Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudou-bu

Close your eyes and picture a moment in your life that really affected you. It could be anything like made you into the person you are today. As humans, we are bound to change in some ways or another throughout our lives. Especially in our teenage years, we can be easily influenced by others and events around us. I can safely say that without a shadow of a doubt, we have all experienced change in our lives some way or another. It’s called growing up. Like most sports shows, competitors experiment with themselves to be the best they can be. Tsurune lives as an exampleof a rare form of sport not seen too often these days in the anime medium. In fact, what exactly is Tsurune? The term itself refers to the sound of a bowstring made when an arrow is fired. As you should expect, that relates to archery when a bow fires an arrow. Adapted by studio Kyoto Animation, Tsurune feels like an anime that could raise a bar. In 2018, there were several sports shows that made a noticeable presence so where does Tsurune really hit the mark? To be fair, understanding Tsurune as a sports show isn’t difficult despite not being a very popular sport. Be honest, when was the last time you’ve watched a competition in real life or TV about archery? The only time I remember is during the Olympics on an international scale. As a competitive sport, it deals with individuals and teams trying to shoot their arrows to land the center of the target as close as possible. That’s the base of the rules and scoring applies to the performance of the archers. There’s time limit, signals to be followed, and styles that each archer adapts to perform their best. Even the equipment plays an important factor on the result. However, don't be too alarmed. Archery isn’t really hard to understand and this show is more of a character driven story. If you’ve seen the promotional poster and trailers, then you’ll easily recognize how producers made the cast. Characters are built with a bishounen features to attract audiences and most of them look young and healthy for competition. Deep down though, characters faces inner problems that runs deep in the veins of their past. The most prominent example is Minato Narumiya, the main male protagonist and first year at Kazemai High School. Despite being an experienced archer, he lacks confidence in the present timeline due to a tragic event of the past. Remember what I said about how humans can be changed especially when we were young? Well, here you have it. Minato battles his personal demons throughout the show and we see how he feels detached from himself. The story explores his past regarding his relationship with parents and how events influenced his character. It’s a type of self-discovery where the main character has to accept his past and move on to build a better future for themselves. Luckily for Minato, he has friends and supporters. His childhood friends Seiya and Ryohei brings him to join their school’s archery club. After encountering the mysterious Masaki in the forest one night, Minato became fascinated by archery again despite having forsaken his bow. Now obviously, the idea isn’t easy as it sounds. Being part of the archery club also means that Minato has to deal with his past. Despite this, he experiences change in his character thanks to the positive influence of Masaki. With the club, Minato’s emotional scar begins to heal. You’re probably wondering at this point if the show will maintain this sort of melodrama throughout the rest of the duration. Make no mistake that while this show can be quite moody, there are still much room for fun and entertainment. Because at the heart of the show, we have the archery club that is growing alongside Minato. The show offers competition, character relationship building, and even a training camp for the team to grow together. While the anime advertised itself as a cast with a male dominant cast, there are even girls joining too. This doesn’t change the general tone of the anime though as the story is still built around the main characters. The more I watched this anime, the more I felt compelled to understand them. Even after half the show, there are moments where I wonder how these characters became who they are in the present. So in a sense, this show has a feeling of mystery. After seeing a good deal of Minato’s past, I think people may feel sympathy for him. Or maybe not. Maybe you want him to be a man and deal with it like a mature adult. Either way, the show does a fairly consistent job at building Minato as a character. In a sports competitive environment, there are rivals and a name like Shu Fujiwara is no pushover. As a prodigy, he and Kirisaki High School stands as a challenge that the Kazemai archery club must take on to prove themselves. Not only that, the club also faces the pressure of competing in the regional tournament. It all feels too real when we see the emotions and look on the characters’ faces. Then again, competition pushes everyone to be their best so it’s assumed that pressure is a common experience. The bottom line is, the competition itself feels like you’re there with them. Every second, every minute, every moment counts. From the start, it’s no surprise the anime is produced with sheer amount of visual quality. Kyoto Animation is recognized for their high quality production so naturally, a show like Tsurune would get a similar treatment like Free. Now, I don’t want to compare the show but it’s easy to make comparisons with some of the character designs. Tsurune does have less man service as the visual performance lies in the photographic scenery of camera angles. It draws the audience to see how archery is treated in the anime medium and to be quite honest, I feel like the producers hit the mark. (that’s not a pun by the way). Similarly, the soundtrack plays on a serene tone from the start and shifts between melancholic and dramatic depending on circumstances. I’m not too familiar with the director but they got the point across to the viewers in the safest way possible. Watching Tsurune reminds me how people can change but often times, it’s a difficult journey. For Minato, he had to realize the truth and accept it. There’s a lot to say about his overall growth process but definitely watch this how to really understand his character. To me, Tsurune made itself as a show that emphasized on human feelings and change. Maybe once you’ve experienced this anime, you can realize it too.

Tsurune is weird. It’s a Kyoani anime that wasn’t a cultural phenomenon, probably because it aired two weeks late and had to share the year with both Violet Evergarden and Free!, but let me say I enjoyed Tsurune the most out of all the Kyoani anime I’ve watched. Why? Because Tsurune felt real. There is drama, and there is a lot of it, it feels hectic, nothing gets solved right away and more problems pile up, and some people may have a problem with this but I like this part of Tsurune. Life is hectic, Tsurune just follows the example. Along with drama Tsurune also has a lotof character to it, even though it does seem characters go into tropes, particularly Kaito, Nanoa, and Ryohei, at the same time they don’t. Kaito “Kaachan” Onogi, is a good example because even though he’s the angry one he does self reflect on himself, albeit it’s subtle. In all honesty, these three were in a bad position since the anime really focuses on Masaki, Minato, and Seiya, but those three made the anime worth watching. Seiya and Masaki especially, the struggles they deal with connects them together through Minato, this creates an interesting dynamic. The characters do seem shallow at first, but when you start noticing aspects about their character you truly start falling in love with the anime. Tsurune also excels at atmosphere, every shot is Tsurune is dynamic and well-placed, especially in episode 10 and 12. The production is obviously top-notch, and this helps Tsurune in the sound and animation department, because every frame deserves to be placed in an art gallery and every track is full of emotion. Good examples of shots in Tsurune is episode 2, the blue moonlight mixes extraordinary well with the characters. Also, shots of them doing kyudo have dynamic camera angles, making hits feel all the more satisfying. The themes in Tsurune aren’t anything new, but the way Tsurune portrays it is different. “Are adults actually mature?” or “do you love the sport?” are simplistic questions with a wide array of answers, and Tsurune can’t fully answer them either, but the dialogue used to address the questions had a certain charm to it. The payoffs in Tsurune feel good, they take a while but when it happens, does it happen. Sometimes you might not even realise the answer, and you figure it out as the characters learn which I think is done well. Some might call Tsurune tedious, character drama is everywhere, Kaachan is a bit of an arse and annoying, or whatnot, but I think those two things are fine. Kaachan did get on my nerves sometimes, but he did change subtly and the little things really shifted my opinion on him. Overall, I’d say Tsurune is a charming show, as long as you like the characters that is, everything about the anime has a flow to it, no matter how hectic the problems get. I think it would be great if it got a second season, because Tsurune has much to expand on and I don’t think the Free! Treatment would hurt Tsurune. Anyway time to buy the novel and overpriced merch ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

'Tsurune' is the sound caused by (bow)string upon its release. Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudoubu follows bunch of bow-wielding school boys during their daily life / archery club activities because this is a show by KyoAni and they only make one show every 10 years that isn't related to school clubs. This time we meet several students whose names are pretty much irrelevant, but they are basically downgraded version of KyoAni's other "cute boys do sports activities within club" series called 'Free' only this time around they don't have much character to show. One of them is smart and wears classes because he is smart. Another can sometimessound angry but really isn't. His character literally has nothing else going on. The real mc is a person whose entire life seems to center around this one sports, but personally I can't really say it felt genuine. For example, some melodrama has been inserted in his life, but it really doesn't seem to exist for him: only for the viewers. As for the countless insecurity-filled monologues he silently has inside his own head as some sort of "psychological battle against one's own self" or "I can't hear my tsurune and therefore I must panick and depress" seemed rather dull and not even very fitting to a show of this sort. Yet they were the driving motion for his entire story. The last 2 archery bros are incredibly fake. The first one is some sort of "friendly giant" because he is sooo nice and tall. The last character is the exact same as him except shorter, has messy hair and instead of being super friendly he is just super positive about anything and everything that ever happens. Overall the cast was bit too much; like a cake made of nothing but sugar. There are also bunch of side characters who have more important role in the series than the main ones (especially during the first half of the show), but they will be as relevant to this review as they were to the series. I.e. I won't bother talking about them. They mainly offer filler-feel and not much more. Practically all the characters despite their age, gender or role are made to appear with some type of child-like innocence to a point that it becomes pushy. As a whole, the cast was hardly worth of caring about and surely did not carry the show or its weak story. To continue with the story, it is somehow weaker than the cast. Go from this point to another point, the driving motion being success at shooting those arrows because apparently it can help with the mc's character development among other things such as not make the series feel so pointless. Even tho it still does. The sports side has practically nothing to offer. The slice of life silliness follows the same pushy nature, but at least some of the interactions between main and side cast were pretty fun at times. The light drama is bound to seem like copy-paste to those who have seen more than 3 KyoAni shows. Basically anyone could have given birth to this storyline. That's pretty much it. The production has KyoAni written all over it from art and animation department. However, money is being saved whenever possible as the series contains tons of still, barely animated sequences which hold almost no movement whatsoever. I also have to point out that the character design is seriously poor. There were times when opponent archery team members were present and I could only tell them apart thanks to their different colored clothing. Some of the boys look so similar to each others it's just ridiculous and also cheap. On the other hand, I really liked the overly tomboyish character design for teenage girls. Unfortunately the girls don't otherwise have any meaningful roles in the series, but I hope to see more of that in the future from KyoAni~ The voice acting is in every way the same as well. The music stands out, occasionally because sad piano is too try-hard and other times because the more energizing OST's play so well during the sports and SOL moments. Still, even the good pieces started to get pretty old towards the end since there are so few songs in the OST that they end up repeating the same ones over and over and over. Enjoyment-wise, it is safe to say this is the least popular KyoAni show to this date. It sounds uninteresting, it has no wild mainstream appeal to offer and most of all, it is so incredibly spirit-less shell it's hard to hold any strong feelings ('perspective', if you will) towards it either way. Perhaps there is a niche audience who is really into this sort of "light"/"lighthearted" slice of life of boyzz and can get great deal solely out of its atmosphere alone, but I didn't find anything to truly hang onto.

In terms of sports anime, I would say that Tsurune is probably the most realistic of the bunch. That is to say, there isn't any super powers, or randomly shouting out the name of their secret techniques. It's all about the real struggles that people who practice archery, or any sport, have to experience and overcome. Overall, I would say that it did a great job at depicting this, but it certainly isn't going to provide you with much hype. If you're not into atmospheric slice of life type anime, then this entry, most likely isn't for you. As previously the mentioned, the narrative that ispresented is one that takes the more realistic aspect of sports and converts it into anime form. It then turns into a coming of age story where our main character interacts with, and learns from his fellow team mates and sensei, to overcome his fears. It is most certainly an inspiring story, but the pacing is rather slow, which is what the director most likely intended for this series. This is a good one to just kick back and relax to. Of course, there are some dramatic events, but they're not overly dramatic and unrealistic, which again adds a sense of realism to the narrative. Perhaps some viewers may find themselves being able to directly relate with the characters, which is certainly a good thing for any anime to have. Production-wise, this anime is a KyoAni anime, so there isn't much to critique. The art style is definitely interesting and non-generic, while the V.A. and OST's were fine. Nothing to write home about though. I personally felt that the characters were a tad bit generic, as in, that one guy with the red hair who's a hot head, and the cute guy who all the girls love, then you have the cold and calm leader, and of course the underdog protagonist who develops into a better person by the end of the show. I will agree that these characters were used effectively, sadly, I'm definitely not going to be able to remember any of them after finishing the show. There are just some characters in anime that you'll remember for the rest of your life. Sadly, for me, this anime doesn't have any character like that. Perhaps it's simply because this type of anime isn't what I'm into, but I didn't enjoy it very much. The pacing is just too painstakingly slow for my taste. However, I'm not saying that this anime is bad. It does have its good qualities here and there, but I don't think it's going to be a favorite for the majority of people. If it does, however, sound like just the kind of anime you're looking for, then by all means, give it a go. If not, then I'd recommend watching something else. Thank you for reading this review!

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