Birdie Wing -Golf Girls' Story-

Episode 22

Believe it or not, sometimes I doubt Birdie Wing. It's always good, but is it (as my Twitter display name continues to indicate) AOTY-two-years-in-a-row good? Is my infatuation genuine, or did I get caught up in my own hype? Just this past week, I questioned whether Eve's match against Aisha and Golf Char really needed a second episode. Eve had already made her big breakthrough, so why delay her reunion with Aoi even further? Naturally, I was a fool to ever harbor any of these uncertainties, and leave it to Birdie Wing to blow them away with a shotgun blast full of rainbow buckshot aimed squarely at my dumb face. I feel like I've called a lot of moments peak Birdie Wing, but that's what happens when the narrative keeps aiming higher without missing its target. This right here is the new peak, and I can't wait to see the series surpass it.

I had two main quibbles with the previous episode: Aisha didn't feel as complete a character as Eve's prior foes, and Ichina felt sidelined in a tournament whose complications should have played into the relationship between her and Eve. This episode addresses both points. Aisha has some nice dialogue with Golf Char that clarifies their reciprocal trust, and her apt description of Eve as a “wounded beast” gets at the heart of our heroine's development as both a character and golfer this week. Ichina is a big factor in that too. She tells Eve to play it safe, and Eve listens to her. The girl we saw in the premiere would not have taken anyone's advice, let alone advice specifically directing her to be less reckless. Now, she's respecting her caddy and playing strategically. Even when Eve decides to whip out her burst shot again, I like to think that Ichina's impassioned speech inspired Eve's heart to hold her body together for just a little longer.

And that's the truly huge evolution this week: Eve's mortality. While her action-hero approach to athleticism carried her this far, her physical limits finally catch up and force one terrible decision after another onto her. Obviously, this hits differently than it would in a sports anime concerned with reality, where injuries probably would have been explored earlier and with more sincerity. Rather, this creates yet another parallel with Aoi's story, as both girls must deal with their own unique golf ailment in pursuit of their ultimate golf matchup. It's a vehicle for more melodrama, and that's exactly what we want out of Birdie Wing. Eve might have escaped the underworld, but she hasn't stopped gambling with her life.

Thankfully, the direr the situation becomes, the funnier Birdie Wing gets. For example, I like the visual of Eve showing up with mummy arms and legs after a night of intense acupuncture therapy. It's an understated herald of the tremendously unhinged apotheoses (not a typo, since Birdie Wing is a rare work of art capable of shattering literary rules and sustaining more than one apotheosis per episode) to come. The first (and arguably best) of which sees Eve hitting her ball so hard that her driver wills itself to shatter in order to spare its owner's bones. I didn't exaggerate any part of that sentence. It's right there in the text. I shrieked like a delighted banshee. I also appreciate the visual callback to Rose breaking her glass arm, which makes me suspect that Eve might not leave this show with all of her limbs intact. And she might think that's a fair bargain.

Like Eve, the presentation really steps up to the tee to drive the heights of this episode as far as possible too. There's an especially noticeable art style shift within the second part when the camera focuses on Eve's game face. Her eyes widen, her eyebrows plunge sharply towards her nose, and her mouth peels back into an animalistic snarl. She almost resembles a hannya mask from Noh theater, and the demonic implications are certainly appropriate given her otherworldly level of determination. The slo-mo POV cut from the head of her driver, right before its noble sacrifice, is a technically impressive showcase worthy of the moment. And the thumbnail I chose for this review is, to me, the defining image of this episode. The line of her body flows along the skyward trajectory of Over the Rainbow, but her anatomy also contorts itself to reflect the physical toll taken. I'd love to know who drew and/or supervised those cuts because they went above and beyond. Much like Eve's golf ball.

Her secret weapon, Over the Rainbow, ties a pretty, seven-colored thematic bow on Golf Char's role in the plot. Whereas the opening scene showed that he and Kazuhiko couldn't push each other to the extent either of them wanted, Golf Char's belief in the golfers to come proves fruitful a decade down the line. I'll actually do him the respect of calling him Leo in this instance, because here, to his credit, he least resembles his terminally messy spiritual predecessor. And like all good golf swings, Eve's triumph owes itself to both the windup and follow-through. The build-up of tension beforehand, both in this episode and in the grander narrative, infuses this prismatic spectacle with the emotional weight of a neutron star. The aftermath, including her victory lap, heartfelt words of gratitude, and tragic collapse on the grass, basks in the magnitude (and cost) of this accomplishment. And punctuating the center of all of this is Eve's primal scream of pain and triumph. The wounded beast claws apart the teeth of the beartrap and escapes. Only time will tell if she'll be able to limp into the quivering arms of her soulmate.

On that final note, allow me to indulge in a tangent: Birdie Wing couldn't have picked a more perfectly rainbow-saturated episode of kick-off Pride. What's truly appropriate is not just the color scheme, but the ferocity behind it. Eve's golf is an act of violence and defiance. She'll put the entire planet on a tee and whack a black-hole-in-one into Sagittarius A* if it means she can compete and be with Aoi. They shouldn't have to fight for this, but they have fought, and they will continue to fight because it's that important to them. That's what queer Pride is all about. So go out there and celebrate, and if anyone tries to stop you, kill them—in golf!

Rating: Hole-In-One

Cumulative Score: -31

Birdie Wing -Golf Girls' Story- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Steve is on Twitter while it lasts. He still disrespects golf. You can also catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.

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Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.