Tribe Nine

Episode 5

Episode 5, “What I Wanted to See” is the second part of last week's tribal throwdown in Tokyo's Adachi Ward. When we left our intrepid, but broken, Minato Tribe crew, they were incredibly down and out without a single silver lining in their cloudy skies. Worse, this bout of XB just kind of sucked for the crew: that is until they met Aoyama Kazuki, Kamiya's pinch hitter for the crew and a guy who keeps calling them monkeys which like… very fraught turn of phrase, my dude, given the darker-skinned kid on the team, but I digress.

The bulk of this episode is much of the same: it's the back half of the seven-inning XB game against the bike-riding, porn-loving (I say this because they distract the Adachi Tribe with porn early on, so it's relevant and topical) Extreme Baseball playin' Adachi Tribe. Chaotic good newcomer Kazuki seems like he could be an interesting parallel to Shun, but in practice, he sticks out as too serious an addition to an aimlessly fun world where you can defy gravity and do extreme baseball stunts. Tribe Nine should only be about fun, given its wacky premise.

In case you're still wondering, episode 5 is not better than episode 4. In fact, It's kind of spectacular how unexciting this episode was. Kazuki is, perhaps, the most annoying member of the cast so far; sure, he's smart, but his intelligence simply makes him come off as a bit of a buttmunch instead of being cool in the way that, say, the kids from The Promised Neverland are smart 'n cool.

Tribe Nine is still a perfectly fine way to spend thirty of your finite minutes on Earth; in fact, you're guaranteed to have a good time. But you're also guaranteed to get whiplash as the show carries you to high heights, only to plunge you into the depths of mediocrity, all in the same episode. Heck, sometimes in a series of five minutes, which is a feat if there ever was one. This week, you'll spend your finite half hour with a Taiga-centric episode that is unfortunately an overall flop, and I think, ironically, it's due to something Kazuki calls out: Minato Tribe kinda sucks without Kamiya Shun, at least plot-wise.

Then again, episode 5 gives me enough to think we're about to get some character development to make these ragtag kiddos a bit more colorful. Don't get me wrong: I'm talking about crumbs of crumbs of crumbs of potential here, but for some reason, I just can't find it in myself to fully give up on Tribe Nine. I like the character designs, and I like what I think it's trying to do—I just don't know if Tribe Nine itself knows it as well.

It's hard not to compare this to Fall 2020's Akudama Drive, which has a lot of the same aesthetic flavor, at least in terms of its setting (one of Japan's largest city/regions), music (both rely on synths and intensely delicious electronic and hip-hop sounds to shape the rhythm of the night and the city), and stylization. But by this point of their respective plots, Akudama Drive was arching towards one of the most memorable sequences in all of 2020s anime, whereas Tribe Nine is arching towards the Minato Tribe receiving baked goods from the Adachi Tribe (and maybe reforming into a powerful team for Shun's surprise comeback, which I'm still clinging to). All of that makes episode 5 of Tribe Nine a lackluster entry with very little that's got me genuinely engaged.

Wait, I forgot that there's a very good gag where a character pours gasoline on a ball to make a Fire Ball™, only to immediately burn his hand because obviously, a baseball on fire would immediately cause pain. It made me laugh out loud, and I suppose that's as good of a thought as any to leave off this week's review.

Rating:

Tribe Nine is currently streaming on Funimation.

Mercedez is a JP-EN translation and localization Editor & Proofreader/QA, pop culture critic, and a journalist who, when not writing for ANN, writes for Anime Feminist, where she's a staff editor. She's also a frequent cohost on the Anime Feminist Podcast, Chatty AF. This season, she's reflecting on her youth with Akebi's Sailor Uniform. When she's not writing and reviewing, you can find her on her Twitter or on her Instagram where she's always up to something.