Overtake is really terrific sports anime. I just wish it were going to be longer.

Fans of genres have a shorthand only they know.  I won’t go so far as to call it a secret language but it is a sort of unspoken communication.  We know when something is good without having to explain or justify it.  It applies to stuff like romcoms and space operas, and it certainly applies to sports anime.  And Overtake is good, damn good.  If you know, you know.  How much it will cross over to the mainstream anime fanbase (of which serious sports anime buffs are a tiny sliver these days) I don’t know – I suspect MF Ghost will be more their cup of tea.  But for those precious few of us, Overtake is the one to savor.

As we rejoin the action, Kouya has indeed found Komaki Motors a sponsor – though it’d be closer to the truth to say Sae-chan did.  Here’s where things get a little dicey though, because it all came about as a result of the “crying boy” candid he snapped of Haruka.  Saeko got wind of it, showed it around, and hooked Kouya up with a beverage company who thought the camera was in love with Haruka.  Setting aside what that photo means in respect to Kouya’s personal demons, I still maintain that he stepped over the line taking it and then sharing it.  And he probably did in agreeing on Haruka’s behalf to do a commercial, too.

But then, Kotarou is right – Haruka would never have agreed to that unless he’d been caught totally by surprise.  And racing is a business – in the big picture this kind of thing is hardly an imposition, and Kouya really did the team a huge favor.  The dividends are felt right away, with an increase in the budget allowing the team to experiment a bit in practice and find the right setup for qualifying (where they claim the 8th spot).  Haruka isn’t wrong – these decisions should have been his to make – but if he’s at all serious about competing seriously he’d have had no choice but to agree anyway.

Actually, much of this episode focused not on Haruka but on Tokumaru Toshiki (Taku Yashiro), Belsorriso’s #2 driver.  We met him and their ace Harunaga Satsuki (Kawanishi Kengo) in the first episode, where Tokumaru established his credentials as a hothead.  Apparently the reason that alignment exists is because Tokumaru clipped another car – Komaki Motors’ car – during the Belsorriso “audition” race, in an incident that was his own fault.  That doesn’t stop him from holding a grudge against Haruka specifically in addition to the one he holds against the world at large.  This guy has a whole case of Pringles on his shoulder.

This whole #2 driver thing is a serious pill, don’t get me wrong.  Some teams enforce it more stringently than others, but with Belsorriso it’s clear Tokumaru is there to support Harunaga, period.  Of course as the older driver who considers himself faster this grates on Tokumaru.  And when he qualifies ahead of Harunaga for the next race (second overall) he begs the team manager to let him be the lead driver, on the grounds that his setup is better for this track.  The manager agrees – but only for the first 20 minutes.  And it’s a poisoned pill, effectively meaning Tokumaru is a sacrificial draft horse (pun intended) for Satsuki (whose setup is better for the full race, if not for qualifying).

This racing is just great stuff.  Yeah, there’s CGI (as I said you’d never avoid that in a racing anime in 2023) but it’s quite good and pretty unobtrusive.  The details ring true to my modest but not totally insignificant knowledge of auto racing, and the action is tremendously exciting.  Haruka is a, dare I say it, Capeta-like prodigy – he’s obviously getting about as much out of that car as can be gotten.  Tokumaru from second and Haruka from eighth are on a collision course, with Tokumaru losing two places when he drifts offtrack on worn tires, and Haruka picking off the two drivers in front of him.

I may not be an expert on open-wheel racing, but I know the personal obsession Tokumaru is sporting is a really, really bad thing.  This has all sorts of potential for ugliness, most obviously with an on-track incident (which wasn’t avoided by all that much here).  Tokumaru is surely jeopardizing his place at Belsorriso by engaging in a personal vendetta against another driver, and I can see him being on pretty thin ice with them already (if I really let my mind wander, I could see Belsorriso recruiting Haruka to replace him).  I worry about any sports anime trying to tell a complete story in 12 episodes, but the early signs are certainly all positive with Overtake!.