Narenare -Cheer for you!-

Episodes 1-2

Between the proliferation of sports anime and the marketability of moe anime girls, I'm somewhat shocked that I haven't seen an anime about cheerleading until now. It feels like one of those combinations that makes too much sense not to be more common, but considering it took until 2016 for Sayo Yamamoto to bless the world with beautiful figure-skating boys in Yuri!!! on Ice, I suppose there have been weirder oversights in the industry. Still, if it took this long to stumble across a cheerleading anime in the wild, I'm glad it turned out to be this one because a lot of it feels promising so far.

For one thing, the show looks pretty fantastic. P.A. Works has a pretty good benchmark in quality regarding good-looking animation, and their originals, in particular, have rarely failed in that department. One of the hallmarks of a good sports anime is how awesome it can make said sport look, and all the gymnastics on display here look pretty great, with everything from Kanata's cartwheels to Suzuha's insane parkour skills doing a great job of showing off the appeal in seeing all those moves successfully pulled off. It also helps knowing P.A. Works has already finished the show ahead of its airing (something I wish could be more common in the anime industry), so there's every reason to believe it'll stay consistent in its presentation the whole way through.

The girls also seem like they could make for a good ensemble. Kanata makes for a pretty likable protagonist as she pushes to get back into the world of cheerleading. At the same time, Suzuha seems like she could be a pretty good foil for her, given her talent level in contrast to her quiet personality. I'm also interested in seeing how the show handles Megumi doing cheerleading while using a wheelchair since all the visuals in the opening seem to indicate that she won't fully recover from her injury before stepping back into the sport, so I'm eager to see how that plays out. Shion and Nodoka are a little trickier to get a read on so far, as we don't know too much about Nodoka yet, and most of what we've got for Shion involves some awkward tension between her and Suzuha and learning that she wants to be a singer-songwriter, which might play into their routines later on. Of course, the standout so far is Anna, whose desire to be an internet sensation and smooch every girl she meets (including doing so in front of a nun at a catholic school, which is the funniest thing in this show so far) has made her a delight so I hope the show has as much fun with her as possible.

The show also seems like it could have some solid dramatic chops, as while we don't know the whole story behind what happened yet, it is clear that Kanata had messed up during a cheerleading routine and left Megumi with her current injury. While Kanata still wants to do cheerleading with Megumi, it's clear that the incident has traumatized her and left her unable to complete a routine. While learning about Shion's desire to become a music artist helps to reinvigorate Kanata enough to participate in cheerleading tryouts in the second episode, she hasn't exactly gotten over her fears yet, and she might have a long way to go before she can get herself back on the team if she does at all. All in all, there's a lot about this show that has promise, and while it's hard to say how much it'll live up to all that, what we've seen so far gives me hope that this could come out as strong as P.A. Works' other dramas.

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Narenare -Cheer for you!- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.