On 7 September 2013 Tokyo was selected as the host city of The XXXII Olympic Games. Japanese government wanted to promote upcoming event among youth through entertainment industry: music and TV, including anime. Popular anime characters were selected as ambassadors (Sailor Moon, Naruto, Luffy and others) and also new anime projects about different Olympic events were commissioned. Such as rugby (Number 24), artistic gymnastics (Taisou zamurai), volleyball (2:43), baseball (Tamayomi), soccer (Sayonara Watashi no Cramer), surfing (Wave!!), water polo (Re-Main), bouldering (Iwa Kakeru!) and others. Even parasport (Breakers) and male rhythmic gymnastics that will take part at the gymnastic exhibition during the final olympic day (Bakuten!!).
“SK8: the infinity” from studio BONES is the part of that big program. This original anime is dedicated to the skateboarding that debuts as a new Olympic sport in Tokyo. Utsumi Hiroko was put at the helm since she was responsible for a successful series about other summer sport (Free!!).
Seems like her original idea included a snowboarder who decided to take part in the illegal skateboard races that were organized by one crazy guy in search of his ideal Eve. There was a police investigation involved, sudden return of a girlfriend, serious money troubles and other typical tropes from you-know-where. But then Utsumi (or someone else from the stuff) thought that MC needs to go through some adjustment to his technique before he will crush everyone in the races. And that’s how Reki was born. As a supporting guy who can’t skate but whose role was to screw the wheels to the board and nothing more.
In the end at the last minute stuff decided to redo everything from the scratch and make the “guy with the wheels” the MC instead. As a result dozens of plot points were cut or thrown out. The scenario was altered so many times so late in the game that they didn’t even had time to cut a girlfriend appearance from one of the first episodes. She never ever appeared again.
As a result of this hot mess we have a story were the villain (former antihero) has more flashbacks and background than any of the leads. Our new MC has a zero background apart from “one time one totally irrelevant to the plot guy got hurt by irrelevant to the plot reason”. Reki’s journey went from the point A to … the point A (from the “even though I can’t skate but still…” to the “yeah, I can’t skate but still…”) with some stupid pity drama in between. Langa’s plot points were thrown out entirely. He has even less substance than Reki. Unnamed girl and mysterious money problems that’s all that left from the original draft and now it leads nowhere.
Adam is obviously Utsumi’s favorite. Not only because he suffered the least damages from redoing the script, but because he’s the one whose character she actually bothered to explore. She even gave him a new “lover” since the old one was “taken away”. But Adam still looked stupid. That’s how this anime looks over all. Its script is ultimately foolish. Maybe if they had kept the original idea everything would have looked much more decent. Or maybe the original idea was a lot more disastrous, that’s why they went to such extremes to redo everything. Anyhow, decision was made and result was awful.
First episodes were awesome production wise. Animation, music, everything was superb. But something (COVID, mess with the script or who knows what else) happened halfway through that resulted in the noticeable drop in quality. They even had to use a recap episode.
Series that started with such a promise ended with a huge “What the Hell was that?!” “Taisou zamurai” is so much better than this. But since “samurai” has never tried to play a fujobaiting game it had zero chances to became popular.
First 5 episodes ranking: 9/10.
Episodes 6-10.5: -1/10.
Episodes 11-12: 5/10.
Overall ranking: 4/10.
