Whenever I start feeling a little blah towards anime, I rewatch a favorite from years past instead of trying to find something new. Being in the mood for something fluffy and ridiculous, it felt like a good time to revisit Battle Athletes Victory. It probably would sit next to all of the shows from over ten years ago that nobody remembers, but I think Battle Athletes Victory hangs around fan memory since it’s one of the few sports series out there on dvd. Sports shows have a weird emotional investment thing, so even when it’s really corny and predictable (it usually is), it sticks to fans because of that. Rudy…Rudy…Rudy!
Battle Athletes Victory is about Akari Kanzaki, a clumsy Japanese girl competing with female athletes from around the world to become the Cosmo Beauty. The Cosmo Beauty is the finest athlete in the solar system. Akari’s deceased mom was like the Michael Jordan of her day, the greatest ever who every little girl wanted to emulate, something Akari seems oblivious to, which is good as it keeps the show simple. Each of the characters in the story are pretty narrow, which helps get the plot and humor going, and it goes by pretty quickly. There’s no beach episode, no hot springs episode, so the overall pacing is trimmed down two episodes right there. Actually, there’s really only one throw-away episode and it’s early in the series. Everything else moves the main storyline along, which is nice. Somewhere along the way it feels like a lot of show producers got in their heads that beach episodes were necessary for any show that wasn’t deathly serious business. Different era equals different meta, I suppose.
There are a few moments in the show that came off surprisingly good and that helps keep it worthwhile on re-watch, remembering those. One thing I remembered before re-watch was to get a whole bunch of chocolate bars, since Mr. Miracle will give any chocolate lover an instant craving as soon as he appears midway through the series.
This is probably the fourth time I’ve watched Battle Athletes Victory, but probably six years since the last time. It was a lot easier to re-watch shows back then, but as time wears on and more anime becomes available, revisiting older things happens less often. I am kind of surprised by how different it feels from current stuff. The character designs, the color palette, the environments, I expected, but the overall feeling of the non-visual was a little more out of time than I expected. This made me wonder what Battle Athletes Victory would be like if made today. Obviously, the character designs would get MASSIVE overhauls, but I think the characters would be quite different as well. Overall, I think they’d be a little more vulnerable and waiting for something to make them whole.
Akari isn’t as moe as she probably would have been if made today. While Akari is clumsy, lacks self-confidence, and a couple of other things you could put on the moe checklist, she’s more of a comical Shinji Ikari than anything. But, I have a pretty loose definition of moe, which basically amounts to, “I know it when I see it.”
Anyway, this put a smile on my face and I’m out of my funk. I watched a good bit of anime after re-watching Battle Athletes Victory. Here’s an AMV, picked in part because it had the best video quality amongst what was there on YouTube and captures the emotional side of the show:
(Top image by Kawarajima Kou)
Oh cool. If I ever do that, I watch Fooly Cooly. – It’s my “carry support” you could say.
As far as I go, It’s FLCL as I said, & I’ve marathoned Eva a couple of times. Because it’s my first, Neogenesis I hold a flame to.
However, the oldest looking show that I have is His/Hers. Something about that show always strikes me when I see it. It’s kinda hard to describe, but I love seeing it as much for the shows story & characters, as I do for the “classic” looking animation. I don’t think I could ever watch an updated version of that show, It would be quite distressing I think. – Sure, give it blu-ray & 5.1. But something like the new Eva treatment, -I’ll pass.
A bit off track I guess. But His & Her’ I like going back to because of the emotional level involved when I watch it. A big part of that I regard to the animation.
- BAV, has no Australian release as far as I can tell. But I have been wanting to see a good sports series, namely something in the lines of Baseball, which I know there are a few out there. However, I’ll take note of Battle Athletes Victory, I may well one-day go source it out somewhere If I ever get into outer region DVD viewing.
- Nice article
His and Hers is one of the few I’ve both watched the anime and read the manga. To me, the characterization, the feel, even the look, Gainax jitters and all, are perfect. How I wish the production team could have survived to do a proper ending. Now I’m not normally one to say something old is better because that era was better, but His and Hers, I just feel like something got lost in time with newer shows that came out. Again, not that they’re worse, but something got lost that I wish another show could recapture. Maybe the time isn’t right to make something like that again.
I’m actually watching Ai Yori Aoshi for the first time right now. I like older anime just as much if not more than newer ones often. I can never get tired of rewatching Chobits or Kanon 2006 (even though that’s not that old), and of course old classic Miyazaki films. I’m kind of trying to work my way back to shows I missed out on in the past, but at the same time I’m trying to follow a few newer ones. When I get tired of watching anime I try and watch movies and that usually does it for me.
Woot, another one who likes Battle Athletes. I think I watch this stuff 3 times already, but yeah, my time became even more limited and more anime are available that I’ve been stalling so I haven’t rewatched this one for ages.