Birdie Wing -Golf Girls' Story-

Episodes 14-16

“Golf has changed. It's no longer about mafia turf wars, virtual reality, or Gunpla. It's an endless series of proxy tournaments fought by bastard children and 48-inch drivers. Golf—and its consumption of life—has become a well-oiled machine. Golf has changed. ID-tagged golfers carrying ID-tagged golf clubs use ID-tagged golf balls with Pac-Man printed on them. Golf nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Golf genetic control. Golf information control. Golf emotion control. Golf battlefield control. Golf has changed. The age of the Blue Bullet has become the age of the Rainbow Bullet—all in the name of killing people…in golf. She who controls the fairway controls history. Golf…has changed.”

-paraphrased from Solid Snake's introduction to Metal Golf—er, Gear Solid 4

Birdie Wing -Golf Girls' Story- is back! And despite my dramatic choice of opening quotation, the best thing about the second season is how little its tone and spirit have changed. In many ways, it feels like it never left—a feeling informed by how the story picks up without so much as a recap before the series' madcap momentum sends us tumbling into twist after twist. The trio of episodes covering the tournament arc's climax represents pure, undiluted golf girl mayhem. The balls fly high, and the emotions run even higher.

It's so tempting to dig into literally every scene, because the show is so good at slathering layers of delicious camp, tantalizing melodrama, and bizarre romanticism over its many morsels of competitive golf. Every week, I'm impressed by how deftly the writing seems to constantly accelerate, like a narrative optical illusion. Consider the way that these three episodes alone start in the middle of a routine (by this show's standards) doubles match and end with the sound and fury of two generations of links legends hopelessly entwined in a struggle for power, glory, and redemption. It's legitimately fantastic writing! Yōsuke Kuroda has a brain the size of a neutron star, and it's spinning as fast as one too.

The biggest story in these back nine has been the deep dive into Eve's and Aoi's legacies—a dive precipitated by Eve golfing so hard that it jostled the repressed memories back into her brain. Actually, let me talk about that scene in depth before I move on because it encompasses a lot of the series' hard-to-pin-down charm. First of all, the Orange-Rainbow Bullet evolution works in the context of the series as a sports anime. Stronger foes push Eve to take more risks and become a stronger athlete herself. That's standard, but that's not enough for Birdie Wing's insatiable thirst for nonsense. That thirst is the show's foundation, and that's why it works so tirelessly to transmute golf from your grandpa's sleep aid into the single most insane incarnation of competitive sports ever. Golf becomes the axis on which the world rotates. You can golf hard enough to save your adoptive family. You can golf hard enough to cure amnesia. You can golf hard enough to die.

And if golf is so important, it must shape not only your outsides but your insides as well. Thus, in an appropriately bizarre way, it feels right for Birdie Wing to explore golf as both a dynastic and a genetic force (I didn't riff on Metal Gear Solid for nothing. It's also extremely funny for the show to do so, and that is most important. For instance, by the end of episode 14, I was all but certain that Coach Amuro was actually Aoi's father (he shouts her first name!), so I was howling when he showed her a new swing that just so happened to perfectly suit her body. It's beyond bald-faced, and that's why it's so fun to watch. On the sadder end of the spectrum, Aoi seems to have inherited his golf-induced congenital disease too, which is tragic, but also darkly hilarious. Moreover, this is another facet of Birdie Wing's offbeat genius. I wouldn't consider a sport that can be played in a belt and polo shirt to be the most physically demanding activity, but this anime fixes that by introducing a debilitating illness that seems to only affect golfers.

Let's look on the bright side, however: now we know that Eve and Aoi can kiss incest-free! The two of them being long-lost sisters would have been too conventional for the likes of Birdie Wing, so I'm not surprised, but I am glad nonetheless to see how tangled their connection truly is. Beyond the yuri possibilities, I'm also happy they got these revelations out of the way so quickly, because it frees up the rest of the narrative to get that much more interesting. I really liked this week's flashback, which fleshed out Seira's character and history the most. In her, we see a timeline where Aoi and/or Eve might have been ripped away from the sport and people they loved. I don't expect Birdie Wing to become an explicitly feminist text or anything, but since the subtitle is “Golf Girls' Story,” it'd be neat for the ultimate resolution to involve escaping the suffocating paternalism of the Amawashi patriarch. Short of that, I'm also fine with Seira shoveling coal into the melodrama engine by deporting Eve all the way back to Nafrece.

Since we're about two-thirds of the way through the series now, we're approaching the logical lowest point for these characters. This is where we'd expect to see the most friction between Aoi and Eve, and sure enough, it looks like they will be separated just as they're starting to grapple with the truth of their parentage and the future of their relationship. You might find this frustrating, but look at it this way: we have the rest of the season for things to get even juicier. Eve's going back into golf mafia territory (featuring the return of Vipère, my beloved). Seira is brainwashing Aoi like another mom in another Gundam series airing this season. Golf Char has a new protégé. The next leg of this wild golf cart ride is right around the bend, and we're taking this corner at full speed.

And yes, I will continue with the same episode-scoring gimmick.

Episode 14 Rating: Birdie

Episode 15 Rating: Birdie

Episode 16 Rating: Eagle

Cumulative Score: -19

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.