The question for me with Rising Impact is not whether I’m going to watch it. Or even whether I’m going to like it. I am, and I do. It’s a matter of whether to cover a bit of a niche series (even with the Suzuki Nakaba connection), and a Netflix dump-o-matic at that. Those are two pretty big strikes against it in the following department. More so the latter – sports anime are not such a stigma around LiA, and golf is clearly on the ascendancy. But unlike with a weekly series people are not going to be watching it on the same schedule I am, which cuts against the raison d’être of a site like this. It’s a tough call.

Well, in any event it’s the interstitial period between seasons so a bit slow, and it is nice to have a “plug and play” show for gaps in the schedule. This was a very golf-heavy episode, and as a fan, it passed the test. Once you get past the suspension of disbelief with a third-grader hitting 310 yard drives, the rest of this was pretty on-point. Kiria’s putting lesson for Gawain was nicely executed. Starting with Gawain’s “testicles” joke. Putting two balls is indeed a good drill, and the speed with which the lad picked it up suggests he really is a preternatural talent for all things athletic.

Speaking of speed, if Gawain really can see the clubface of the driver on impact, he has the best anime vision since Maruo from Baby Steps (who used it to spot his dad on a passing express train every day). Indeed compared to that seeing (and keeping straight) the face on a putting stroke is easy peasy. Yet golfers right up through the pro ranks struggle with it, because putting is overwhelmingly mental. As a grommet who never seems to get nervous (we may be about to see that tested) Gawain is pretty much immune to that.

Kiria notes to Gawain that she has a pro golfer friend who’s a “putting genius”, who says she can see the line like a golden road. That rings a bell, and it should. Turns out she’s Lancelot’s big sister Kajury (Suzuki-sensei and names…). And she’s in the hospital, about to have an operation to save her eyesight that has a “30% chance of success”. She’s close enough to Kiria that Lancelot says she should get Kiria’s prize money and to have had Kurumi come and visit her. Since Lancelot is Gawain’s first fated rival the ties that bind here are pretty tight.

Gawain is picking up this putting thing quickly enough that Kiria feels comfortable inviting him to join a junior tournament the next weekend. That means some actual golf lessons, which means a trip to an actual course. Gawain is a blank slate, pretty much, where golf is concerned. She has to teach him everything from what those numbers on the irons mean to the forbidden nature of asking a fellow competitor for advice (in friendly rounds it happens all the time). Gawain’s aptitude is not entirely realistic I admit, but this is Weekly Jump – I’m not bothered by it.

I quite like this off-the-course side of things here as well. Kiria and Gawain are developing a rather nice relationship (she’s decided to go along with the “boyfriend” gag). She even sews him some cute head covers for the clubs she’s bought him (with Grandpa’s seed money). They’re both very likeable, and Kurumi (also a 3rd-grader as it turns out) is proving to be less annoying than I feared. I’m on the fence about Lancelot for now and the two golf bullies aren’t the series’ best side, but overall things are looking good so far with Rising Impact.