Re-Main

When Minato Kiyomizu wakes up in a hospital, he learns that he has been comatose for 203 days. As it turns out, a car accident has caused him to lose all memory of his middle school journey. Eventually, he discovers his former glory in water polo and desires to continue where he has left off. However, embarrassingly becoming aware of the massive disparity between his old and current self, Minato begins intensive rehabilitation in hopes of starting anew—a life without water polo.

Yet, Minato is promptly reminded of his past prowess and a promise on his very first day in Yamanami High School. Soon enough, despite being completely aware of his ineptitude, he joins the school's water polo club! While needing to relearn the sport's basics, he, along with his clubmates, must recruit new members to attain the required seven-man roster. With that, Minato tries to rekindle his deeply buried talent for water polo—and become one of Japan's renowned players once again.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kiyomizu, Minato Main

Uemura, Yuuto Japanese

Joujima, Jou Main

Kimura, Subaru Japanese

Oka, Eitarou Main

Nishiyama, Koutarou Japanese

Kawakubo, Chinu Supporting

Lynn Japanese

Inomata, Yutaka Babayaro Supporting

Hatanaka, Tasuku Japanese

Ushimado, Yoshiharu Supporting

Hirose, Daisuke Japanese

Amihama, Shuugo Supporting

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Momosaki, Riku Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Ejiri, Takekazu Supporting

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Kakihana, Keita Supporting

Yashiro, Taku Japanese

Kimura, Makoto Producer

Ootsuka, Manabu Producer

Saga, Hayato Producer

Matsui, Chinatsu Producer

Reviews

Nov 14, 2023

ShadowXBlaster

Recommended

Well-written

This Anime was absolutely a charm. Been watching so many Anime recently, but this was like a fresh breath.
Absolutely loved the characters.
I wouldn't call it the best sports Anime out there, but it doesn't need to be the best. Sports might not be the best area this Anime expels at, but this Anime had a lot going for it. And they were really good.

Characters were great.
Especially the MC. They showed that MC, even though he was good, he was very flawed.
After the incident, he struggled, but he did not gave up. Other characters were also good. The helped lift each other up.
And the ... Sweet Family Moments were like really great Deserts with Cherry on top, if I say so myself.

All in all, might not be as big as other sports Anime, or put too much time into each character, this was still a wonderful and a refreshing watch. And it's Anime Original, it does not have a Manga or LN even. It does not have that much time to build such long story, but still provided a very good time.

Can't remember the last time I had so much fun watching an Anime that I completed the entire season in one day, one sitting to be exact!
MAPPA & Masafumi Nishida, please bring 2nd Season soon of this wonderful Anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Oct 2, 2021

KANLen09

Mixed Feelings

Re-Main: the old term for "offside" in water polo, but honestly, this anime can be also said in this manner: it Re-Mains to be seen of the potential calibre of how much this show could've had, that squandered some liberties to make this show a decent one.

Paraded as one of many shows at the MAPPA Stage 10th Anniversary event, Re-Main is the brainchild of Tiger & Bunny author Masafumi Nishida, of which this not-so-young director has oversaw the anime and movie adaptations of his work in the past. And now, Re-Main is his 2nd self-directed series, and imagine someone like him has to manage all ... of these positions: Chief Director, Original Creator, Series Composer, Scriptwriter, Sound Director. That's 5 main staff roles all burdened into one for some creative control, and I feel that while Masafumi Nishida might've overworked himself to the core (as with MAPPA's inhumane work standards), with the upcoming Ex-Arm "successor" lookalike show that is Tesla Note (which is also written by this guy), I'm not sure if Nishida-san is able to cope with the backlash that was the full-on CGI abomination when the anime comes out next season in Fall (trying to futureproof if it does look like Ex-Arm, which I hope it's not).

Back to the anime, Re-Main tells the story and plot of water polo from the perspective of Minato Kiyomizu, who was a prolific water polo player in his middle school days, until a traffic accident led him to comatose and being an amnesiac. Exactly 203 days later (which I really find it very specific, anyone can tell me why), Minato is awakened, but he loses 3 years worth of his water polo memories in exchange, both skill and expertise. The challenge is that with his "newfound" brainwash of a memory, Minato remembers that he has done water polo before (at the slightest hint), and that everyone idolizes him because he was part of a winning team, so much that they tried to recruit him. Nonetheless, he would come back to water polo being the newbie veteran that needs to jog his memories every so now and then, abetted from a fellow girl athlete that challenged him to be Japan's top water polo athlete. Win, and they'd be boyfriend-girlfriend; lose, and 110,000 yen (taxes inclusive) would be paid out from Minato's hands to her. If you can't tell already, Minato has a lot of things going for him at the height of his passion for water polo garnering fame and popularity, but alas the accident would tell a different story about a handsome guy like Minato, wearing a facade that breaks all expectations and reveals their true colours.

Since this is a sports show, no doubt that the characters will have to play the most important aspect of the anime: sell their characters of their teamwork, camaraderie, and objectively their likeness reflected towards us the audience. But this is where Re-Main shows it's Achilles Heel of characters that are nothing more than one-note motivational spokespeople, while having their backstories as simple as possible to fit into the context of the entire anime. That's not to say that it's bad though, it's just that there was something missing towards the overall execution that kinda hampered my watching experience of watching so many sports shows come and gone, using them as bookmarkers of comparison. Maybe it's the idea of knowing who is your rival, should at least help to have a goal for yourself, that the anime failed to focus on what's important at certain scenes.

Starting off with the MC Minato himself, the first thing you'd see him of is the cheerful and innocent young boy look who kinda resembles the mentality of a 6th grader. And you'd be right because of the loss of his memories that exhibits his youthful self to others. Turn things up a notch, and you'd see a darker side of Minato, which is nothing like who he was initially. And take everything that I said about the "Light" Minato and turn it on its head to see a boy who is quite proud, arrogant, spiteful and full of ego because of his accomplishments, thinking that it's all a one-man show (which is painfully, obviously not). Minato, maybe you should learn this adage not to "take things too far". Minato's "stalker" Eitarou Oka is a spirited, bubbly boy who is like a walking encyclopedia about all things Minato related and not to mention water polo as well. But like Minato himself, Eitarou bases on lies and deceit just to follow the icon around in his tracks and acts whatever is appropriate to be like the water polo ace in every regard.

I'll touch on the other players in a lightning round (because there isn't much to say about them):
- The fellow Yamanami High players of Captain Jo Jojima, Shugo Amihama, Takekazu Ejiri, Yutaka Babayaro Inomata and Yoshiharu Ushimado, along with Minato and Eitarou. Captain Jo has to bear the beginning grunt of recruiting members into the water polo team. Shugo has a beef with his older brother, Shogakukan's Keita Kakihana, because he always felt that as much as he is a fellow sibling, he's also a rival that Shugo looked up to in swimming, before Keita's tonal shift to go water polo broke his momentum and gave up swimming altogether. It's the efforts of Jo and the rest that brought him back to water polo. There's the hot-tempered Ejiri, the sweet-making Inomata and the soft-spoken Ushimado, and that fits the 7-men water polo team.
- The "rivals" that are all against Minato because of his expertise: the Rikka Academy's "Hokuriku Three" of a hilarious trash losing joke team (Takeshi Toyama, Akihisa Fukui, Norimichi Ishikawa) and the serious contenders from Minato's former rival team Shogakukan High (Riku Momosaki, Koki Toguchi, Akimitsu Bizen) which gives them a real challenge.
- The girl at the very beginning, Chinu Kawakubo, she's just there to fill in where the plot breaks are to "smoothen" relations between herself and Minato. Like she's a LITERATE plot device, and that kind of characterization is always a no-no when it comes to AniManga, especially an original series like this one. To say the least, she acted out of sympathy and spite towards Minato, so she's no love interest or anything. What a sad thing to squander her character like that.

I'll give credit where it's due: whether you'd think that MAPPA is turning into the modern Madhouse where it used to be quality over quantity (and now the other way around), you cannot deny that there're some good production artistry within Re-Main. All of these are still heralded by Masafumi Nishida, who devoted himself to research about water polo, even the effects that you see in the anime are all actually based off from real-life water polo sports, add in the effects for some colorful visuals that's culminated in the show's OP. MAPPA always pumps out some good animation and visuals, and Re-Main adds itself into the catalogue of being artistic more than anything for a nice touch.

Music, top-notch. The experimentation of K-Pop bands resurging in anime has been a popular choice to break away from the usual J-Pop stuff that becomes more stale overtime, and look no further than ENHYPEN's debut into the J-Pop scene with the OP song "Forget Me Not" I find it quite the fascination that while I'm not so much of a K-Pop hypebeast fan or anything, this inclusion (which is slowly becoming the norm) is a great one to diversify the music scene in Japan and for good reason. But to me, Shuugo Nakamura's ED was a pure winner because of one main reason: it's pellucid tones and lyrics (which foreshadows Minato's character development in the entire show) which makes the song a lot more enjoyable, one of my absolute favourite EDs of the season worth the listening repeat loop. In the backdrop of Summer shows of pretty mediocre OSTs, Re-Main managed to stick the landings for both songs.

I don't know about you, but while Re-Main isn't bad (or good for that matter), both the base and its foundations are quite shallow-thinking if you sum the anime up altogether as a whole. It's interesting if you're a pure Yaoi fangirl to gleam at the guys' naked 6-pack bodies with sporty underwear to cover privates, but as a sport, Re-Main falls short of something that is prevalent in most sports shows: consistency and good build-up, not rando situations that feel off and doesn't transition well with the core themes of the show. It's great for eye-balling naked bodies, but it's not on a story-character level, and the potential was there that sadly didn't get developed much. A shame, really.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 7, 2023

PixelB

Not Recommended

Re-main started as a great show but ended up being the most generic drama in existence. Be warned that this show tricks you to think that it's a sports show, but it's a drama with water polo wrapped around it.

The pilot episode was very good. The amnesia that Minato suffers is cheesy, but the pilot executes the pacing and sets the tone of the story. Minato loses his memories, goes through rehabilitation, gets accepted to a new school, and get introduced to two to three new characters, and everything seems quite natural. You aren't overloaded with information, but a lot of events happen. The second ... episode is not terrible either. It follows up with the pilot episode by introducing Minato's potential love interest as well as introducing Minato's motivations, mental fragility, and his eventual caving into playing water polo again.

That's where the magic ends. There's no practice that's meaningful. There's no rival teams other than Minato's former school to hype games up. In fact, there are only two official games that the water polo team participates in anyways. There's some stategy, but it goes nothing more than "PASS TO ME!!" You know peoples' struggles through flashbacks and backstories rather than them suffering defeat in official games and trying to improve. There's a hint of some rivalries everywhere, but in reality, it's all telling and no showing.

In fact, I have to believe that this show's writers had no one in their staff that was actually knowledgeable about water polo or swimming. I'm no water polo expert, but I know a bit of swimming and just some damn common sense. Oka gives a calculation about Amihama's 100 meter freestyle time. He states that it's 52.77 seconds, and so naturally, his 150 meter time would be 52.77 times 1.5, which is 1:19. Think about it for just a moment here. Amihama's 100 time is 52.77, so naturally, his 150 meter time is 1:19. Obviously fucking not. Amihama's 52.77 time is only achieved by sprinting 4 laps. If he had to add an extra 2 laps, his lap time would be slower since he has to accomodate swimming extra laps. I'm using a hyperbole as an example, but if Amihama could maintain a 52.77 pace for the 400 meter freestyle event, he would be 10 seconds faster at 3:30 than the current 400 meter world record of 3:40 set by Paul Biedermann.

His 52.77 time by the way, would still blow the current world record for high school swimming out of the water, literally. Roman Jone's 100 yard freestyle world record time is 49.75 seconds. Converting Amihama's 52.77 100 meter freestyle time from SCM (meters) to 100 yard freestyle time would be 47.54. Yeah, Amihama's just casually beats the world record holder by a WHOLE 2.21 seconds. Let alone beat his brother, Amihama's the undisputed world champion of high school swimming. Yet, he only placed third for the 100 meter freestyle in Japan nationals. Isn't that strange? Doesn't it feel like the writers didn't even bother figuring out what was reasonably realistic for swim times, and how swimming more laps would obviously mean a longer time per lap? These writers probably never swam in their life, which is fine, since they're writers, but they also didn't do any due dilliegence in researching how swimming or water polo work. It's pathetic.


The next 4-5 episodes are generic club activities with forced drama. In each episode, I was thinking, "which insecure club member is it this time?" I was surprised that the show didn't go round-robin and go through everyone's dramatic past with the likes of Babayaro. Everything about the club is forced, and you get to know characters only through the cringy drama that they go through in the present with the current club members, and the dramatic past they had in the past. More times than not, the episodes rarely had a focus on water-polo and more on the drama that was playing out.


But it gets even worse. Generic club activities and drama turns into even more drama. It's funny that the writers are self aware that the show is painfully predictable and cheesy by having Minato create a self-fulfilling prohpecy, joking about how predictable dramas love to have the amnesia-ridden protagonist remember everything at a critical moment. Guess what happens?


*spoilers ahead


Then the show just becomes a bunch of drama, teenage angst, and edgy bouts of anger by Minato. This is very normal, actually. Minato's circumstances are pretty crappy, and his dreams of becoming Japan's best is shattered. Even Chinu was just gaslighting him. The problem is, I though this was a damn sports show? Hello? I did not expect to watch a cheesy drama. If I wanted to do that, I would fucking watch a cheesy drama that does a much better job than this show does. Like wow, Chinu actually hates Minato! Wow! Minato was an asshole or something! Wow, Minato coincidentally loses his memories AGAIN. WOW, he's standoffish to his current teammates. Wow!! Minato's world is falling apart, as if everything in this show was fabricated in order to have some shitty drama.

The animation is just dreadful in games. While out of games, everything is pretty normal, but the game CGI is glaringly obvious, and there's absolutely no effort put into framing any shots and having any meaningful perspective of games. It was cheap, and it looked cheap. When people swam through watter, it sure as hell didn't feel like they were gliding through it. There aren't any amazing scenes at all, and half the games are slide-show decks. I expected nothing less from MAPPA.

Chinu's the most miserable plot device and victim of the show's attempt to be as dramatic as possible. She's only there because she simultaneously serves as a love interest, serves the dramatic past that she had with Minato, and finally, as a info-dump to explain Minato who he was previously. There's absolutely no characterization or depth to her since there was no screen time other than when she's relevant to progressing the story forward. This show is a damn farce.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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