Most deserve it. But not all of them do.
Here we have Wanna Be the Strongest in the World, aka Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai, a show with a title so generic it would make shounen magazines cry, but with a rather unexpected execution. Yep, that's right: I'm here to say that this show is actually...kind of good.
Speaking of shounen magazines and manga, the story of this one fits in rather well with that style. The lead protagonist, Hagiwara Sakura, takes her stubborn attitude to the max when she decides to temporarily leave her idol group behind in order to get back at a pro wrestler for insulting idols and hurting her best friend by going pro herself and vowing to win a match against the one who slighted her group. But the trip isn't easy; Sakura thought she could just jump in and win a match with a minimal amount of training in the basics, but she got a hard wake up call when Rio tossed her around the ring and bent her in ways that humans probably aren't meant to bend.
But no, Sakura did not give up on her goal, and for months she trained and fought for the strength to win this fight. It's at this point where - if one is paying enough attention - the show actually starts to play with your expectations a little. For the first half of the show, nothing comes easily for Sakura. In fact, the show is extremely tough on her, with her constantly getting beaten down by her opponents and losing match after match until she was nearly ready to give up everything just to spare herself the continued pain of it all. It's odd to see her shown to actually be naive more than stubborn, not able to take nearly as much punishment as she thinks she can, and the show doesn't paint her actions in a very positive light when she's giving up every match and gradually losing all her fans.
But as they say: the harder the struggle, the greater the triumph. When Sakura finally manages to pull her feet out from under her and hang onto the rope, the eventual results are made that much better because of all the hardship she went through on the way. It may not be the most original story, but it does have an unexpected amount of heart.
The show changes gears around the halfway point, and things get a little sketchy for a while. A character is introduced that appears to have little purpose other than to be filler and/or make Sakura look a little better. A new opponent is revealed and the show appears to just be rehashing its first half entirely, which had me pretty disappointed, but a surprise twist comes that, when I really thought about it, actually made a whole lot of sense, tied up multiple loose ends with characters whose roles were appearing to be unclear, and justified many of the problems I would have otherwise had with the rest of the show. It was a very natural progression coming off from the first half that leads up to a good climax and rather cheesy, yet not bad conclusion.
Technically speaking, the show is mostly in that middle range of "you probably won't notice if you're only watching for your own entertainment." The animation budget was clearly saved for the wrestling matches, which are pretty well-done, but the CG audiences show some very rough edges. Sometimes one also has to wonder how big the rings are, because damn, it sure can take these women a long time to run across it. Despite having an idol group as a central focus, the song choice is actually still limited to just the opening and ending themes, which are overall standard fare, neither great nor terrible.
If one looks at this show as pure fanservice meant to sell blu-rays, they'll be missing out on something real that, surprisingly, is actually there. The title may be generic as all hell, but it actually defines what the show is about much more than most of the marketing ever did, and fanservice in the show is actually fairly limited. Aside from an extended shower scene in the first episode, nudity scenes are all quick, lasting only a few seconds, and are completely gone past the halfway point of the series. The rest of the fanservice is in the sexy wrestler outfits, camera shots during the fights, and cries of pain, all of which the show never lets up on, and if that kind of thing bothers you, then you should definitely avoid the show at all costs.
I'm the kind of person who can generally look past a show's flaws if there's still something real and good there to see; I can pick out a diamond in the rough, so to speak. I went into this show basically expecting trash, like most people did, but for some reason I seem to be one of a very limited pool who actually found something worthwhile in the show. It gives me the feeling that many viewers don't even give a show like this a chance, they simply see exposed nipples and apply a stigma to it that means it must be terrible regardless of anything else, because why would a director put such scenes in an otherwise good show? Well, there are any number of reasons, and I for one choose not to dismiss a show just because it uses a few cheap tactics to get viewers when it is otherwise very much worth my time.
What I found here was a show with a tight narrative, a good cast, and more heart than the majority of shows that are only out there to raise flags.
