ACE WO NERAE!
STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
26
RELEASE
March 29, 1974
LENGTH
24 min
DESCRIPTION
On her first day at Nishi High School, 15-year-old Hiromi Oka is inspired by top player Reika "Ochoufujin" Ryuuzaki to take up tennis. Shortly after joining the school's tennis club, she encounters Jin Munakata, the club's new coach. Munakata puts everyone under rigorous training that even puts Ochoufujin to shame. Despite the hardships, Hiromi's determination prompts the coach to select her as part of the club's main players. Because of this, Hiromi must endure the peer pressure from her seniors to become an ace tennis player.
(Source: Anime News Network)
CAST
Hiromi Oka
Makoto Kousaka
Reika Ryuuzaki
Masako Ikeda
Jin Munakata
Kouji Nakata
Takayuki Todou
Katsuji Mori
Ranko Midorikawa
Kazuko Yanaga
Goemon
Maki Aikawa
Masako Sugaya
Kyoko Otowa
Kazue Komiya
Isami Ozaki
Hideyuki Umezu
Angie Reynolds
EPISODES
Dubbed
Not available on crunchyroll
RELATED TO ACE WO NERAE!
REVIEWS
Gintokee
This is my last reviewContinue on AniList
Coming from the 70’s, Aim for the Ace was one of the first of its genre. While other series have done similar things to what Ace did, Ace stands as still one of the most commendable sports anime out there: air tight progression, the still timeless interpersonal drama, memorable direction showcasing Dezaki’s trademark style— this anime does it all well with little to complain about (aside from the poor audio quality that aged like milk).
The obvious, fundamental appeal for any sports anime is in its characters and their struggles rather than the sport itself. While being a fan of said sport can allow for easier engagement, the sport is usually never the draw, and this is certainly true with Aim for the Ace. In fact, Ace plays it very shallow in terms of trying to be in any way technical about tennis. So much so that I could easily imagine some hardcore tennis fans giving this show flack for not going far enough in its portrayal of the sport and relies too much on attitude being the deciding factor for outcomes (even though it certainly can be one of them realistically). And I am glad Aim for the Ace is more about Hiromi’s, the main character, growth rather than tennis because it would be hard to treat this anime seriously as some realistic depiction of the sport when players sometimes volley an opponent’s serve and continue play as if there’s totally nothing wrong with that.
Ace is a story about its amateur protagonist making strides towards being the best, which even if that premise was as common back then as it was today, it is executed with few faults. The conclusion this show wants to reach is something you can already predict, but, you know what? You watch anime because it’s good, and not every anime has to be something new or different to be good.
At first glance, Hiromi herself could be passed off as a throwaway sports protagonist, but I found she has much more going for her. Hiromi initially leads a content school life in where she’s perfectly happy only idolizing her tennis teammates from the sidelines. She’s fine with not sticking her neck out because she believes herself to have no skill. Hiromi is timid, socially awkward… largely an observer, with words never quite coming out the way she wants no matter how hard she tries to nail her practice conversations.
This is why when the new “Onii-coach” Munakata is introduced for the first time and appoints her to varsity, Hiromi couldn’t make it any more clear that she wishes the coach didn’t bother and just left her alone everyday. His training sessions make her feel uncomfortable initially, but, as Hiromi soon realizes, that discomfort only serves to make her victories feel that much more sweeter.
For a while in the first half, even though Hiromi is slowly building confidence, she frequently urges Coach Munakata to rescind his decision. Sure being on varsity has its perks: she’s able to close the distance between herself and Ochoufujin, her teammate she admires the most, but her peers are quick to distance themselves from Hiromi and talk shit about her behind her back. The already established hierarchy for the tennis team is shook due to Hiromi suddenly replacing one of her seniors on varsity who is also the leader of the pack of students ostracizing Hiromi.
Hiromi feels just as alienated as her peers because she’s the kind of girl who’s most comfortable admiring from the backseat. Why did the coach choose her? What potential does she have? She didn’t join the tennis club to get good at tennis. She even purposefully tries to play the worst she can to get the coach to reconsider his choice.
Hiromi for much of this season has to decide between staying in her comfy shell versus striving for something she doesn’t think she REALLY wants, until she realizes she was wrong about herself! She can achieve much more than she first thought. Through her slowly revealing capabilities and her Onii-coach’s strong faith in her to be able to do the impossible, she learns that, instead of being a boring bitch and watching other people earn victories, Hiromi can find new satisfaction in being the one to carve her own wins.
Despite Hiromi displaying mad potential, I like how this anime makes clear the gap in technique between her and her varsity teammates. She is constantly shown having a rough time keeping up with coach’s grueling training. Sure she has what it takes, but she still has a long ways to go compared to Ochoufujin, until this anime ends on a point where those two are able to stand eye-to-eye to each other. Having an established goal gives reason to want to continue following Hiromi’s journey, and it’s hard for the viewer to not hold as much faith in Hiromi as her coach does.
The development of Hiromi’s character was so gradual from the first to last episode, that I didn’t even fully grasp it until I thought about it much later. There’s never a moment you can pinpoint as the key moment where Hiromi all of the sudden becomes a better person. But by the finale, you can say without doubt that Hiromi has changed. She is proud of her own capabilities as a tennis player and stops for nobody should they get in the way of her goals, a frame of mind that contrasts greatly with the one that Hiromi possesses at the start where she more obsessed over her other teammates’ perception of her more so than whether or not she actually liked tennis.
Hiromi’s progressive increase in her love for tennis, I just find so inspiring. “Know your limits” is a common phrase used to discipline others for well… doing something that results in consequences outside of their control, but the concept shouldn’t be used as a crutch to undermine your own capabilities and to ignore how complex you actually are. There’s nothing more boring than staying in your safe zone because nothing new is going to happen to you. Don’t simplify who you are as a person, assume that there’s more to you than you think you know because you are deeper than you know. Hiromi wouldn’t have known she had a knack for tennis all along if she stayed dead in the water and wasn’t moving. It was through the pushes from the people around her was she able to feel the satisfaction of evolving as a person, and anyone could benefit from that kind of enrichment— being open to expand your horizons to new perspective and aiming for heights one might think to be unattainable.
Which is why I implore you to be intellectually open about this anime to give it a shot! Sure it’s decades old, but the length for this 26 episode anime compared to something like Ashita no Joe, another Osamu Dezaki classic, makes it more digestible. Most people haven’t seen Ace, which is understandable considering the gateway to Dezaki’s work through legal means is pretty thin despite him probably being one of anime’s most influential directors via experimenting with countless directing techniques that others in the industry would never have dreamed of attempting to utilize during the time. The treaded waters the show covers can hardly be seen as a fault when its executed with little error. Matches usually don’t last for more than one episode, there’s never a moment where the pacing slows because some character wears the idiot cap for too long, and, despite the limited scope of the production, Dezaki’s style permeates throughout Ace with distinct use of watercolor backgrounds, pastel colors, techniques to make the presentation more cinematic than what’s typical of anime. Aim for the Ace's robustness lends so much in keeping a story this old, with ideas that have and are being told time and time again, still feel so fresh almost 5 decades later.
TheRealEltonJohn
Overall, Aim for the Ace is a shining example of how to write a series about Tennis or sports in general.Continue on AniListTennis is a tough game, and Oka Hiromi knows that.
Throughout the last couple years, I've been looking for a good tennis anime, none of them ever coming close to scratching the itch I had for someone to accurately portray tennis in all its wonder. Tennis is a complicated game and I am tired of pretending that it isn't. People who think its just about hitting the ball from one side to the other do not know anything about tennis. Baby Steps and Hoshiai no Sora attempted to show the complexity of the game but focused too much on natural talent (which is super unrealistic in tennis). Do not get me started on Prince of Tennis, it is super unrealistic to a point that it makes me furious. There is another aspect of tennis that has rarely ever been explored, and it is the biggest avenue of complexity in the game. The mental game. Tennis is a mental game beyond anything, and none have expressed that ever. Except for this anime. Ace Wo Nerae!
Ace Wo Nerae! is a tennis/shoujo anime made in 1973, it follows the story of 15 year old Oka Hiromi, who joins Nishi High's tennis club to become like the best player on the team, Ouchofujin (Ryuuzaki Reika). A new coach, Jin Munakata, comes in and trains her hard after seeing her potential. She is under pressure from herself, her coach, and her peers to become the best tennis player on the team, and aim for the ace. It is quite a dated anime but that does not hold it back in the slightest from telling a great, heavily character focused narrative which explores the growth of Hiromi in a brilliant way.
Oka Hiromi is not a mentally strong person, she is weak, frightened, and because she is a teenager, absolutely anything and everything gets to her. From love, to anxiety, to the overwhelming nature of tennis, she runs from it all at first. This is where the story shines the most, in her character development. Hiromi takes a bite that is too big to chew on when she chases her dreams of being the best player, often experiencing the stress and anxiety that comes with the sport. Every episode she is constantly faced with some sort of issue which takes a heavy toll on her, she ends up running away and crying all the time when facing challenges. At first, she is scared of tennis and does not want to lose, going so far as to running away from her match when she is called up to the court. But she has her friend, Maki Aikawa, her crush, Takayuki Todo, and her coach to help her along the way. She vows to quit tennis entirely, too afraid to play it after losing again and again, that is until Munakata (in one of the best scenes in the show) reminds her that we are all afraid when we are on the court. The tennis court is a lonely place, no one is there to help you, it’s a fight against the opponent in front of you, and the biggest opponent on the court. Yourself. The way that the loneliness and dread of tennis is portrayed is stunningly accurate, maybe I say so because I relate too much to Hiromi, being weak and fragile sometimes on the tennis court. Hiromi fails many times throughout the anime because she hates tennis and only plays it to be like Ryuuzaki, the one she looks up to. These failures are indeed, embarrassing and traumatic but they are necessary for her growth as she starts to find the beauty of tennis.
Oka slowly finds her own reason to play tennis, for her love of the game and that’s what keeps her going for the rest of the show. She decides to quit the tennis team in one episode and later cannot bear to not play tennis, it is too painful to be away from the court (this too is accurate) showing how much she loves tennis. Instead of chasing to be like Ryuuzaki, Oka evolves into her own player through hard training and loss, at the end, she even defeats Ryuuzaki in an epic match. Whenever Oka does win, it is a momentous occasion, because you know exactly what she has been through, and the hardship it took to win. On that note I would like to say that Munakata is a great coach, tough he may be, but he instills the correct attitude into Oka so that she can play her best tennis. Even telling her to throw away her love so that she can focus on the game. This too is accurate, in tennis, you cannot bring love or hatred with you to the court, it will mess up your game entirely. I want to name all the scenes in which Oka develops but I can’t, it would take me too long. Her character development is A+ and completely realistic. She is not naturally talented (which btw is not enough in tennis), no, and that’s what these anime do not show enough, the shock and pain of failure, and the joy of overcoming them, but Ace Wo Nerae! Displays every emotion possible outside or inside the court, some people may think of it as too much, but I say it is perfect. Every freakout, every tear, every laugh, every smile. Perfect. It is hard at first to root for Oka but as the series goes on, she becomes stronger and you want nothing but the best for her. She went from the girl with every reason to hate tennis, to the girl with all the reasons to love tennis and never leave. Oka Hiromi is not a good character because she succeeds, she is a good character because she has failed.
Other than that, the supporting characters are all nice in my opinion, Munakata being the best of them. They all make an impression on Oka but in the end, it is up to her to reach and realize her own power. Her friends helped, but ultimately it is her who gets the final victory. I am 1000000% sure that her bubbly friend Maki is referenced in Kill la Kill, their roles are similar (Mako is on the tennis team so that adds to my suspicion even more). The animation is nothing to awe at, its 1973, what can you expect, there are a lot of shots that are repeated again and again and again. But the framing and the artwork are all splendid, you really gotta give credit for Osamu Dezaki for doing all this. His masterful framing techniques amplify Oka's emotions on the court and elevate the scenes. Props to Oka’s VA for being so great and the opening for being catchy as hell, although the music in the anime could be better.
Final Score: this is a solid 10 with tons of emotion packed into it. This is the best tennis anime ever, and I couldn’t be happier that I found something like it, and I doubt that there will ever be another anime like this. This is an anime that will be near and dear to me forever.
You know what? Its also a 10, because I have experienced the same things that Oka did back when I was playing for my High School's tennis team, it gives this anime even more of an edge of relatability.
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SCORE
- (3.5/5)
MORE INFO
Ended inMarch 29, 1974
Main Studio Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Favorited by 139 Users