The last premiere of the summer straggles in a good three weeks past the rest of them.  It’s an adaptation of the rugby manga Try Knights, and the timing is no coincidence.  The Rugby World Cup comes to Japan this fall, and the sport is seeing a bit of a boomlet in popularity at the moment (indeed, the omake features a well-known Japanese national team player).

To be honest, rugby has never made much of an impression on me, either in real life or in animanga.  We did get a rugby anime in 2016-17 – All Out! – but TBH it kind of left me cold.  That shouldn’t be a huge obstacle though, since manga and anime have sold me stories on sports or art forms about which I was ignorant and/or indifferent many times before (and lost me with weaker efforts at pastimes I know and enjoy).  So whatever issues I have with Try Knights are with the series itself, not the premise.

If that sounded like a leading statement, it is.  To be honest I found this premiere pretty uninspired and generally not too interesting.  I’ve come to more or less expect generic mediocrity on the production side with the Gonzo of the 2010s, but with Try Knights I think it extends to the story itself.  The characters are very archetypal (the series runs in a shoujo magazine, and they play very much like shoujo sports manga cliches) and the premise – smart kid who’s quit the sport gets dragged back into it by the charismatic jock – is as old as the hills.

I don’t write off sports anime quickly or easily – this is one of my favorite genres, and it tends to be pretty underrepresented in a medium currently obsessed with isekai and cute girl slice-of-life shows.  So I’ll give Try Knights a chance, with a genuine hope it finds its stride.  But it’s going to have to happen pretty quickly if it’s going to ensnare me, because I didn’t get much from the premiere that makes me feel optimistic.