The Winter season gets started a little early, as Funimation previews Skate-Leading Stars a couple of weeks before it shows up on Japanese TV. It’s always nice to kick off a new season with a post on something really good but it doesn’t happen too often, and this season is no exception. Skate-Leading Stars isn’t terrible but it’s about as plain yogurt as it gets.
I’m not hugely interested in figure skating as a sport, though that’s never a deal-breaker for me where anime is concerned. I basically gave this one a shot because in Taniguchi Gorou (Back Arrow figures to be his more interesting show this season) and Aketagawa Jin it has a pretty decent director and writer. But it was stock characters – the tsuntsun blonde wonder boy, the fiery underdog protag, the retinue of teammates – stock exposition (though I suppose that’s inevitable with an invented sport), and stock situations (Japanese parents should never be allowed to drive a car).
As for sport of “skate-leading”, it’s some sort of team version of figure skating, but not goofy in a pro wrestling way like roller derby. I suppose if one were a serious fan of the sport this might be an interesting construct to follow, but that doesn’t really do me any good. This sort of series seems to be a growing segment of sports anime, with the same sort of hackneyed vocal performances and VN-level character designs and drama, and I can’t say I see it as an entirely welcome development. Without any interesting characters and no engagement with the premise, there’s nothing to draw me back with this one.
Jay
December 28, 2020 at 1:42 pmI enjoyed it as a fun sports or competition anime rather than a deep one, but then again I haven’t seen any sports anime in years so I’ve got no inherent uneasiness or resistance to seeing standard genre tropes at work.
That said, for me this is just an okay anime so far, which allows for relaxed viewing. Not everything needs to be groundbreaking or high stakes drama, y’know..
Guardian Enzo
December 28, 2020 at 1:50 pmNo, but it does need to be interesting in some way and for me, this wasn’t. Like I said, plain yogurt. But it all comes down to subjective reaction anyway.
Color2413
December 29, 2020 at 6:16 pmI was hoping to like this, but it turns out to be a idol show on skates, with the first ep showing a flawless mediocrity in animation, which looks limited-budget (although the skating performances are by no means terrible). Perfectly, flawlessly generic OP and ED too!
Guardian Enzo
December 29, 2020 at 8:38 pm“Flawlessly generic” is an elegant description. One that could be applied all too often to anime these days.
Ronbb
December 30, 2020 at 12:54 pmI love a sports anime, and I love figure skating, but this…I couldn’t finish the episode. It feels like figure skating is just a pretense for another high school melodrama that I so totally not interested in. The writing isn’t good at all, making the premiere feels so boring.