WAVE!! Surfing Yappe!!

Title:WAVE!! Surfing Yappe!!
WAVE!! Let's Go Surfing!!
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Asahi Production
MAENO Tomoaki
OGASAWARA Jin
While walking his dog on the beach at dawn, Masaki Hinaoka witnesses a truly awesome demonstration of surfing technique by a blond-haired stranger. Later, the same person, Sho Akitsuki, turns up in his classroom as a transfer student. Though he barely knows how to swim, Masaki is inspired to learn how to surf, and Sho is willing to teach him.

? episodes.
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent Stretch [series:4247#628]
(Rent-)

(Five episodes watched):

I had thought that this was the first episode of a new Winter 2021 anime series, since part one was the usual 23 minutes long, but apparently there will be only three of these abbreviated 'movies'. My impression was eh, so-so. I sort of feel Masaki's enthusiasm, and learning a little about how surfing is done was sort of interesting. On the other hand, nothing really surprised me. It looks like a sizeable cast of surfers will come and go in the space of two more of these short movies. I'm willing to watch, in part because I won't be gambling much of my precious free time. In part two Masaki gets a little too enthusiastic, to the point of trying to surf during a raging storm. Afterwards, Sho has the idea that he, Masaki and the dark-skinned, banjo playing Tanaka should enter a surfing competition which will be held in six months. It made perfect sense, which is more than can be said for most major decisions by characters in anime. Maybe that was what made me take notice. At any rate, I was left eager to see how they would do. The end result was pretty realistic: being a relative newcomer to surfing, it would be hard to believe that Masaki would somehow take first prize, and he doesn't. Most of the colorful characters we've been seeing in the OP and ED sequences actually only appear briefly in episode three. The animation of the surfing was fluid and convincing--you can tell one technique from another, sort of. This 'movie' series didn't have time to get really deep, but it was sort of fun and again didn't demand a whole lot of time, so in the end I was satisfied.

Err--maybe it is a TV series after all, because I just stumbled across episodes four and five. Masaki did OK but not brilliantly in the competition and gets the idea that he might become not just a local surfing star but an international one. Sho clearly has some sort of problem which he will not share, and in a cliffhanger something that can't be good happens to him. This show isn't one of my favorites but it seemed worth watching and I had to know what had happened to Sho. Unfortunately, episode five didn't reveal that; he's missing, but is he dead? His friends seem to have given up all hope that he'll ever turn up alive, and a good deal of time has passed, but this show just doesn't seem to 'work' without him. Masaki isn't all that interesting himself, and why did the show go to the trouble of revealing that something mysterious was bothering Sho if there was no intent to follow up on it? The series seemed kind of boring all of a sudden and I found myself wondering if it would be worthwhile to continue watching.

Last updated Sunday, February 21 2021. Created Friday, January 15 2021.

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org