Yowamushi Pedal: Grande Road

The Anime started well with the first season giving a glimpse into cycling. It baffles how uninteressting and simply bad this season was. Not only was there basicly no character development, no plot twists that seemed in any way interesting nor did the anime feature anything I would like to see in a story. The Animation and Sound were almost the same as the first season so thats fine, but this season felt like a Dragonball Z copy on bicycles. Maybe 50% or even more of an episode are two or more characters screaming each others name, supported by cut ins of them pedaling or leaning overtheir bikes. Any other interaction between the characters were surface level deep, meaning it had no impact on the story or the relationships. Even worse is the aspect of expertise. When you look at the first Season you sometimes get some information about cycling and sports in general. These information are sometimes even relevant to the story (see training camp in season one and other scenarios). But in this season there are almost no such infos. All in all this anime was something i looked forward to but which dissapointed me in the end. If I had to find one positive aspect about it the solid animation and sound design would come to mind. My verdict: If you want uninteressting screaming and very simple entertainment without deep story or knowledge about cycling give it a go but don't expect much from it.

Tirelessly peddling, constantly looking forward, and triumphing over great mental and emotional fatigue to reach one’s dreams is what Onoda Sakamichi accomplished, and all while having the greatest time of his life. Yowamushi Pedal in its entirety is not about attaining selfish desires, instead it portrays the struggle to reach what seems unattainable, a dream, and using a road racer (aka a fancy bicycle) as a metaphor of always looking ahead in life masterfully ties it all together. Blindly going into a sports anime with no prior knowledge about the sport and coming out with a strong passion and excitement towards it is something thatmakes this genre of anime fascinating and valuable. Yowamushi Pedal has completely changed my perception towards road racing, as now I perceive it to be a very exhilarating and respectable sport. It is the portrayal of road racing and the blood, sweat, and tears that each rider experiences throughout their journey that captivated and immersed me in the story line. However, the sport alone is not the anime’s only selling point, but it is the determination and courage that the athletes relentlessly endure in order to accomplish their dreams, and to help their teammates accomplish the same, that motivates me to enthusiastically pursue my own dreams without looking back. The story in season two begins in the middle of the final three day long road racing inter-high tournament and continues right where season one ended. The story is fairly simple, to win this major race in order to fulfill the dreams of each team member, which is to become stronger and become completely enthralled in what they love the most—road racing. But this simple premise really is something that I love about this anime. The straightforwardness of the overall story line allows the audience to focus on the race and the adversity that each character faces, not only for the athletes on the main team (Sohuku) but also for several rival teams. What each character maintains throughout the anime is their charisma as each individual is memorable and has unique traits, which is a common method used in action and sport orientated anime. The story is very thrilling, inclusive, inspiring and the balance between humour and seriousness allowed me to enjoy both the anime and the sport of road racing. The characters are not particularly developed but this does not detract from the overall attraction towards these characters. The development of one character is not important in Yowamushi Pedal compared to the development of the team, as road racing is portrayed to be mainly a team sport, therefore the growth of certain characters only add to strengthening the team as a whole. The main character, Onoda, is a very inspiring individual as he is first introduced in season one as one of us, an anime loving high otaku, but becomes quickly fascinated by the road racing team at his high school. The fact that this athlete is a typical otaku who has no interest in sports prior to discovering road racing is quite shocking because most sports anime revolves around a strong and masculine protagonist. On the other side of the spectrum we have the main antagonist of the anime, Midousuji, who is literally portrayed to be a snake riding a road racer…I honestly don’t understand how the producers came up with such a vile character, but to be honest it was pretty hilarious watching him frustrate the other riders and probably the entire audience. Who doesn't love bright and bold animation to go along an inspirational and amusing sports anime! The bright colours used to individualize each character and team with the constant vivid scenery really brought the fresh and comforting feel of summer. The use of intense colour beautifully reflected the characters attributes and aura throughout the second half of the tournament and the style of animation was very straightforward and direct like the plot. It was obvious that some parts of the animation did not entirely allow the audience to completely enjoy certain scenes due to a lack of detail, however as the producers were limited with a strict budget I couldn't ask for more. I was never once disappointed by the atheistic of this anime as it allowed me to feel the excitement and joy that Onoda felt while pushing forward towards his dream. The soundtrack was very uplifting and exciting which complimented the intensity of the sport and the emotions of the characters. In addition, the main OST of the anime really was well constructed to build the sense of determination and hope in the emotions of the characters, and allows the audience to develop a strong connection to this particular soundtrack. Yowamushi Pedal for the most part follows the typical story line of any sports anime, but what makes this anime promising is its ability to inspire any individual to keep looking forward and pedal harder, because a dream can become reality for anyone.

The thing that makes is anime the characters especially with sports anime you need well developed characters so that the viewers actually care for them. Yowapedal does such a great job at this by giving so many characters back stories throughout the series showing why they act a certain way. It'll even have you feeling sympathy for characters you hate. There's nothing special about the animation or music it's just what you'd expect from any regular good sports series. The only problem with the music would probably be that the same tracks were repeated a lot. The animation did have a lot of still frames butnot to where it's annoying. The only thing I found annoying were the flashbacks at dramatic parts. The CGI wasn't annoying at all even though I personally can't stand to watch CGI. This anime leaves you feeling compete just make sure you watch both seasons lol season 1 didn't really end at all. I lost count of how many times I was off the edge of my seat watching this roller coaster. I found myself smiling, crying, and screaming at my tv. This is a series where you'll be constantly clicking the next episode wanting to know what happens next. I highly recommend this if you love sports anime you'll definitely enjoy yowapedal. Even if you hate sports anime I'd recommend this to get you into the genre.

I wanted to like this anime more but unfortunately its to much a show about cycling and more an ANIME about cycling. It does the jojo thing where it slows down the world so much and gives us 10 minutes of inner monolouge in what are supposed to be 10 real world seconds, also overdramatizes certain aspects of racing, during the race in the show, there were a few characters that needed to be left behind and every time it was treated in a similar manner to when a shonen protag's friends all make noble sacrifices so that he doesn't have to fight the goonsand can save his energy for the main antagonist. In the context of fighting this makes sense, but in races people can only go as fast and as long as their bodies will allow, if the fastest person on the team is ahead of the pack the second fastest being faster than some dude on the other team ain't gonna have a bearing on whether or not the dude is gonna be able to catch up lol. ALso the show kinda acted like people not being able to keep up near the end had any significance at all when it doesn't. In a real world race without all the anime fuckery if they're near the head of the pack they can probably rest for 10 minutes and pedal on minimum speed to complete the race before the cutoff lol. Since they aren't judged as teams either its like..... dude who tf cares? Your ace came in 1st or second, you aren't scored as a team, you aren't injured, you can just rest for a couple of minutes and even if everyone passes you you'll still complete the race before the cutoff just to say you did lol. Its also kinda annoying how it does the thing where everyone needs to have an anime superpower. One guy has a high vo2 max, one guy is really aerodynamic, one guy eats enough his glycogen is never deplete, one has abs. Its true that there are different types of atheletes within the sport whose different physical attributes give them different advantages, but the reality is everyone competing at a high level in cycling has a high vo2 max, almost all of them are going to do at least a modest amount of resistance training, they're all going to make efforts to be more aerodynamic, the vast majority of riders are going to slam back those nasty gels or sugarbars, but not all of these advantages are equal and the show kinda acts like they're similar in power level, you pick a "style" and depending on how hard you work on it you have equal potential as someone else to be the best. I already know people are going to say things like "stop whining its an ANIME, its NOT SUPPOSED TO BE REALISTIC" but *shurg* art imitates life and since this show isn't meant to be wildly unrealsitic in the same manner as a show about yokai or a shonen anime with crazy power levels like hunter x hunter i think it makes sense not to enjoy those aspects of it and to criticise the show for it, i'm not saying the show is bad, just that some of its anime tropes are overplayed and i think perhaps not appropriate for its specific genre, its okay to criticise aspects of a show you enjoy or even not to like things that other people like.