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Suzuka DVD Volume 1

Suzuka. Suzuka. With the name of the series being Suzuka you think she would be the lead of this series. No, she’s not. In fact the star of this series is a guy named Yamato (no relation to the ship from WWII which was retrofitted for spaceflight in order to save a dying Earth in the cut classic series known in the English side of things as “Star Blazers”).

It started a few days before school (and those few days sure do drag on, 2 episodes as a matter of fact) when our man Yamato catches his first sighting of this beautiful maniac obsessed athlete girl whose name he will later learn is Suzuka. Yes, the Suzuka of the title.

Boy catches glimpse of hot girl.
Boy falls for hot girl but ends up having awkward first meeting with said hot girl.
Somehow the lackluster easy going boy ends up having some sort of chance with the hot to trot girl because of one thing or another brings them together.
It sounds like a standard plot for a romantic comedy, and it is. But somehow the way Suzuka carries itself it is far more than the sum of it’s tried and true cliché content which we’ve all seen before.
Somehow it manages to stand out just enough to be more than your cookie cutter romantic comedy anime.

I don’t know, but I guess I do like the change of pace (with this goofy yet lovable male lead struggling to get the girl who happens to need him a lot more than she realizes she needs him). Yes they are total opposites, yes it seems that everytime they step forward they move apart, but as he begins to assimilate himself into her world and her obsession to be the best athlete possible (made easier since he moved into his auntie’s bathhouse/boarding house only to find that she moved in right behind him leading to an awkward day) you begin to root for him to get her in the end.

Of course if love is not a big enough reason to root for him, how about the fact that he may be the only level headed one of the “relationship” since she (in Episode 1) nearly kills herself trying to sweat off pounds in the bathhouse’s sauna set too long (to the point she collapses from the excessive exposure to the heat, only to be saved by Yamato in a dramatic manner).

Sucks he ends up having to pay for the damage he caused saving her, which additionally sucks since it was his aunt who ran the place and yet she billed him anyway despite the good deed, but it got him closer to her.
He gets even closer when he starts to help her with her training, and his first act is a mistake that she is actually grateful for (hint : he doesn’t fall on top of her and gropes her).

But of course it wouldn’t be a romantic comedy if there wasn’t a ton of barriers between the two to keep them struggling towards their inevitable future together.
Slacker friend of Yamato who seems to be more hindrance than help.
A female friend of Yamato who he seems to have amnesia about concerning her identity (which doesn’t help when Suzuka suddenly seemingly becomes jealous of her).
A day when he hangs out with Suzuka only to end up being caught in the rain with her which leads to a highly awkward (potentially relationship killing -- maybe) situation that seems to involve calling someone a pervert while walking together under one umbrella in the rain.
Gee, wonder what he did to deserve THAT.
Finally as the DVD ends we have… well, no more for now.

It’s the foibles of love between two unlikely people who seem so wrong, and yet you wish the hardest were so right for each other.
Yes, that means this is one of the many romantic comedy with sports intertwined into it animes out there right now that you might have seen before. And yet while some of it is been there done that terrain there is more than enough twists (or just those twists are put out in a way that is unique and different) that makes the series worth watching.

In the end while it is, again, something we have seen before to some extent it is also something well worth recommending from me to you. If you can find it, try it out, it’s for the romantic in you (bring out the romantic in you) who likes to have a good laugh on other people’s expense (Yamato’s mostly).
Everything is spot on, from the writing to the animation, the characters to the musical scoring, and the voice acting (Japanese language) is solid too.

It’s not a perfect score this time, mostly because it is another romantic comedy that seems to fall back on the tried and true story elements abit too much… but in the end it is still a worthy romance to get entangled in if not 100% original in scope and depth.
In the end Suzuka DVD Volume 1 gets 4 high jumping hotties in little sports-- ouch! No hit! No hit! Ouc… I… 4 out of 5! 4 out of 5! 4 out of 5 already!!… now stop hitting me! (ouch)

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