The evolution of Ewe! Tonbo and LiA jogs my memory a bit Ginga and kick off!! (though it had an additional exclamation mark). They’re all excellent sports activities collection about youth sports activities, which have been roundly ignored by virtually each English-language channel besides this one. Instances in anime have definitely modified since 2012 – to look at Loopy one needed to anticipate fansubs which have been typically fairly late, Ooi Tonbo! is streaming (even when it is Amazon Prime). But I see a little bit of a group right here – small however dedicated – forming round it.
This present is not nearly as good as Ginga and kick off!! however that is an especially excessive bar. It really works as each a sports activities collection and a personality drama, nearly as good sports activities anime normally does. And over the previous few episodes, some robust questions have been requested. On the coronary heart of that is the dilemma of rural Japan: the need to maintain group alive conflicting with the need to offer your kids the very best alternatives to reach life. Locations like Hinoshima (technically a fictional location, however no completely different on this regard than numerous real-life places) merely cannot try this, both when it comes to schooling or jobs (or potential companions for that matter). The battle right here is dramatized for impact, however solely in scale and ease, not in essence.
I do not see this being a easy black and white affair the place, for instance, Igaiga is unsuitable and Tonbo is correct. There are two sides to it, nuance in abundance. Leaving apart the matter of golf itself (only for a second), one can solely admire Tonbo for her loyalty to her adopted ancestral residence. It’s also possible to consider that she takes it to an unhealthy excessive. She is so turned towards the bigger world that she even refuses to go away the island briefly – for instance for a college journey or, as Igaiga suggests, to play on an actual (18-hole) golf course. Her household from that world rejected her – not simply her grandfather, however the entire world embraced her. Tonbo’s emotions are utterly comprehensible, however that does not essentially make them wholesome.
That is why when Igaiga asks Gon-ji if he needs Tonbo to drop out of highschool (or golf) and keep on the island, the outdated man says, “I do not know” – and he means it. It isn’t a straightforward query to reply. After which us Doing in spite of everything have golf. And right here Igaiga is definitely proper that what Tonbo is enjoying will not be actually golf. Strain is not simply the crucible that creates nice golfers; it is the aspect that basically makes the sport enjoyable. There are not any penalties to something Tonbo does. As she says, she’ll hit one other ball at any second. No stress. However that is not a sport, that is only a lark.
The draw back? In a single phrase (nicely, two) “so what?”. There’s nothing unsuitable with a lark – most individuals (a lot much less kids) want extra of a lark of their lives. Does Tonbo occur to be a genius and does the equation change at that time? Once more, a really difficult query. Igaiga loves watching Tonbo work her instinctive magic on the course. However as somebody who loves golf, he needs to see what she will be able to turn out to be – and share the enjoyment of Tonbo with the golf world. And as somebody who comes to like Tonbo as a mentor determine (and her as a proxy for his son, sadly), he needs her to grab the chance her present presents.
Igaiga’s first makes an attempt to assist Tonbo perceive the character of monitor stress are fairly disastrous – and will have been much more disastrous had he not at the least managed to hit the water vertically as a substitute of together with his stomach (or again) flop. He’s the fish out of water right here, the outsider. Igaiga is aware of nothing about black flies (buffalo mosquitoes) or gnarled, inedible large eels. He is enjoying on Tonbo’s turf, and his makes an attempt to govern her invariably hit the partitions of her youthful certainty of goal and goal. joie de vivre. If he fails to get her to play an away match within the outdoors world, he must deliver the skin world to her.
And that appears to occur as we see Igaiga board a ferry to the mainland. He isn’t abandoning Tonbo or Hinoshima, that a lot is obvious (although she thinks that may be a part of his plan). If he goes alone, it should imply he takes one thing (or somebody) with him that he thinks will change Tonbo’s mind-set. This develops right into a battle of wits and wills between Igaiga and Tonbo, and the truth that they aren’t enemies, however buddies who care deeply about one another solely makes that battle that rather more fascinating.
