We’re almost done with the genre reviews, this time we’ve got the Sports genre and Re-Main. This was an interesting one for me, because I can count the number of sports anime I’ve watched on one hand. And in...
We’re almost done with the genre reviews, this time we’ve got the Sports genre and Re-Main.
This was an interesting one for me, because I can count the number of sports anime I’ve watched on one hand. And in the end, it was another example of why it was a good idea to broaden my horizons, even if for a short while, with other genres!
Synopsis
Kiyomizo Minato was a water polo champion in middle school, one of the best in Japan, but an unfortunate car accident after winning a national championship leaves him in an extended coma and ultimately causes him to awake with no memory of his middle school achievements. Feeling like he isn’t able to live up to his past self, Mintao enrolls in nearby Yamanami High School where he finds himself being pulled back into the world of water polo with an upstart team of rookies.
Water Polo
I’ll just clear this up right now, it turns out I had absolutely no idea what water polo was before I watched this series. I honestly thought that it was like volleyball but played in a deep pool, or something like that. I’d never seen water polo before, only heard the name.
And just like anime often does such a great job at garnering interest in things you just never knew about before, it does that here with water polo. Of course the anime embellishes it, as you’d expect, but it had me curious enough to watch some matches from the recent summer Olympics. And it’s a crazy sport, like after watching the anime and some actual games and having a very basic understanding of it, water polo looks like it has to be one of the most physically demanding sports out there. And if you look up water polo teams, pretty much everyone who plays it is just jacked. It’s pretty crazy.
One comment on one of the videos I watched summed it up pretty well by saying something along the lines of “I wish I had known about water polo when I was younger, just so I could have tried it!” and I’m feeling the same way. I love swimming, but swimming back and forth in a pool just trying to go fast never really interested me enough to pursue it. It’s too bad more sports in general aren’t popular / encouraged because there’s nothing wrong with more variety for people to choose from! Even on a casual level I feel like it would have been fun to play water polo or some variation of it with friends.
Maybe it’s bigger in other countries, but I feel like you’d have to go out of your way or have some sort of connection with someone involved to even be exposed to water polo in Canada.
Sports
Aside from the actual sport itself, which really was a lot of fun to learn about, there’s also the elements of what I’d imagine are in your typical sports anime here: team-building and drama. You start out with a group of individuals that don’t really know each other, and watch as they train, play, learn, and grow together. The antagonist in a sports anime is of course the competition, but also can be the team itself at times when there are issues with cohesion. There’s always some sort of challenge that needs to be addressed in order for the team as a whole to move forward, and the pressure of their next match or tournament often looms in the distance.
Overall, I think it’s a pretty good formula for what it is. If you were to just show a bunch of guys playing a sport over and over it could get stale pretty quickly, and we’d have no attachment to the team. The drama, ups and downs, all of that sort of thing not only makes the characters feel more real and relatable, but it helps us feel a sense of progression when it comes to the team. And you really do start to feel for the team in Re-Main, and want them to succeed. Just a great bunch of characters!
And on the topic of drama, there is also a whole other element tossed in here, which is Minato and his amnesia. It leads to a lot of interesting interactions and situations from start to finish, and while I think the anime would still be enjoyable without this aspect of the story, it really feels like the icing on the cake in many ways. I won’t spoil it, but I thought it was really well done.
Rating
I’m going to give Re-Main an 8.5 / 10.
I thought it was a great anime. If it weren’t water polo, and was something like baseball which I’m already very familiar with, it’s possible I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much because a lot of moments in the anime are devoted to teaching the viewer about water polo through character interactions and whatnot. Learning about water polo really was interesting to me, and that definitely brought up the rating. I’m honestly a bit shocked I didn’t know anything about this sport before, it seems like a ton of fun (and a lot of hard work to play seriously).
The character interactions, drama, ups and downs, challenges, victories, et cetera… it was all great.
This one is definitely a recommend from me, especially if you are as ignorant about water polo as I was!
Have you seen Re-Main, and did you enjoy it?
Also, I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on water polo haha.
Ever play it before?
Until next time,
Thanks for reading.