Birdie Wing: Golf Girls` Story

[Ryllharu]

Second season on its way for Winter 22/23!
(edit: Yeah, don't watch the Season 2 promo. It shows a lot. Too much.)


Eve's definitely going to get stabbed someday.

I wasn't sure if the peaceful Japanese school tournaments could keep up the level of engagement that the Nafrece mafia arc did, but so far it has! They're starting to inject the interpersonal drama and ambitions into the series. It's also interesting that they've kept Eve's identity from the audience, but pros recognize who her mentor was immediately on seeing her. Someone out there knows who she is for sure, not just her legendary mentor.

Honestly, this became one of, if not my favorite shows of the season, by being one of the absolute dumbest. It feels like anime from decades ago. The dialogue, the pacing, the building of tension over generally low-stakes stuff is a welcome change from series that rely on edginess or grimmdark to get there. The whole room assignment teasing and joke-flirting felt like an anime from the late 90s or early 2000s and I really enjoyed it. Eve acts and feels like a shonen heroine and Aoi feels like a shoujo heroine.

The ED is really beautiful too.

[David75]

So Aoi's Mother wants her to win a grand chelem, talk about ambitions for your offspring !

Aoi be like: who's that girl who wants to steal my father from me !
Girl: I am his daughter better than you are !

haha

We have very little data on Aoi's father, except he was a number 2 in the USA. Not much on Leo, Eve's mentor.

Also, probably a mislead, but Eve feels like Aoi's hidden sister when Aoi's mother looks so much like an older Eve.
And there's Eve fluent japanese.
We'll eventually get to know how some couples decided to protect there daughters....

Edit:
Something fun came to mind: this feels like Initial D character setup.
Keisuke was the track pilot, having theory flowing in his veins, applying that to street racing.
Takumi was a pure natural only knowing outdoor/street racing.
Fun trivia: at some point we get very detail panels of one of Takumi's girlfriend and her golf career. But the author never pushed that idea. Not easy to mesh with the street racing main story.

Edit 2: Scrambling and up&downs
I was a bit annoyed at Aoi's bunker shot for multiple reasons.
Scene wise: animators do not have the budget/time/knowledge.
So they show us a pluged ball in a step bunker wall blocking green/flag direction and a bunker lip.
Then Aoi comes to the ball and it feels like she's on flat sand for her shot.
Then everyone is "nice out" but the ball hits the lip like it happens most of the time with a pluged ball in a steep bunker wall and an overhanging lip.

I know it's hard to draw a player's body trying to adapt to a steep bunker wall and even more difficult to animate that swing. But they could have done it another way: show us Aoi from behind the flag, That way you animate only about shoulder high and the club, a lot easier and you still get the action.

Nice out is dumb here, because you do not have the time to speak before it touches the lip, because it's such a bad shot... And in fact you know it as soon as the ball lifts up... it's way too low, so instead your face shows it might not make it, since you know golf.

For the story it just shows these girls are monsters, but fragile ones if they can't scramble better.
Golf with long drives, long second shots finding the easy putt zone or even a short wedge for the same zone is boring golf for the audience. PGA in a nusthell...
Instead the golf audience wants tricky shots that do well, because it shows how good a player really is.

For team Aoi/Eve, it should be: one is very long and aggressive and the other gets out of tricky shots when needed. Both have to be good in both cases. And I think that's where the win is against that perfect stats girl.

[Ryllharu]

For the story it just shows these girls are monsters, but fragile ones if they can't scramble better.
Golf with long drives, long second shots finding the easy putt zone or even a short wedge for the same zone is boring golf for the audience. PGA in a nusthell...
Instead the golf audience wants tricky shots that do well, because it shows how good a player really is.

For team Aoi/Eve, it should be: one is very long and aggressive and the other gets out of tricky shots when needed. Both have to be good in both cases. And I think that's where the win is against that perfect stats girl.

It sort of feels like how the series handles that to me. Aoi/Eve have played 2-3 teams now, as have most of the others, but they usually only show us a representative hole or two to show how they're doing. They rest are presumed to be pretty standard birdie holes (except when they're telling us Eve got an Eagle).

It's a sharp contrast to the mafia matches where they showed us nearly every hole, because they were always sudden death.

[Ryllharu]

Eps 14 (start of 2nd cour)

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Just when I thought this series can't get any more incredible with it's overly dramatic bullshit (I mean that in a good way), it succeeds with a searing comeback with reveals, mental strain of super-abilities, and Aoi suffering from anemia due to a yuri deficiency.

[David75]

I admitt I had troubles getting back into that show until I unpluged my brains...
Animation was a bit choppy and low budget, it didn't help.
Then I just chilled out: sports shonen spirit for my favorite activity, I'm in !

The only thing I'd like is better ball physics for landing, roll and that impressive 280y drive. But then I remember: low budget sports shonen spirit.

What I liked though is the scene right after that long drive is that Eve felt tall and very well built. I don't know if they did it on purpose but it felt right.

Details again: it felt like the hole was huge, way too big compared to the ball. At their level of play, that would make the game far too easy.

Now the show in itself. Well the zone is a concept that applies to golf, but I'm not sure it's about maxing out your power output and precision. It helps as fluid, fast and precise motion is easier when in the zone. But for golf I'd say the most important part is course management and steel nerves regardless of what happens.

For Eve, we probably discussed that last cour but she might well be Aoi's sister, or half sister. Now we just need to witness what bullshit they come up with to explain why she had that life.
Let's think something fun: Initial D train of thoughts... We have a by the book/rules top golfer and a backstreet underworld top golfer elevating their sport.

[neflight86]

Its back! I missed my overly serious golf.

Animation didn't feel any worse than last season, and I had no complaints about that, though there are not many full motion shots on the whole now that you mention it. I suspect that's just the direction hiding that fact from me (and it worked really well).

They still have the story beats and tension of shounen sports down pat. Gimme more.

Aiming for the flag with a sniper rifle gun motif... talk about elevating the derp. Chef's kiss.

[Ryllharu]

Aiming for the flag with a sniper rifle gun motif... talk about elevating the derp. Chef's kiss.

Another less than subtle reference back to Madlax.

[neflight86]

15

This was so schloky and heavy handed I assume it was all intentional. Birdie wing has gone full soap-opera cheese.

Weird how they made a big deal out of the orange shot just to ignore it completely with an Aoi powerup.

They also did Himekawa dirty. She never even had an opportunity to be a proper antagonist to overcome; two mid tournament power ups just jobbed her hard. Strange and unsatisfying, but it looks like the story is going to try to steer into more drama aspects now. I hope we don't lose sight of the spectacle of rainbow golfing in all its forms!

[Ryllharu]

I don't think they've ignored the Orange shot. But they have shown the two variants that are legendary.

Amuro's (and now Aoi's) golf swing is apparently cursed. It's part of what destroyed Amuro's ability to continue playing golf. Seira was extremely concerned seeing Aoi use the shots, because she may destroy herself, possibly even faster than Amuro did because it is coupled with her already showing signs of the anemia (due to her lack of yuri attention from Eve??).

Eve on the other hand, showed the perfected swing from Kazuhiko that represents the best golf in the entire world. It's Eve's normal rainbow bullets that are cursed golf she learned from Char (Leo Millafoden). The true rainbow shots are perfect golf that can even defeat Leo. The effects of the Orange bullet (or where Red bullet destroyed Rose Aleon's cyborg arm from the strain last season) are proof that they're incomplete.

Himekawa is getting done dirty. I get the impression they're not done or will be back later because they didn't really get to show off at all. Aoi and Eve are better and going to bigger things, or at least Aoi will because Eve can't go Pro. She'll be killed by the mafia if she does!

[neflight86]

16-17

Stupid. Contrived. Melodramatic. Needlessly oblique. Endlessly posturing. Perversely entertaining.

This has gone from soap opera to fan fiction dumb writing without batting an eye, and for that I have to respect the hustle. Turns out everyone was involved with everyone else, and there's even more golf mafias with family ties to Eve. Make it stop... but no rush.

[David75]

Somehow it's so bad, but done right, it feels good.

[Ryllharu]

Somehow it's so bad, but done right, it feels good.

Yeah, this is a series that I enjoy because it is so badly over the top. The melodrama is funny because it is taken completely serious in-universe, but presented in a way that shows how silly it is.

[neflight86]

Yeah, and I have to assume it is intentional, which is its own genius of making schlock entertaining.

[Ryllharu]

Eps 19

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Aoi got her power-up, but I still don't think she has a chance to beat Eve.

Kazuhiko correctly taught Eve that 'Golf is a game you play against yourself.' But it doesn't appear that he or Amuro taught the same thing to Aoi.

Eve has always subconsciously followed that advice, even before she got her memory back. She dismissed everything external, all the distractions, all the cheating, gets angry about the personal drama and then shoves it into one of her rainbow bullets rather than getting hung up on it, etc. She just golfs, and that utter confidence is what Leo taught her can be used on her opponents. But the defenses she built are all from Kazuhiko.

Aoi is way too emotionally unstable. She has perfect golf when she's ignoring everything and having fun, but she can't keep from getting distracted.

Also...Amuro's disease is real and genetically dominant. But the plot benefit is that the symptoms vary wildly, so Aoi's anemia may be the only symptom she gets, at least for a long while. Instead of the debilitating damage that has happened to Amuro over time.

It's also really weird now that the club president is still romantically entangled with Amuro now that we've found out his actual love is Seira.

[Ryllharu]

Eps 20

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"I'm glad I got certified to be a weatherwoman..."

Incredible.

[neflight86]

Just caught up. How dare they try to make this tragic as well as ironically serious? As contrived as ever, but I'm in for it.

[Ryllharu]

Sadly ended a bit on the underwhelming side.

I still enjoyed it from start to finish, but there were some real plot and planning bungles in S2.

[neflight86]

Agreed. The first cour was making the dough, but the second baked it in an oven without letting the preheat finish first. Lopsided and slightly doughy. The pace picked up too much and focus shifted to the arms race between Eve and Aoi so much that the antagonists didn't get any chances to shine or be interesting foils. Too many went from 'I'm gonna win' to 'So... I lost' within the same episode and matches felt like more of a formality.

I liked the soap opera drama, but it fizzled out and nothing interesting was done with it narratively, which fed into the repetitive power ups and jobbing.

I respect that the ending wrapped things up and Even didn't win the British open before time heals all wounds, legal and otherwise. Eve is such an unlikable character - pure bravado - that I was rooting against her by the end and that might have played into some matches being uninteresting, if mercifully short.

In short, this is a good, simplistic take on old school shounen battle anime; but a terrible sports anime.