All Out!!

Episode 5

After Jinko's loss against Keijo was followed by the promise of future victory, it's training camp time! All Out!! sticks to the sports anime formula like Sekizan sticks to his rugby guidebook. However, not every show has to reinvent its genre, and there's a reason why certain procedures found their way into the manual in the first place. To assess an entry's individual success, the question is "does it achieve what it aims for?" So far, All Out!! does. It doesn't shoot for the moon, but it's engaging enough to deliver a good time.

In the game against Keijo, we saw how Ōharano's personal skill wasn't enough to get his team past one drop goal. But it's not just Ōharano. All the "colorful characters" at Jinko rely on their own individual strengths – Iwa's height, Sekizan's stamina, Ebumi's speed – but none of them are able to see the bigger picture. Teamwork remains limited to the smallest scale, and the awareness of something being amiss will not help them grow beyond building up muscle mass and learning how to catch a ball with the right body parts.

Given some of these character designs, it's easy to forget that they're still (supposed to be) teenagers. Sekizan might have more than enough heart to supply his whole team, but he also has no more than a mere three years of experience under his rugby shorts. He inspires his mates, he pushes them (sometimes beyond reason), but he lacks the foresight only a seasoned adult coach can have. Most of all, he lacks what everyone at Jinko was barred from experiencing: real training. Sekizan and Hachiōji learned exclusively from their seniors before becoming team leaders themselves, basing their regimen around endless cycles of running, throwing, and tackling to hone individual physical fitness, simply because no one ever taught them how to be a team, let alone train one.

Enter Komori Shingo, former national player (naturally) bored by retirement (who isn't?), whose addition to the cast feels so wonderfully contrived that I'm not even beginning to wonder why no one at the school found it creepy that he's apparently been watching the team in secret for two weeks. Gion conveniently fell asleep, and his usual disrespect for the chain of command paid off. That's all there is to it. Komori is here in all his fan-wielding glory, oozing not-so-permanently-retired-martial-artist vibes, while not letting his disapproval get in the way of providing Jinko with the first real training they've ever had. Thanks to his previous stalking, he's already aware of all their shortcomings, sparing us the routine of a naturally gifted teacher who can deduce people's strengths by looking at the form of their biceps.

But it's not Komori who gets to shine the brightest. That honor goes to Sekizan. After being called out for his inefficiency as quasi coach, Sekizan accepts Komori's lecture as valid criticism, jumping at the chance to have someone take over a load that should never have been his to shoulder in the first place. He has always led his team by example, and his humility and eagerness to learn from someone else will certainly inspire those looking up to him. His relief and gratefulness are touching, as are his little sticky notes attesting to just how out of his depth he actually was (competently underscored by a sensitive piano piece). These boys are thirsting for someone to guide them, and despite their complaints, Sekizan is far from the only one to thoroughly enjoy Komori's boot camp. Even Ebumi is enthused – this might have been just the motivation he needed to start showing up for training. Ōharano, on the other hand, still needs some encouragement to grasp the concept that being a team is about complementing each other's strengths, not about competing for who's worked the hardest. Enforcing the image of carrying your team members on your back isn't rocket science for a sports anime, but watching Komori take the metaphor to a literal level is still fun and engaging.

There are too many stills for the training sequence to be truly captivating (and that CGI ball just looks oddly out of place), but the animation is effective enough to at least create the illusion of movement and keep me invested.

Rating: B-

All Out!! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.