Softenni

Title:Softenni
Sofuteni (Japanese)
そふてにっ (Japanese)
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , ,
Notables: AKESAKA Satomi
ITO Kanae
ITOU Shizuka
KITAMURA Eri
Asuna Harukaze is a girl who loves tennis to the point where she practices her swings with a pitchfork while working on the family farm. At school she is a member of the Soft Tennis ('Softenni') Club along with the enthusiastic Kotone, food-crazy Chitose and bizarre yet talented Kurusu. With a big tournament approaching, the girls are taking practice more seriously than ever. Although with Asuna’s strange and perverted logic surfacing at every turn and Chitose’s inability to win a single match, it may prove to be a challenge for the team to win. The girls of the Hakuou Middle School soft tennis club are aiming for the national championship. Along the way, their journey will be full love, rivalry, fervor, and insanity.
(Synopsis courtesy of ANN)

A Spring 2011 series

12 episodes
1:26 min Promotion video - official site
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent Stretch [series:2289#628]
(Rent- or Watch+)

(All episodes watched):

Going in, this show seemed modestly humorous. Many of the jokes had a sex angle, but they were not too objectionable. Fanservice was plentiful, maybe too plentiful, especially panty flashing, but again not particularly 'dirty'. Tennis itself seems to play a relatively small part. The characters started out being pretty vague; each has a trademark quality, like the quiet, unemotional girl, the food-obsessed girl, the goofy main character, and the overenthusiastic athletic girl. It was hard to say much more about the opening episode, just that Softenni seemed likely to be neither outstandingly good nor terribly bad. A rating higher than 'Watch' did not seem to be in the cards for this show. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this show got slowly but steadily better as time went on. The comedy has an absurdist style to it, i.e, crazy, impossible events are interweaved with the plot so commonly that after awhile they hardly raise an eyebrow. For example, the girl who flip-flops between pathetic player and brilliant one because of her dual personalities. Since the show really is funny, you don’t mind. I especially liked the episode where a spy attempts to infiltrate the team. There's a fair amount of clever charicatures--it's like reverse SD, where a show which usually has simple character designs occasionally sprouts more sophisticated ones as a joke. Parodies of other anime series pop up here and there. The final episode worked well, with its strange dream world theme followed by a happy ending and a laugh. I would say that despite my early misgivings, fanservice definitely plays second fiddle to comedy in Softenni, and the comedy is not bad at all. It's time to end, though; twelve episodes was about right for this show, and the premise might have become tiresome if it had run for 26. I can't help feeling good at the end, and plan to rewatch Softenni again someday. Don't miss the post-ED sequence bit.

My favorite line: "Huh? Another person just flew by" –Kotone

Last updated Thursday, October 17 2019. Created Saturday, April 16 2011.

Other Sites
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Official Website (japanese) http://www.softenni.com/

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