For the #AnimeWatchAlong , today I watched Dive!! Ep.6.

I'm trying to put into words what doesn't work about this #anime for me. It's perhaps best illustrated using the competition from this episode:

• How does the scoring work? Most good sports anime I've seen explains the sport and its intricacies to get you interested. The most I get from Dive!! is "don't splash".
• Okitsu was so close to having an interesting arc. He did his cool dives and splashed a lot - but what's the result of that?
• Sakai's teammates had a bit of a comeback the last episode or 2 and started training seriously - but they just... failed quietly?
• So much more could've been done with Pinky - he wobbled and fell. Okay, expected. But I wanted to be invested.

It's trying to do too much and failing at all of it.

#Dive 1x5

⭐ ⭐

Such unnecessary drama at the very end.

The episode was okay, I guess we're in the level-up arc (if we can call it that).

I'm getting irritated at Shibuki. Why is he there? Why not listen to the coach? He can have a "wild" or "amazing" jump, but it won't amount to much with such splash, right?

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DIVE!! Episode 5! The #AnimeWatchAlong continues :)

Wow, a lot happened this episode. I was very happy to see Sakai's "friends" getting chewed out by the coach, who tells them frankly that Sakai's getting the "special" treatment cos he's actually bothering to do the training and put in the work - and they are not.

Thankfully, Yoichi has a chat with Sakai too to help him move on - which I think is why the very half-assed "apology" from the two works...

#Dive 1x4

Finally, his "friends" explode and express how they truly feel, envy.

It's not hard to see that the main character has zero ill intent behind his words, yet his envious teammates can't stand it. Just leave...

I do not agree that everybody wants to be number one. I know plenty from my badminton classes who do not want to improve; they're happy as they are. It's hard for me to understand, but there are people like that.

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DIVE!! Episode 3 of the #AnimeWatchAlong

The storyboarding / flow of this episode seemed a little flawed. The cutaway to the story of Yoichi's injury seemed quite out of place, and I think didn't serve much other than to take the viewer away from the main plot.

Which I'm still invested in! Sakai's training is paying off, but as his success builds resentment in his training buddies, I think he's about to learn that it's lonely at the top...

Also, uh... who is this absolute pantomime villain of a character?

#Dive 1x3

So this dude has a hobby he can focus on, that's what he's good at (or at least getting better), plus a girlfriend who wants to spend the time and brings him homemade food.

Bastard.

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DIVE!! Episode 2 #animewatchalong

Training episode! We're starting to see where the gap will appear between Sakai and his peers - he's taking it seriously, even after the tough sessions with the centre's new coach. They're clearly showing the pains this is adding onto Sakai's life - I hope this theme continues cos it could be really interesting!

I get another checkbox on my "sports shounen tropes" today too:
✅ New characters from "a legendary (sport) family"

Let's see where this goes, this was clearly a set up for more to come!

#Dive 1x2

I guess this is the training arc, time to level up: new coach, new characters. You can already see that 2 out of the 3 will not make it, as they are not "all in" (skipping individual training).

Tomo's brother is an ashole, though. Saying to his face, his girlfriend would be better off. Jeez...

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#Dive 1x1

Felt a bit cheap that the very first jump of the anime, the one that makes Tomoki so impressed, was not animated 💰 For the jumps that were animated, it wasn't very smooth 👎

🏐 There are at least 2 voice actors from Haikyu 😏 It was fun to watch this just after an episode of Haikyu 😁

💔 Miu was brave enough to confess to Tomoki, but our main character has his mind elsewhere. BL as a plot twist? 😂

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Good morning everyone, and Happy New Year!

Pleasingly, I've almost finished all the series I was watching, and so I've been thinking about which #anime I'm going to watch this season. It's going to be a mix of New and Old:

I expect that this will take me comfortably into February at which point I'll be able to see what else is good this season!