Kakeru, a former elite runner at high school, is chased for stealing food. He is saved by a Kansei University student Haiji, who is also a runner. Haiji persuades Kakeru to live in the old apartment “Chikuseisou” where he plans to team up with fellow residents to enter Hakone Ekiden Marathon, one of the most prominent university races in Japan. Kakeru soon finds out that all of the residents except for Haiji and himself are complete novices. – MAL
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 23
Source: Novel
Episode Summary: Kakeru Kurehara has fallen on hard times since losing his apartment down-payment to the whims of the mahjong table. He’s been reduced to stealing bread from the local convenience store. Luckily he’s a practiced runner with speed enough to get away with this misdeed. He can’t outrun all of his problems, though; he’s eventually chased down by an energetic man on a bike. Haiji Kiyose is on the prowl for one last person to fill the vacant room in the boarding house he shares with several other young men, and he invites Kakeru to take the final slot.
Haiji has ulterior motives, as Kakeru soon learns. Boarding House Chikuseiso is filled with all kinds of young men, from geeky, to studious, to those with certain vices. Haiji invites them to celebrate the addition of their tenth resident with a trip out of town – namely, to Hakone. It’s his dream to participate in the Hakone Ekiden, a famous annual relay race. With their landlord (a former runner) as their coach he feels that this is their best (and his only) shot. But Kakeru isn’t even sure he wants to stay, let alone tackle this monumental task, especially when the other residents seem hesitant at best.
Impressions: I mistakenly thought that this anime series was about a long-distance marathon, but the fact that it’s actually about a group of young men tackling a long-distance relay is likely a more fitting story. The large cast of very different young men likely have their own stories to tell and their own motivations to run (reluctantly or not). Assuming that this is a goal they’ll all eventually achieve together, the poignancy of different people handing off a baton to one-another as they push themselves to the limit of their capabilities has already got me excited to watch more.
This first episode is mostly about introductions, however. There’s no tip-toeing around the issue; there are a lot of characters to try to remember and they’re all introduced at once as Haiji drags Kakeru through the hallways of Chikuseiso. What’s helpful to the viewer is that the series has the benefit of fairly distinct character designs and immediately-memorable (though somewhat one-note) traits for each character. One of the characters is even non-Japanese – a Tanzanian studying abroad. While I hate to say it like this, this is one of the pleasures of a series with an all-male cast; character designers seem less hesitant to experiment with different faces and body types. With young women there’s unfortunately a certain expectation of cuteness and marketability that causes them to look fairly similar to one-another. I suspect that the fact that this anime is based on a novel (few or no illustrations) versus a manga or light-novel allows a greater degree of freedom when defining how the characters look.
To harp on the gender balance a little further, this episode is populated solely with men. Though there’s a young woman in the opening who I assume will make an appearance later on, everyone else is male (or appears so at first glance). This isn’t a bad thing in isolation, because a good story is a good story. But as a woman in general and a female anime fan in particular I can definitively say that male coming-of-age stories have lost their appeal to me somewhat over the years. I find myself sandwiched between two arguments on this. On one hand, I believe that growing into one’s own skin is a universal experience, so even if the details are different, the general conception of the story is similar for anyone of a certain age. On the other hand… well, I take some extra joy in knowing that my personal story is worth telling so I’d love to see it told.
The animation in this episode is absolutely on point. Some things that I love about anime are those special animation cuts that show up from time-to-time that really capture the dynamism of human movement. In some series those tend to appear during epic battles and important climactic moments, but in other series those resources are devoted to more subtle accents like character acting and movement. This episode impresses right out of the gate as Kakeru races down the street with stolen bread in hand; his running animation shows that he’s a practiced runner, even when he’s running from his misdeeds. Another scene late in the episode where he runs through a park is pleasantly distorted, focusing on movement more-so than adherence to a character model. Again, that’s something about anime that I love – the ability of animation staff (likely out of necessity, but also out of some sort of differing stylistic sense) to put their efforts toward what really matters in animated visual storytelling. Each frame might look odd on its own, but placed back-to-back they convey more than their component parts.
I should warn that there’s some brief male nudity at some points in the episode. Mostly bathing scenes, as well as Musa’s introduction (again, just out of the bath – hey, at least they take baths!). I’m trying to decide if there was a subtle off-color joke nestled in there; Kakeru encounters a nude Musa and his eyes briefly wander Southward. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a “Black guy with a large package” gag, and I hope that it isn’t. The rest of the episode is fairly restrained and doesn’t fall into a lot of the juvenile male comedy traps that so many other series seem to indulge freely. I hope that the series retains that tone throughout.
Though this series likely falls within the sports anime genre, it definitely feels like the type of sports anime that I prefer – one which focuses on character drama and relationships rather than straightforward and single-minded training montages and tournament escapades. Those can be fun, too, but I’m less interested in the sports and more interested in the people that play them. I’m looking forward to seeing how far these runners can go.
Pros: Great animation. There’s a focus on character drama that’s appealing.
Cons: The cast so far is entirely young men. There’s a potentially iffy joke early on.
Grade: B+