Dive!!

Title:Dive!!
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Zero-G
KAJI Yuuki
NAKAMURA Yuuichi
SAKURAI Takahiro
The Mizuki Diving Club, or MDC, is in trouble: its longtime sponsor has passed away, and the people who now run his corporation do not care for diving nearly as much as he did. The only way they will continue to finance the MDC is if it achieves a seemingly impossible goal, namely earning a place at the 2018 Tokyo Olympics.

12 episodes
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent Stretch [series:3393#628]
(All episodes watched):

Is there any sport that won't get an anime about someone discovering it and battling his way to the top ranks? Here it's competition diving. I found episode one to be modestly interesting; the MDC must achieve something big to avoid being disbanded. Tomo has some personality; we know that he has a girlfriend but doesn't really want one, for one thing. I guess that's because he cares only for diving, though I wish his infatuation had been made more clear. It could be argued that he is really just one of three protagonists, as Yoichi and the cliff diver guy (I'm not so good remembering names) seem to get as much attention as he does, and their personalities develop as a result. The prospect of a hot middle aged woman becoming the new coach of a club of teenage guys is titillating. These, buff, ripped guys with tight swimsuits around their jewels often act as fanservice for girls. I couldn't help noticing that they are often posed so that their minimal swimsuits are just out of view below the bottom of the image, and you would swear that they must be stark naked.

Can diving really be made (and kept) enthralling, though? Actually, this show was fairly intriguing to me. Tomo is being pressured to improve tremendously, and you wonder if he can really do it (though, on second thought, he obviously will). I like the way that striving to excel isn't just treated as a 100% good and desirable thing without drawbacks. Instead trying hard comes at a cost, namely his relationships with his friends. Tomo himself may be the most determined to win, and I wasn't completely convinced that he was making the right choice when the costs (like to his relationship with his girlfriend, Miu) were made clear. Rivals are treated respectfully, which was good as well. Also good are little touches like the trick Tomo uses to time himself while spinning in mid-air--the author clearly knew a good deal about diving. The summer season delivered an unexpectedly large number of decent anime, and I was two weeks late starting to watch it, so I had little time to spare and wasn't sure if I'd be able to squeeze Dive into my viewing schedule. But I'm glad I gave it a chance, because it was fairly fun. The various characters have some personality to them rather than just being jerks who don't care about anything other than winning. As a result, the competitions were fun and I generally looked forward to watching this show. The conclusion wasn't slam-bang exciting, rather it was kind of laid back since one message of the show was that winning trophies wasn't the only goal one should aspire to. Dive wasn't a masterpiece but it was a competent, entertaining anime that was well worth watching.



Last updated Friday, October 20 2017. Created Sunday, July 30 2017.

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