Oh sure, I actually favored that. Many, if not most, seasons have one or two exhibits that basically shock on a optimistic observe, but it surely’s at all times a reduction if you get that first one. Even when there is no such thing as a assure that the enchantment will stand. Not one of the large possums have premiered but, however Ewe! Tonbo was undoubtedly the little boy’s greatest but. An especially partaking and entertaining premiere that appealed to each the anime and sports activities followers in me (and I am fairly rattling intense about each).
Ewe! Tonbo has 42 volumes of manga, however is predictably nameless in English. No licensing, no scanlations and no streamer for the anime so far as I can inform. As such, it is going to be nearly utterly ignored in English, which is the case with about 90% of sports activities collection. It is really within the Japanese weekly Golf abstract (so far as I do know, the one manga to ever have that honor) as a substitute of a manga journal. That is most likely a sign that it is taking the golf aspect fairly severely – no Chicken wing most likely stupidity right here. For a golf fan who predicted that the decades-long golf anime drought would at some point quickly finish with a flood, that is a significant feather within the cap.
The collection is about on a very distant island within the Tokara chain, a distant archipelago of a dozen islands off the coast of Kagoshima. A person named Igurashi Kazuyoshi (Touchi Hiroki) arrives on the island to use for a job on the improvement middle. There to greet him is Tonbo Ooi (Hayashi Rika), a younger lady with an extra of enthusiasm and an octopus. Finally, the grandmother who runs the native minshuku (and cares for the orphan Tonbo, together with the previous fisherman who adopted her) arrives to take him to city, and is sort of shocked by the quantity of baggage he’s dragging with him (together with a set golf golf equipment). ).
Lastly, they arrive on the minshuku within the automotive of the director of the event middle (and museum curator and director of the observatory) (Kenji Yamauchi), the place Igarashi – who everybody now calls ‘Igaiga’ due to Tonbo – hits the futons with a three-iron. Igaiga sees a golf theme on the island – a follow inexperienced in a wierd place, a follow web on the improvement middle – and it shortly turns into clear that he has a connection to the sport in his previous. The “wounds” he tells Tonbo that have been the explanation he got here to the island are clearly associated to golf ultimately.
We have definitely seen this ‘large metropolis with the sticks’ theme rather a lot in animanga, however when executed nicely it may be a really profitable formulation – and thus far it’s right here. These are actually the sticks. Just one merchandising machine (the common Japanese mountaintop has extra), a store that’s solely open three hours a day (and that is if the proprietor feels prefer it). And essentially the most poignant is a faculty system wherein Tonbo is the one highschool pupil (there are fifteen major faculty college students) and no highschool. Meaning all the youngsters will go away the island after highschool, and lots of won’t ever transfer again (or skip highschool altogether). That is a significant cause why rural communities throughout Japan are slowly dying out.
Nevertheless, there’s one large peculiarity about this island. It has a golf course, and it is a factor of magnificence – a two- or three-hole seaside format, good for the terrain and climate circumstances – and a inhabitants that appears fairly keen on the game. I do not know the way sensible that’s, but it surely’s a enjoyable conceit. And not one of the residents is crazier concerning the sport than Tonbo, who lives and breathes it nearly each spare second. She solely has one membership, a three-iron, however that does not dampen her enthusiasm in any respect. She invitations Igaiga to run by means of the jungle to the course and as soon as he will get over his shock, they proceed enjoying a gap.
The purpose is: three-irons are really one of many hardest golf equipment to hit nicely. And the annals of golf legend are stuffed with tales about wild youth who discovered methods to hit each shot with one membership and thereby grew to become geniuses. There’s some fact in that – all of the methods you should be taught to hit each shot (together with putts, presumably) with the identical membership – particularly a protracted iron – can provide you unbelievable hand motion and creativeness (which might serve you nicely if you get the possibility to make use of an entire vary of golf equipment). Witness the unbelievable shot Tonbo makes to flee the Scottish-style high-face bunker, dramatically opening the clubface and lengthening her stance impossibly far (all good approach). And he or she additionally needed to be taught to play the wind skillfully.
As a former (?) golf skilled, Igaiga is clearly fascinated by this genki lady who is outwardly a pure expertise. And I am fascinated by the entire premise. There’s rather a lot right here that basically works for me: the golf side, the give attention to distant island life, Igaiga’s troubled previous and its adaptation to this very large change of location. This premiere actually clicked for me – it was loads of enjoyable and flowed naturally from thread to string. I assume Ewe! Tonbo will likely be a one-cour manga business except I hear in any other case, however hey, I will take that if the remainder is nearly as good as this primary episode.
