I suggest anyone who is having an existential crisis/ has fallen out of something they loved, strayed away from their dreams, just let self-doubt and turmoil take them, to watch this anime and examine why you wanted your dream to be your dream initially, what exactly made you excited about it? At what point did I decide to abandon my dream? did I actually love it in the first place? Why did I think things that I truly cared about, wouldn't require ups and downs? When did I feel like I wasn't worthy?
This anime was for me personally, a reality check, it puts everything in perspective with your own life. Seeing Narumiya conquer his anxiety speaks volume to people and give an epiphany that we are our biggest nightmares first and before anything. Also, those mental illnesses are evil mind games at times. I honestly would've given the anime a 9/10 but there were very little character development on the girls at all, it's like they dropped them there to seem inclusive to girls...but the girls [SPOILER] weren't even in the finals lol. They were just there sometimes, they never really sat with the boys, the boys acted very awkwardly towards them, and the girls were always just side-kicks on a totally different table LITERALLY. Such awkward chemistry and it felt like the girls had to keep reminding them of their existence and it was kinda sad, if that was the case, they didn't need to be included into the anime.
Minato, a first year at Kazemai abandoned his dream and forget the sound of Tsurune when he was in an accident and lost his mom but reunioned with an old classmate named Seiya who was a Kirisaki student with Minato when they were younger, helps him to come back to what he ran away from. shouldn't we all have a friend like Seiya? We NEED a friend like this, yes. Minato was reluctant on joining a club until convinced by another person he went to school with previously, his name is Kohei. Even with joining the club, he wasn't sold on staying until on night he finds a handsome young teacher named Masaki who was asked to be a coach by Morioka-sensei who is another ace archer. They join the team and meet 2 very different people. Kaito who was by far the most annoying character in the whole anime, bad-tempered, always yelling but he cares about archery so with him is his friend Kanao who isn't serious about archery, he like the uniforms and wants to impress his fan club.
Kanao reminds me of that kpop idol Baekhyun so much, the similarities are there! Also, they run into an old face who is still in Kirisaki, meets new people, and there was even a conflict between 3 people which always makes an anime seem realistic, especially when done in a good way.
All and all, it was enjoyable, tear-jerking and it's best if you watched it for yourself and self reflect on your life after. I feel like sports anime generally makes you examine things differently, you can learn from this genre and it's very beautiful.
