"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.
