Mixed Feelings
Re-Main: the old term for "offside" in water polo, but honestly, this anime can be also said in this manner: it Re-Mains to be seen of the potential calibre of how much this show could've had, that squandered some liberties to make this show a decent one. Paraded as one of many shows at the MAPPA Stage 10th Anniversary event, Re-Main is the brainchild of Tiger & Bunny author Masafumi Nishida, of which this not-so-young director has oversaw the anime and movie adaptations of his work in the past. And now, Re-Main is his 2nd self-directed series, and imagine someone like him has to manage allof these positions: Chief Director, Original Creator, Series Composer, Scriptwriter, Sound Director. That's 5 main staff roles all burdened into one for some creative control, and I feel that while Masafumi Nishida might've overworked himself to the core (as with MAPPA's inhumane work standards), with the upcoming Ex-Arm "successor" lookalike show that is Tesla Note (which is also written by this guy), I'm not sure if Nishida-san is able to cope with the backlash that was the full-on CGI abomination when the anime comes out next season in Fall (trying to futureproof if it does look like Ex-Arm, which I hope it's not).
Back to the anime, Re-Main tells the story and plot of water polo from the perspective of Minato Kiyomizu, who was a prolific water polo player in his middle school days, until a traffic accident led him to comatose and being an amnesiac. Exactly 203 days later (which I really find it very specific, anyone can tell me why), Minato is awakened, but he loses 3 years worth of his water polo memories in exchange, both skill and expertise. The challenge is that with his "newfound" brainwash of a memory, Minato remembers that he has done water polo before (at the slightest hint), and that everyone idolizes him because he was part of a winning team, so much that they tried to recruit him. Nonetheless, he would come back to water polo being the newbie veteran that needs to jog his memories every so now and then, abetted from a fellow girl athlete that challenged him to be Japan's top water polo athlete. Win, and they'd be boyfriend-girlfriend; lose, and 110,000 yen (taxes inclusive) would be paid out from Minato's hands to her. If you can't tell already, Minato has a lot of things going for him at the height of his passion for water polo garnering fame and popularity, but alas the accident would tell a different story about a handsome guy like Minato, wearing a facade that breaks all expectations and reveals their true colours.
Since this is a sports show, no doubt that the characters will have to play the most important aspect of the anime: sell their characters of their teamwork, camaraderie, and objectively their likeness reflected towards us the audience. But this is where Re-Main shows it's Achilles Heel of characters that are nothing more than one-note motivational spokespeople, while having their backstories as simple as possible to fit into the context of the entire anime. That's not to say that it's bad though, it's just that there was something missing towards the overall execution that kinda hampered my watching experience of watching so many sports shows come and gone, using them as bookmarkers of comparison. Maybe it's the idea of knowing who is your rival, should at least help to have a goal for yourself, that the anime failed to focus on what's important at certain scenes.
Starting off with the MC Minato himself, the first thing you'd see him of is the cheerful and innocent young boy look who kinda resembles the mentality of a 6th grader. And you'd be right because of the loss of his memories that exhibits his youthful self to others. Turn things up a notch, and you'd see a darker side of Minato, which is nothing like who he was initially. And take everything that I said about the "Light" Minato and turn it on its head to see a boy who is quite proud, arrogant, spiteful and full of ego because of his accomplishments, thinking that it's all a one-man show (which is painfully, obviously not). Minato, maybe you should learn this adage not to "take things too far". Minato's "stalker" Eitarou Oka is a spirited, bubbly boy who is like a walking encyclopedia about all things Minato related and not to mention water polo as well. But like Minato himself, Eitarou bases on lies and deceit just to follow the icon around in his tracks and acts whatever is appropriate to be like the water polo ace in every regard.
I'll touch on the other players in a lightning round (because there isn't much to say about them):
- The fellow Yamanami High players of Captain Jo Jojima, Shugo Amihama, Takekazu Ejiri, Yutaka Babayaro Inomata and Yoshiharu Ushimado, along with Minato and Eitarou. Captain Jo has to bear the beginning grunt of recruiting members into the water polo team. Shugo has a beef with his older brother, Shogakukan's Keita Kakihana, because he always felt that as much as he is a fellow sibling, he's also a rival that Shugo looked up to in swimming, before Keita's tonal shift to go water polo broke his momentum and gave up swimming altogether. It's the efforts of Jo and the rest that brought him back to water polo. There's the hot-tempered Ejiri, the sweet-making Inomata and the soft-spoken Ushimado, and that fits the 7-men water polo team.
- The "rivals" that are all against Minato because of his expertise: the Rikka Academy's "Hokuriku Three" of a hilarious trash losing joke team (Takeshi Toyama, Akihisa Fukui, Norimichi Ishikawa) and the serious contenders from Minato's former rival team Shogakukan High (Riku Momosaki, Koki Toguchi, Akimitsu Bizen) which gives them a real challenge.
- The girl at the very beginning, Chinu Kawakubo, she's just there to fill in where the plot breaks are to "smoothen" relations between herself and Minato. Like she's a LITERATE plot device, and that kind of characterization is always a no-no when it comes to AniManga, especially an original series like this one. To say the least, she acted out of sympathy and spite towards Minato, so she's no love interest or anything. What a sad thing to squander her character like that.
I'll give credit where it's due: whether you'd think that MAPPA is turning into the modern Madhouse where it used to be quality over quantity (and now the other way around), you cannot deny that there're some good production artistry within Re-Main. All of these are still heralded by Masafumi Nishida, who devoted himself to research about water polo, even the effects that you see in the anime are all actually based off from real-life water polo sports, add in the effects for some colorful visuals that's culminated in the show's OP. MAPPA always pumps out some good animation and visuals, and Re-Main adds itself into the catalogue of being artistic more than anything for a nice touch.
Music, top-notch. The experimentation of K-Pop bands resurging in anime has been a popular choice to break away from the usual J-Pop stuff that becomes more stale overtime, and look no further than ENHYPEN's debut into the J-Pop scene with the OP song "Forget Me Not" I find it quite the fascination that while I'm not so much of a K-Pop hypebeast fan or anything, this inclusion (which is slowly becoming the norm) is a great one to diversify the music scene in Japan and for good reason. But to me, Shuugo Nakamura's ED was a pure winner because of one main reason: it's pellucid tones and lyrics (which foreshadows Minato's character development in the entire show) which makes the song a lot more enjoyable, one of my absolute favourite EDs of the season worth the listening repeat loop. In the backdrop of Summer shows of pretty mediocre OSTs, Re-Main managed to stick the landings for both songs.
I don't know about you, but while Re-Main isn't bad (or good for that matter), both the base and its foundations are quite shallow-thinking if you sum the anime up altogether as a whole. It's interesting if you're a pure Yaoi fangirl to gleam at the guys' naked 6-pack bodies with sporty underwear to cover privates, but as a sport, Re-Main falls short of something that is prevalent in most sports shows: consistency and good build-up, not rando situations that feel off and doesn't transition well with the core themes of the show. It's great for eye-balling naked bodies, but it's not on a story-character level, and the potential was there that sadly didn't get developed much. A shame, really.
