Farewell, My Dear Cramer: Sayonara Watashi no Cramer

[Ryllharu]

Farewell, My Dear Cramer: Sayonara Watashi no Cramer

A girl's soccer sports series with a fairly huge cast! Follows a number of girls as they leave their middle school teams and come together at a second rate (for girls soccer) high school that happens to the be alma mater of one of Japan's most famous women's soccer players. Some of them used to play on boys teams, some were the district star, some the only decent player on their school's team, largely left to obscurity and isolation because the others couldn't keep up.



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I've been in the mood for a sports series that wasn't fujoshi bait or a Prince of Tennis reskin. This might be it. It might be a little bit more focused on the sports part than say, the infamous Hanebado drama fest, but I'm not sure it will live up to the peak that is Cross Game's perfect blend of sports and coming of age.

But the first episode was promising. The girls have character, none of them feel like background despite the huge cast, they seem to actually put in time to develop the rival teams right from the outset, and it's funny when it should be. There's growth potential and improvement laid out for the primary three already which is also a good start.

There's a nice balance in the animation too. It's not a series where they're going full out on the action, they're using it conservatively like well orchestrated manga panels with some movement to them. You can always tell what's going on, and it is done in a way that doesn't feel like still frames, and can probably keep up this level of quality the whole time.

Bonus points for actually opening with the completely true and painfully obvious statement that nobody gives a shit about girl's soccer, and they actually roll that into one of the lead's backgrounds.

edit: Probably should have mentioned this is from the Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso mangaka. Some people care about that sort of thing.

[shinta|hikari]

edit: Probably should have mentioned this is from the Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso mangaka. Some people care about that sort of thing.

Hi, Some People here. Thanks.

[Ryllharu]

Hi, Some People here. Thanks.

Yeah, I thought, 'What else has this author wrote,' after really enjoying the episode and knowing it had a prequel series (that they're making into a movie later this year), and then I saw and reacted with an audible, "Oh?"

[Munsu]

Will try this later, from what I understand there'll be a prequel movie or something coming out during Summer,

[MFauli]

Hate the character design. The dead eyes, the fish lips, ugh. Also lines of the fence disappearing when characters are standing behind it makes it look like their head is weirdly popping through the fence. They did that shit in Haikyuu, too.

That aside, it's football, so I'll give it a chance.

[neflight86]

Rocky, yet it got better as I watched. A very dense episode, content wise. I actually thought it was one of those sneaky double-length pilots due to how much story happened already. I don't know if I'll go the distance (the art is a bit of a turn off for me, too, but they do definitely look like kids), but I look forward to more.

[Ryllharu]

Episode 2


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The first third of the episode felt really jumbled and jumped around a little too quickly. It made it feel like a compressed chapter, and maybe it was. Then as they went to the other school it fell back into the pace the first episode had, which drew me in.

I did really like the orange cone gag. Completely unexpected and made me laugh. That and Onda fangirling about the other team. She's starting to find that her old coach wasn't wrong. Girl's soccer is pretty great.

This definitely feels like a Bamboo Blade kind of series, though maybe with less gags and more focused on the competitions. But very much in the same feel.

Makes me wonder what their main coach is getting at. Women's soccer is on the decline, but is he asking Nomi for a solution? Telling her to let the girls have fun and not push them to be superstars in a sport without a future? Is she pushing the girls too hard to try to make them amazing when she should be promoting synergy in the team, just the sport in general, etc.?

It's interesting stuff, and that question is what makes me push it to Bamboo Blade category rather than a more typical sports series comparison. Having fun was promoted heavily in Bamboo Blade, not burning out.

[MFauli]

Aaand dropped.

Really boring, slow pacing, and I dont like a single character. As I said before, the character design is unappealing, too. I didn't expect this too be cartoony like Inazuma Eleven. Anyway, shaving another anime off for now ;>

[Ryllharu]

Episode 3


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I think it's actually pretty neat that for the most part, Nozomi isn't in a position where she's always making these amazing shots on goal like most sports series. She's actually the central midfielder, and this entire game was playing support roles until the very end when their idiot striker missed again. Instead she's flipping back and forth on defense and offense pretty seamlessly, as one does.

Once she finally gets excited, she spends the majority of the 2nd half just enabling the other girls, encouraging them to stay fired up, and coming in to annoy the other team as needed.

She pairs really nicely with the idiot's overconfidence, feeds Suo's arrogance at the right moments and suppresses her "strategic" self-defeatism, and keeps Sonozaki's confidence up. I'm going to guess that sooner rather than later, Nozomi will be replacing the current captain because she's really perfect in that role.

This episode sped by, so yah, the overall pacing is slow, on par with an Adachi series, but I found it very engaging nevertheless and think it is a quality sports series.

The fact that at least half the opposing team gets well developed personalities is really worth while too.

[shinta|hikari]

Any romance in this?

[Ryllharu]

Just the love of the game, so far.

They haven't actually been at school much at all. Just the middle school graduations and cast intros, then two episode of a practice game.

They have hinted that a few of the girls are in love with each other....'s soccer skills.

[neflight86]

Sadly, I think this will get the cut from me after episode 3. It was a decent watch, and I would even call the writing thoughtful, but it did not stir any appreciable excitement while watching. None of the mini-upsets or posturing. None of the team dynamics playing off each other. Not the drive to... lose less... nothing. I'm not sure why, exactly. Maybe it's the sport, maybe the sparse animation, I obviously can't put my finger on it, but I'm just not hyped at all for what comes next, and I need that in my sports series to keep me coming back. I'll add it to my binge later list, as that might make it easier to enjoy, but as a once a week, I would easily forget to watch among others.

[Ryllharu]

Episode 4


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Shifted into off-field antics this episode. It's fun, but wasn't a great episode.

With the girls getting kicked off of the facilities to expand the nationally ranked boys team, it suddenly feels like it has a few elements from the Happy! tennis manga (the most depressing sports manga ever), but I assume it won't get that dour. I doubt they'll hunting for practice space. I'm guessing they play the boys' first years, and maybe barely scrape out a win to establish themselves as an equally promising team.

I do like the dynamic of the two coaches though. Nomi is all fired up about teaching girls to be as good as she was, but her lack of experience in actual coaching shows through constantly. The other guy is certainly a wet blanket, but gives off a very cautious and experienced balance to Nomi and the first years' enthusiasm. He's mindful of burnout, tempers their expectations, and I expect he'll be the series' emergency safety net, stepping in when the team or Nomi really needs it, but otherwise giving them room to grow.

[Munsu]

Episode 4


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Shifted into off-field antics this episode. It's fun, but wasn't a great episode.

With the girls getting kicked off of the facilities to expand the nationally ranked boys team, it suddenly feels like it has a few elements from the Happy! tennis manga (the most depressing sports manga ever), but I assume it won't get that dour. I doubt they'll hunting for practice space. I'm guessing they play the boys' first years, and maybe barely scrape out a win to establish themselves as an equally promising team.

I do like the dynamic of the two coaches though. Nomi is all fired up about teaching girls to be as good as she was, but her lack of experience in actual coaching shows through constantly. The other guy is certainly a wet blanket, but gives off a very cautious and experienced balance to Nomi and the first years' enthusiasm. He's mindful of burnout, tempers their expectations, and I expect he'll be the series' emergency safety net, stepping in when the team or Nomi really needs it, but otherwise giving them room to grow.

Just came in to say that Naoki Urasawa is God.

[Ryllharu]

Just came in to say that Naoki Urasawa is God.

No villain written by any author will ever approach the evil that is Choko. Ever. I've never been more mad at a fictional character.

That's why I'm glad this series isn't even trying. The girls are admiration type of rivals, or just honest, prideful hotheads.

[Ryllharu]

Episode 5


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Another consistently fun episode, though the running gag with Shiratori screwing up literally everything she does is starting to wear a little thin.

What this series really excels at is giving the spotlight a little at a time to the rather large cast. Not "battle of the week rival" type stuff where you see some backstory and then never see them ever again after they're defeated, but rather progressively building out the entire team, their coaches, and a few featured national rivals of theirs.

I was surprised to see the two girls from Kunogi return so quickly, but they're even more amusing off the field. It gives off a sense that the girls on both the Warabis and the other teams are actual human beings, and not just on-field robots with some stupid unique skill like a lot of sports series. The Kunogi star turns out to be a real love-obsessed weirdo, and their upcoming star happily finds an excuse to play on the same team with Nozomi.

The captain had her little moment spelling the whole thing out. Even legends for them like Nomi turn out to be regular real people.

I do find it funny that the girls are more focused on getting new kits to replace the tacky ones Nomi bought with her horrible taste. They have the 1st and 3rd years both working that problem, with only the 2nd years trying to solve the play field issue.

[Ryllharu]

Episode 6


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Yes, it's still funny. They cut some corners on the animation budget this episode, though I'm not particularly upset. I assume they're saving it up for the bigger games.

Enjoying that some of the girls are hotheads on the field.

[neflight86]

...oooooh, fine. You talked me into giving it another shot. The girls were cute in a kids kind of way, I like the descriptions you're giving, and I tend to enjoy sports shows more than I should (I'm watching the Kabbadi show for goodness sakes).

[Ryllharu]

Episode 7:

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Basically just this: