Na Nare Hana Nare

Narenare: Cheer for You! - A cheerleading show that unfortunately, sows more discord than harmony. Hoo boy, where to start with the Anima Yell that could, but ultimately fizzled both in its sport and characterization? All I'm gonna tell you is that there's a reason why the "Cute Girls Doing Cute Things" a.k.a CGDCT genre has Doga Kobo being the best representative, and it's because the studio has experience adapting CGDCT series over the years that it has become synonymous with quality, as one would come to expect. On the other hand, there's P.A. Works, a studio that also has quality to back up, but mostof their anime, if considering just specifically the CGDCT genre, has quite the diverse range of works that aren't quite CGDCT-esque, but more towards the coming-of-age trend. And as much as the stellar studio has been one of the most consistent in recent years, sometimes they do hit a wall with new shows, as is the case of the 3 shows that they have showcased for this Summer 2024 season: the game-to-anime adaptation of Tensui no Sakuna-hime a.k.a Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, the studio's signature original work of Mayonaka Punch from the director of Ya Boy! Kongming, and the worst offender of all: Na Nare Hana Nare, from Koudai Kakimoto, the current franchise director of BanG Dream!, thinking that he can replicate said series in a different skin through cheerleading. A coming-of-age story that shows girls from all walks of life but with one thing connecting them: cheerleading. You have the typicals of Kanata Misora and Megumi Kaionji: childhood friends-cum-schoolmates who are connected by the sport they excel at, until a devastating accident almost broke the bond of the two, forcing one to go through therapy whilst the other having constant nightmares that she "would not be able to fly again". On the other hand, there's the unorthodox friend-couple of Anna Aveiro and Nodoka Ootani specializing in areas that are related to cheerleading, but that their interests just so happened to align with both Kanata and Megumi enough to join their bidding to wherever the cheerleading segment takes them to. And not to be outdone, the other girls that would complete the CGDCT gang, come from a rival school that boasts a well-oiled cheerleading team, and brings both Suzuha Obunai and Shion Tanizaki into the group that would go on to influence and inspire the group to do great things as they figure out what it means to cheer not just for people, but for their own selves as well. Here's the big, and I mean, BIG problem for the anime: it just doesn't know what it wants to be. Try to get this: Like most athletes suffering from the yips, Kanata obviously was in total suffering after her best friend got injured from her grave mistake and is in a dilemma of her own after getting the boot from her cheerleading team. Enter Anna Aveiro, the Portuguese girl whose interest in the pursuit of trying to be a YouTuber, ropes both her friend Nodoka and the coincidental meet of Kanata and Megumi into producing content for her growing channel. From one moment to the next, Kanata is both getting dissed and inspired by the girl whose moves are like ninjas, Suzuha Obunai being a master at parkour with her petite figure to give the former a fighting spirit to come out of her rut. All of this sounds alright for the incoming premise to come...and then the infodump comes of a music shop on the verge of closing down, the typical school competition to create a sense of rivalry, and then the usual character-driven moments of conflicts gone wrong to the point of sacrificial love from one that is stubborn to listen and not work in concert with everyone else. Cheerleading is a team sport, but as much as the series sure likes to give them their individual moments to shine, for some unexplainable and plot-device reasons, it just doesn't come altogether, and more often than not, the girls, going by their cheerleading team name of PoMPoMs, end up executing not just the traditional cheerleading course of action, but doing things that don't quite define the sport to begin with. As a result, the show feels disjointed trying to teach the audience about what defines cheerleading, as much as the girls who're just beginning to discover what it means to really do cheerleading and execute it to a degree that most people are already familiar with. To add insult to injury, the melodrama, which is its own Deus Ex Machina of asspull scenarios to get people to like PoMPoMs all the more amidst their own conflicts, can actually be easily resolved, if the writers ever care for them in the first place. If there's just one thing to take away, Doga Kobo's Fall 2018 show of adapting mangaka Tsukasa Unohana's CGDCT series of Anima Yell! does the entire genre so much justice, even its characters, which is just outright embarrassing when a nearly 6-year-old anime has so much potential than this show. Look, I have no problems dealing with stereotypical character archetypes, but Na Nare Hana Hare just delivers unsatisfactory insanity to the point where you can separate fakery from the truth, and the acrobatic-heavy Kanata is at the epicentre of all the possible conflict caused by human selfishness, thinking that she has to shoulder the new group's responsibility all on her own. To the degree/extent, I admire Suzuha's character because of her impressive athletics alone, as well as the foreigner girl of Anna that puts family and her friends at the forefront that gels PoMPoMs together most of the time and is unafraid to call out when things are not doing well. As the close confidante, Megumi is trying her best to get through her therapy so that she doesn't need to worry Kanata as much, and both Nodoka and Shion are keeping tabs as fellow cheerleaders trying to get their heads together to actually do cheerleading together, for broke or for woke. If it weren't for Kanata, who shoulders the world on her own shoulders, PoMPoMs could've made a bigger wave than what they've been doing in the show, but it's the unnatural interaction and forced relationships that just have to be the straw that broke the camel's back, or in this case, the sturdy cheerleading pyramid. This anime is P.A. Works going all-in to showcase a rather unkempt consistency that they're in for the new times of AniManga producing more in quantity than focusing on quality. Unfortunately, I have to say that this rather "bold" tactic of the studio just outright backfires so hard that I don't know what to say to salvage what's good about the show overall. Sure, it has the seal of quality that we've come to expect from P.A. Works, but bear in mind that decent quality-produced shows can even appear deceiving at face value, and this is where director Koudai Kakimoto and his team of scriptwriters of himself, Yuniko Ayana, and Midori Goto (who all hail from the BanG Dream! franchise as series composers and screenwriters) just falter in trying to deliver their version of an alternate BanG Dream! that just doesn't corroborate that well to begin with. The OST is just there, and I'm not gonna lie if the music ever DID come through for the overblown scenarios and the like, because I did not feel one hinge where the music is used to good effect. More than anything else, rookie VA Rika Nagakawa is still in her growing phase after only having her debut as Momiji Ito in Summer 2022's Shine Post, and her second role as Kanata Misora is pleasing at the beginning, but it quickly grates on the ears that she still has a lot of work voicing on main roles. The unfortunate reality of voicing Kanata slowly pushed her character to the edge of hate, and it does not make for good impressions being hired for future shows to come. Also, while the ED is your typical VA-esque average character song, I have to say that I quite liked the catchy OP for its worth. Regardless, Na Nare Hana Nare is the literate definition of "jack of all trades, master of none." The show itself is directionless, written like it needs characters of all sorts leaning to where the central group goes, and ultimately undermined by the shine and polish that is the studio recognition's name in trying to deliver a stellar product overall that is "all style, no substance". P.A. Works, you've done yourself a big blunder from this show. This is NOT the way to do CGDCT shows, and you got the short end of the stick being chosen for this haphazard work.

PA works had an insane summer season with 3 anime original series airing. Two of which being in my top 10 of the season. For me, Narenare was just slightly below Mayopan, but I still loved it. A cheerleading anime was novel for me. The girls were great, the plot lines were compelling and I learned a lot about competitive cheer. Despite PA works usual Yuri bait, I enjoyed the chemistry between the characters as well. There’s a powerful message of accepting friends with disabilities throughout the show that gave me a newfound appreciation for the studio. This was just a really good CDCT watchand I am certainly going to miss it. For me the best part of this show was the bond between the pompoms girls. The cheering stuff was cool and all don’t get me wrong, but the girls coming together, forming a cheer group, overcoming their obstacles and past trauma and moving forward as a unit was awesome. All of the girls got adequately fleshed out and there were so many emotional moments that got me on the verge of tears. I had no idea how difficult competitive cheer could be or all the mental hurdles that went into preparing for a cheer competition, “flying” etc., until this show and now I have a profound respect for people that do this at a competitive level. It’s something you have to prepare your body AND mind for and if either isn’t in perfect sync it could be disastrous. There’s several points where characters are going thru mental issues and just can’t give their all to cheering, I liked how their arcs were developed and ultimately resolved. Each girl has a “ship pair” as I like to call them, basically a best friend within POMPOMS that they’re clearly gay for but PA works won’t let it develop.. all of them felt so intimate and tender, it’s a shame they didn’t go to the next level though. Arguably the second most important part of this show is Anna. Probably the most accurate representation of a Brazilian in anime history, Anna stole every scene and honestly felt like more of the MC than the actual MC of the series. She’s the voice of reason, hilarious, beautiful, you name it the girl was phenomenal and just has a presence that takes up the whole screen. I know it seems a little weird naming a character as the second best part of a whole series, but she truly was that great and anyone who has watched will appreciate it. To further my point on disabilities, there’s a character in the show who had a disability. The rest of the cast NEVER isolate her or make her feel like a burden. In fact, they go out of their way to include her in every activity just like she can walk on her own. It might seem like a minor thing to some, but for me this sort of humanity from an anime cast has to be applauded, especially because this character is in the show so much I’m a big fan of the colour palette and unique art direction they went with for this show. It’s so bright and cheery and I think it matches the vibe of the story well. The animation is solid, the cheer sequences often incorporated CGI, but given the complexity of them, I can’t really fault that. I will say that when we actually had cheer meets, they looked really good. One of the few complaints I’d have with the series in addition to the Yuri bait would be that there weren’t many cheer comps. You had the requests that the group would take on, but not a lot of trials or comps. If you’re a fan of cute girls doing cute things and want it in a new environment(cheer), like Yuri vibes or PA works originals in general this is an easy recommend. It’s not perfect, but I really loved this show. The characters, the interpersonal drama, the girls growing as individuals over the course of the show etc. it’ll be missed Narenare gets 8 out of 10.

I'm not going to lie to you, I came into this anime out of curiosity to see how a girl in a wheelchair would participate in a cheerleading club. Fortunately, I stayed because of the interesting topics that these girls bothered to expose. I'm not a regular in the CGDCT genre, I think this was my first experience. I thought that throughout 12 weeks, I would only see happy girls trying to make more people happy. I couldn't be more wrong, because even though the girls were children, they never tried to infantilize their problems. Post-traumatic stress, yips, spiral of self-destruction, the search for personal dreams,the sense of belonging and frustration. Each of the girls has her own problem that they will explore thanks to the formation of the PomPoms group. A group founded to cheer others, but its main function would be to cheer the girls that make up the group. Each of them had their own personal conflict that was explored and even gave them time to explore the problems of girls outside the group. Topics as delicate and complex as depression, self-destructive spiral, self-loathing, hate comments on the internet and the consequences of these on real people. The pressure of the work that involves creating content on social networks and the physical and mental ravages that this type of excessive work causes in people. In the end, cheerleading was only a theme to attract people's interest so that when you were on the networks of the story, you could let go of other more serious topics. The anime also has respect when it shows a half-Brazilian character. Even though they represent Latin blood in a stereotypical way, it doesn't become offensive or a simple mockery. They really take it seriously, they give you a character who is multilingual and also you can see the difference between the hot blood of the Latinos and the mediating style of the Japanese. The contrast is so noticeable but at the same time it works very well because of the type of environment where it takes place. Although I liked the story, we must say that the story lacked a bit of what it promised, cheerleading. Sometimes they focused so much on personal stories that cheerleading was left aside. There is choreography and acrobatics but not as much as one would like. Sometimes in the more relaxed chapters a bit more choreography would be appreciated, beyond just girls screaming at the top of their lungs. It was a pleasant surprise for me to see this anime. I underestimated what the genre could bring and they showed me that sometimes the stigmas that one carries regarding certain things can be broken at any moment. I think it is an anime that opened the door to a new world of stories and characters. I certainly thank Nanare for opening my eyes.

What is growth if we do not experience hardships, suffering, pain, loss, and lack of motivation. This is what Cheer for You will make you see as a viewer. This is more than CGDCT, this is more than just cheerleaders, this is about real human emotions. That we all as people have had to go through in life to get to that next point in our lives. Through the slow burn that this anime helps build up, you see that no matter how you are in life with success. Success can last for minutes, days, hours, or years. It is how you use itto make people's lives and yours as well. Cheer For You could have easily been a 24 episode anime series, and to get to point A to point B with its pacing where nothing felt rushed. We get to see the trials and struggles of the main characters as well. For me if this anime is not something you can't see the past of character development, and real conflict. Then you are absolutely missing out on an underrated anime.

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