, but, alas, I was misled. Honestly, it isn't a bad show, it just isn't worth watching. There were some solid characters in there who were genuinely likable, but overall the writing was not great. I think the best way to watch this show is with a friend that you can make fun of it with-- it's how I watched it and is really the only way I was able to get any enjoyment out of it. Also, fair warning because this show has No Warning, you probably shouldn't watch this ... if you're already depressed and are looking for a light-hearted show. It mostly keeps up a fun tone, but there are a few moments that are pretty dark (not enough so to make it an especially interesting watch, sadly). The last scene of the last episode was enough to lower my overall score by a full point.

Overall, it's a fine show. I can't say I recommend it, but it has the potential to be a fun watch under the right circumstances.

ok so this sucks.

story 2/10
- its about surfing i guess? ive watched 9 episodes and i still dont know what the MCs goal is. he doesnt seem to have gotten better at surfing since like episode 3 either.

art 4/10
- the art style itself is decent and the animation of the water is pretty good but the random switches to 3d is annoying and ugly.

sound 3/10
- decent OP but the rest of the soundtrack sucks, also theres this weird recurring thing where characters speak english sometimes and it just feels like when english speaking people say baka or nani in the middle of ... sentences

character 1/10
- the approach to characters in this show is absolutely awful. the two friends masaki had at the beginning of the show were likeable ish and slightly less one dimensional, but then the writers decided to just ?? get rid of them both ?? then after that like 5 new characters are introduced, none of which are likeable and all have about one personality trait each, which is arguably worse than no personality.

enjoyment 3/10
- most of my enjoyment comes from making fun of a certain character who died

overall 3/10
- uh dont watch it

In the COVID-19 era, when we have to stay home during lockdown, I found this anime very enjoyable :)) it even gives me hints to understand my life more.

Because of the mood and tone this anime gives, I can hear the sea, see the waves, and feel the joy of surfing along with the characters without leaving my house.

That's WHY I like this anime.

But If I have to rate it, I will go with...

Story: 6/10
The episodes still don't fit together neatly into a continuous story. The story is overly simplistic but I like it and the way it ends.
...
Art: 5/10
The art is so-so, and a CGI doesn't blend well enough with the rest of the animation.

Sound: 5/10
The seiyuu are fitting for the characters they portrayed, but the background music could be more fit for the story and atmosphere (in some scenes).

Character: 7/10
Most of the characters are too flat, but they are HANDSOME.

Enjoyment: 8/10 or 10/10 (watching during COVID-19 lockdown)

My honest, and biased opinions// SPOILERS:

Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed in this show. When I tell you it had POTENTIAL!! It had potential but was a total flop. The only good thing about this show is the character design specifically everyone except Masaki Hinaoka. Idk for some reason, Masaki pissed me off whenever I see his character. Masaki character design was lowkey plain, and kinda obvious too when you add his personality... talk about cliche.

The show overall is really boring and hella CRINGEYYYY ASFFF. I can't stand cheesy stories, and this show is full of it, especially around Masaki. In the first couple of episodes, you ... can see that cringey-ness and cheesy-ness with Masaki and his friends.

The art goes on and off here, it's really good when they aren't surfing, and it gets kinda weird when they do surf. So yeah, the animation is lacking by a lot but honestly, it did catch my attention, but it really didn't bother me as much. Though this is a surfing show, I do wish they tried a bit better on the surfing scenes yah know since that literally the show, surfing.

The ost... nothing stands out when it comes to the music, when i watched it doesn't make me wanna search for the song to listen to or anything.

Lets move in deeper into the characters and story/plot... there isn't one, or at least if you tell me "what the show is about?" I wouldn't even know the answer to that, just 14/15 year old boys who looks older than their age are friends and hangs out. There really isn't any character developments either...

I'm going through (SPOILERS) just for like episodes 1-3? Around there so SPOILERS:



Masaki is one of the most confusing and weirdest characters, though he is the only one that acts like a 14 year old... idk there's something about him I find annoying. I'm still very confused why he would refuse to do surfing before Sho came, and then SUDDENLY!! and when i mean SUDDENLY i mean SUDDENLY became so obsessed with surfing to the point he literally surfed on an obvious bad weather day... and his friends had to go and save him... ugh he's so dumb. I know people can dislike something and then find a whole love for it, but the way they went about it was too fast paced for a watcher or maybe it's just me.


ANOTHER SPOILER BUT IT'S A BIG ONE SO IF YOU HAVE NOT COMPLETED THE WHOLE SHOW DO NOT READ:

The whole situation with sho after what-- episode 4-5 was EXTREMELY CONFUSING!! And on top of that the last episode shows hints that he might be alive? We don't even know how or if sho even did die, nothing makes any sense and it really frustrated me as a viewer.

UPDATED REVIEW

-Contains Spoilers-

So to preface this I am just going to say that Wave!! is really boring and has very one note characters with no clear end goal outside "let's surf da bestest".

Story: Incredibly boring and nonexistent. For the first three episodes you get an entire arc of main protagonist learning to surf and becoming good friends with the new kid in school. There's a one year time skip in those first three episodes making it all feel rushed. This leads to my next major complaint. The story has a lot of telling and very little showing. The first scene of the entire anime is ... them literally telling us the main group of boys' personalities in the same sentence it gives us their names. They constantly say "oh that was amazing!" or "this'll be worth a lot of points!" without really showing us how amazing it was. The anime doesn't really go into any details on how surfing works outside the basic rules of a competition, and it rarely has any scenes or story outside "surfing is the only thing that matters".

Art: Generally the art is okay. The character designs are unique enough and the art design for the beaches is okay normally. But then you get the horrible 3D models all the damn time when the characters are surfing and it just looks awful. I'm not a huge fan of 3D models to begin with and these ones are really ugly. They look like they are plastic dolls with really thick eyeliner - they also appear to be off model. The 3D models floating in water also looks bad because the water just clips through them rather than parting around them. Ugly and over used 3D models makes me glad they constantly replace the surfing with still images that are supposed to be "amazing" because at least those are half way decent looking.

Sound: Not really great and it's odd that some of the sound track sounds like it was ripped out of Parasite Eve or something similar. It's very... Electronica or techno or something, I don't know the right term, but it feels strange and doesn't normally fit the mood. Not a fan. They needed better English speakers for their Hawaiian characters. Most, if not all, the English is really mediocre to bad, which is a shame since a lot of the dialogue and story contain English phrases.

Characters: Hilarious to think any of the characters really have any personality outside their specific stereotype, except maybe Tanaka. Let's go through all the main boys to see where they stand!

Hinaoka - Boring, generic main protagonist who has no social grace and is instantly skillful in his sport. His design is cute but I don't think his voice matches his design at all. Not amazing but could be worse. Probably my second favourite character just by virtue of him being less one note than other characters. Originally he wants to be just like Shou but then he learns that he shouldn't try to be like someone else?!?! OMG much deep.

Shou - (NOT???) Dead af Okay so this is a big wtf omg twist in episode 12 that just has me more annoyed than anything. Shou is thought to be dead (not stated explicitly but heavily implied) and yet he appears in the final episode? Shou's brother seems surprised that he possibly saw Shou out of the corner of his eye and even runs after him.. So what? Shou faked his death? Why? It's an incredibly pointless and stupid twist that means nothing.

Tanaka - The only character who seems to be more than what his description was in the first scene of the anime. He was described as scientifically oriented, which hasn't really been that much of a noticeable trait thus far but he is a fairly decent best friend character who likes to play a ukulele. His English is supposed to be good but it's pretty awful. He doesn't have nearly enough screen time though so I can't even fully say that I even like him as a halfway decent character in an otherwise terrible anime.

Bill - Honestly I have no idea why he is even a character. He just feels very out of place, and has less meaningful bonding with the main cast than Fuke who has like 10 minutes of bonding total. His character design is also the worst.

Fuke - He's fine. His design is at least decent but he's even more "surfing is everything" mentality than the other characters, which is saying a lot.

Iwana - The pretty boy meat head who is obsessed with being da best eva. He had a bit of backstory revealed but it was really boring. He gains no meaningful growth after episode 4.

Matsukaze - Now we are getting into the annoying and repetitive characters. He's like a "computer brain" or some garbage who constantly raises his hand like he's typing up data. Really one note and has a single character trait. Had some backstory revealed but was also very boring and forgettable.

Kido - Easily the worst character. He's obsessed with Miruru (a magical girl from a show more akin to Pretty Cure than Sailor Moon) and that's his only personality trait. It's insufferable. A character being a huge fan of something is fine but this guy lives and breathes Miruru in an incredibly unhealthy way and everyone acts likes it's fine, as if it's completely normal and rational for this teenager to spend every waking moment thinking about and talking about a single character from a series of anime. Anime fans can be fairly obsessive and weird but this kid is the fucking worst. At the end he's worried about a Hollywood adaption of Miruru and is worried she will look weird... WHO. CARES. Holy fuck.

Enjoyment: Ugh. Normally I can watch 4 episode of an anime back to back, easy. Not this piece of bland nothing. It can sometimes take me 2 or 3 DAYS to get through a a single episode. Cinderella Nine wasn't even this boring and that was a snooze fest. I don't care about any of the characters, surfing is boring to watch when they don't show you any of the actual surfing, and the eye candy boys are usually wearing ugly wetsuits that don't even allow for any proper fan service. Nothing to enjoy about this anime at all.

TL;DR: A boring, rushed story and ugly 3D models for characters with no substance make for a bad anime.

2/10 (updated from a 3/10 because the ending was just... not good)

Was looking forward to this anime for months and I had really high expectations from this anime based on the character designs which were everywhere on Twitter for a really long time. I forgot about it and thought it hadn't arrived yet since nobody was talking about it on social media and I didn't search it myself. But as I was searching through the anime streaming site I use I found out it already aired 10 episodes. I was shocked because I saw no one talk about the characters, the trailers or... anything. I realized the reason after I finished the first episode. The animations ... were so inconsistent and it honestly hurt to watch the introduction scene. (maybe it is just me, but the second hand embarrassment was too much to handle.)

I don't have enough arguments to point out the plot holes or the story because I only watched the first episode, but I am not planning on continuing it so these are my opinions based on the first episode, and the story of how I came across it.

So I just finished the whole thing. I may say that the whole thing was a rollercoaster. From getting bored to getting excited. Anyway, I wanted to review this anime by my ratings.

(mild spoilers ahead)

Story - 5
The story always starts with the main character. Masaki never liked surfing till he saw Sho for the first time and now he wants to get better. That's it. that's the story, that's the plot. It's not that bad actually. It's like your typical sports anime mc goal.

Art - 4
The art is not that bad. In fact, I consider myself a Tanaka simp (lmao) but ever since someone mentioned ... the surfing animation. I got disturbed with how the characters look. It's weird but it's bearable.

Sound - 5
The op is mediocre. Nothing much to say

Character - 6
I don't care what symbolism this show tries to give but I thought Sho's condition was settled in episode 11 then he pops up by the last episode with NO explanation. At this time, I'm still pissed at the fact that they had no explanation for an important character that affected the whole series. Enough about Sho, the others and characters are also okay. The other three are all dynamic with their own personality and backstories.

Enjoyment - 6
IT GETS BORING. that's it. The only time I got intrigued was Sho's incident and that's just it. For me, I think Sho's situation is the only thing that made the anime less boring. Emotions were felt (especially in the last episode). It is something that the anime watchers look forward to knowing. For the rest, it's fine. Their whole backstory got boring for a bit to the fact that I almost dropped it.

Overall, it's an "okay' anime. Though, it's not something I recommend to new anime watchers or to anyone at all. I consider this anime as something that can kill time if you have a lot of free time or is a fan of surfing.

Will anyone really start surfing after watching this subtle anime?

It seems that if you let Takaharu Ozaki, a neophyte director of a genre that you have no interest in, create a subtle anime, not just this one.

This director pretends to be thinking about something, but in fact, it's obvious that he's the type of person who doesn't think about anything.

I'm sure he'll be ripping it up as an animation director from now on.
In a bad way, that's to be expected.


... At least he's not directing an original anime.
And he's not the kind of guy you'd expect to be an anime director in the future.

This was probably the worst anime of the winter 2021 anime season. It's bad right off the bat. But I'll give it a quick rating for the sake of the viewers. dropped it at like ep 9 I don't know how I made it that far.

story: 3/10 it's like there's no specific story this was the most random and confusing shit I've seen and the pacing is just awful it's all over the place.

character: 4/10 every character had the blandest and most boring personality, there's no depth to them, there's no trait nothing noticeable, makes me wonder if this is the authors first anime. The ... only characters I could tolerate were tanaka and sho sometimes and I don't even know wtf happened to him. They never explained it and it happened out of no where. Really bad writing

art: 4/10 the animation on normal days is your everyday average animation. Looked stiff most of the time. Lets not talk about the surfing and water cgi.

sound: 5/10 I don't remember what both the opening or ending sound like, character voices and osts were just ok/meh

enjoyment: 6/10 I don't have much to say about this, it was boring but not too bad

overall: 5/10 worst anime of winter 2021 that's it

There's 4 sport anime in Winter 2021 featuring ikemen characters and this anime is one of it. I watched this because I'm curious about surfing despite this anime seems like 'Handsome Boys Doing Handsome Things'.
(spoilers below)


Story
Masaki Hinaoka is an ordinary middle school student and always get along with Nalu Tanaka, his childhood friend and a surfer. At first Masaki didn't interested with surfing. But when he saw a random guy surfing in the beach, he got attached with surfing. Turns out the random guy Masaki admires is become a transfer student named Sho Akitsuki in Masaki's school. After that, Sho teaches Masaki how to surfing ... and the three of them always hang out together. Even they joins surfing competition together.

In some time, Sho seems presumably dead when Masaki saw Sho's board on the ocean and Nalu moved to Hawaii. Then Masaki meets his new friends which he meets in surfing competition. They also gonna joins the surfing competition together.

The story is not bad, but I ever got bored in some episodes. I must say the first episodes are somewhat don't have anything interesting. The characters don't always joins the surfing competition, they even literally hang out together as well. Oh there's brief info about Duke Kahanamoku in episode 10!


Art
I don't have a problem with the art, character design, and animation, it looks decent. But when the characters going surfing (is it CGI?), the art looks weird.


Sound
Wave is a multimedia project. So, the theme songs (both opening and ending) are sung by the main characters seiyuu. I think the voice acting and theme songs are pretty good. I saw some people felt weird when Masaki's voice sounds too deep for a 14 years old, I felt that too but I get used in later episodes.


Character
What I can summarize about the main characters:
Masaki: an energetic protagonist. He interested about surfing because of Sho
Nalu: Masaki's childhood friend (who's half Hawaiian)
Sho: A transfer student which Masaki always look up. Seems presumably dead in later episodes.
Yuta: He learning about surfing when he was a child and always analyzed something when he doing (or saw someone) surfing
Kosuke: An ex-baseball player. He started surfing because he got persuaded by Yuta
Naoya: A magical girl otaku and always talking about his favorite characters
Soichiro: A rich guy who surprisingly friendly
Fuke: A surfing champion who always with Soichiro. He seems intimidating but he could get along with Masaki and his friends in later episodes.
Some characters have a flashback episodes about what they do in the past and I think it's pretty good.

There's some supporting characters as well. Who grabs my attention are Hayamichi Inada and Tadao-san. Hayamichi is Sho's older brother who appeared in later episodes, he has different surname with Sho probably because their family circumstances. Hayamichi teaches Sho how to surf and his personality somewhat harsh to Masaki and his friends.
Tadao-san is a guy who lives with Yuta and Kosuke (iirc). He always says random English sentences and always doing Shaka sign.

I saw most of people are disliking Masaki because he looks naive and annoying. Well actually he is. He also has a slow development for advancing surfing. He seems always losing when joins surfing competition, but in later episodes he improves his surfing.

For Sho, it's still ambiguous is he dead or what? He finally appeared in last episode, he wears white shirt with sunglasses and looking at Masaki's surfing in the competition. Then he just walk away.
(I didn't notice it was Sho, I'm sorry. I just realized when someone pointed it out)

Overall
The anime (more precisely, the story) is average and don't have anything special in it. I rarely watch sport genre, but I think this is somewhat Handsome Boy Doing Handsome Things. If you like sports involving ikemen casts, but didn't bother the protagonist's slow improvement, maybe you'll try this.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS

I wasn't crazy over it when it was announced but I still wanted to see it given the fact it was a surfing anime, I wish I never did though. It was... disappointing. Here are my reasons why.

Story (4/10)
So... Okay, there's a story, I guess. But what's the catch? I don't know, maybe it's in the water! (Okay, that was not funny, I am sorry) But seriously, though, it's just a very bland concept, just boys discovering the magic of surfing and friendship. There's nothing to it that would spark some interest to me initially. Luckily, I don't read synopses, so ... I still approached this anime, I want to be surprised, but I was given this monstrosity. I gave it a four because, I mean, passion is a nice thing to see. But as I've said, there's nothing else to it, just that... and friendship.

This anime goes down on every episode, like, it's on the brink of falling apart every time. I don't think there's something that advances the plot anymore. The characters, well, they're there, doing the actions, riding with the plot. It's more of a plot-driven thing based on what I saw. Not that there's some plot anyways.

Also, it had very weird pacing and cuts, everything's happening all of a sudden and I hate it. There's no flow into it. I can't explain it. It's storyboarded weirdly, I guess.

Another thing I want to point out is the fact they don't fully show the parts where they actually surfed in the competitions, it's weird because they could've showed that to us so that we could feel something when they announced the winners, but there's nothing. When they announced the winners each time, I felt nothing, I don't know what they did for their victory or defeat, but they won, so yeah.

Art (6/10)
Well, I mean the art style was ok, I didn't hate it, I didn't love it, there's nothing special about it. I'm not greatly bothered by the 2D to 3D animation shifts, but I do think they could've done a better job in animating the show. Stick to 2D, at least. But yeah, I guess the water and skies looks pretty good.

The character designs were kinda "trope-y", you get what I mean? It's like it's something I have seen before. I felt deja vu looking at some of the character designs. Not that they're bad, it's just not interesting and new to me.

Sound (4/10)
I'm not a fan of some of the sounds and music they used in some scenes, but I think it didn't really make anything worse. (The show is bad in itself anyways.) As for the opening and ending songs... Well, they're songs. I mean, I'm not listening to it again, but it's not the worst.

Character (3/10)
This is my least favorite part of the show. The characters just felt flat to me, and forgettable. They're also kind of trope-y so maybe that's part of the reason why I don't like them. They also can also ruin my day with their cringy mannerisms and way of talking, so that's that. They're also kinda shallow, but I mean they're technically kids so...

Enjoyment (2/10)
This may be my least enjoyable anime of the season. Watching this felt like nothing. I felt like I just watched moving drawings doing things, that's all.

Overall (3/10)
Overall, this anime sucks, and I'm really disappointed. (I think) this is the first surfing anime out there, and it was this, why. Surfing is a cool sport, and when making an anime about it, at least make it cool too!

I hope there will be someone out there making another surfing anime that is better than this one.

(Also, sorry for this messy review, my head hurt after watching the anime, I hope you understand.)

This anime got a lot of hype when it was announced but it disappointed me a lot, the passion for surfing is meaningless just because Masaki watched a stranger surf.
The skip times are randomly placed and are too long, unlike sk8 (I take it as an example) you do not see the protagonist practicing properly, you do not understand where his talent comes from, since he has never surfed from what I understand, some characters are randomly inserted with nonsense (the scene where Iwana joins the group after the race), the course of the story is confused. I expected a lot more, the plot ... was very beautiful and original...but meh.

This is probably one of the worst animes of 2021.

First off I wanna say that I had high expectations for Wave, I’d been looking forward to it since I saw the trailer in October 2020. Right when it started airing I was super excited because I had been waiting months, but after the first episode I was highly disappointed in the weird pacing and the main character was very bland. I continued watching hoping that it would get better but after episode 2 or 3 (I can’t remember) it got much worse so I dropped it for a couple months. Eventually ... I picked it back up and finished it, but the rest wasn’t any better. The pacing was awful, the characters were very dull, the story was meh, and the art wasn’t anything special. I can’t believe I thought this would rival Free or Yuri on Ice, in reality for a sports anime it’s not even in the same league as either of those.
Overall I’d give it a 4/10, it was super boring and not worth a watch at all. If you want a sports anime that’s kind of similar and actually worth a go, I would recommend either Free or Yuri on Ice.