Keijo!!!!!!!! (Season One)
Nozomi Kaminashi has set her sights on becoming a star of the latest competitive sport in Japan – Keijo. Before that can happen, however, she’ll need to graduate from one of the two Keijo schools. Is she up to the challenge?
Keijo!!!!!!!! (Season One)
What did you watch?
I first saw Keijo!!!!!!!! back in 2018. It was my first sports anime but I had seen plenty of sports movies from Hollywood so I knew what to expect… At least, that was what I thought. I don’t know if anything can prepare you for Keijo. Maybe not even this review, however, if you are the slightest bit curious, I would definitely recommend you give it a chance. It’s much more than boobs and bums and girls competing in swimwear. I mean that is a part of it. It’s impossible to deny that, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a very well put together story and if you’ve been following my episode reviews over the last four weeks, I think you’ll have seen what I’m talking about. Anyhow, let’s dive into the full-season review!
What happened?
Nozomi Kaminashi is an accomplished gymnast, however, that’s not enough for her any more. She wants something that will set her soul on fire. She needs something that will push her body to the limits. That something is Keijo. It’s the latest competitive sport to take off in Japan in which girls attempt to push one another off a floating island and into the pool. That might sound easy, however, they can only use their butts and boobs to do so. In her attempt to get into the sport, Nozomi took the entrance exam for Setouchi Keijo Academy, one of only two Keijo academies in Japan. She got in but soon discovered that she wasn’t expected to keep at it after being assigned to the dorm room that houses the misfits. One of her roommates is Sayaka Miyata, a judo prodigy turned Keijo player, and two girls from the countryside, Non Toyoguchi and Kazane Aoba. None of them are expected to last.
However, as they get to know one another, they discover that their experiences from outside of Keijo give them a view that the seasoned players haven’t considered. Before long, they all climb up the ranks within the school and soon find themselves as a part of the twelve-girl Elite Class that will compete with Suruga Keijo Academy in the East-West War, the Keijo equivalent of the Oxford versus Cambridge boat race. If they do well, they could cement their positions as professional Keijo players, however, Setouchi has never won in the entire history of the sport. This year, their coaches are feeling surprisingly optimistic. Can Nozomi and the others give them the edge the school has needed to finally get one up over their bitter rivals?
What did you think?
Just the fact that I decided to come back after six years and finally rewatch and review this series should tell you more than enough, but I’m going to say it anyway. I love this series. It’s my first sports anime and possibly my favourite. There have been some that I might consider on the same level such as Harukana Receive and Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story, but as my first it does hold a special place in my heart. As far as sports anime go, however, this series delivers an incredible amount of character growth and some of the most entertaining matches ever. It plays everything deadly serious except when it wants to parody battle shounen and other similarly over-the-top action shows. The characters are a lot of fun and they play a huge part in pulling you in and making you care. I mean, who doesn’t love an underdog story?
What was your favourite moment?
This might sound like a huge cop-out, but the final four episodes that focused on the East-West War were out of this world. Each match was excellent in its own way, delivering heartfelt moments, amazing comebacks, bitter disappointment, and a whole host of insanely ridiculous moves. I still can’t stop laughing about Sayaka’s father finally accepting her decision to compete in Keijo after seeing her win the first game by tossing her opponent with her erect nipple. Kudos for being so progressive and all that, but that was an unexpected outcome.
In the second match, we got to see Kazane’s incredible organisational skills as she completely turned the tables on Sugura. We also got to see her using her ability – Gates of Bootylon which makes a mockery of Gilgamesh’s Gates of Babylon attack in the Fate series where he can summon any weapon. Well, Kazane can call forth the skills and technique of any Keijo player that she’s analyzed with her hand. That’s right, it was a wall of glowing butts that she could pick and choose from. However, even that couldn’t take away from the intensity of the match.
And finally, the third match took place over two episodes and delivered a match that shook the heavens. As you might expect from a sports anime, the protagonist, Nozomi emerged victorious in an explosive and mindblowing affair that had split personalities, Attack on Titan parodies, boob flashing, and flashing boobs. It was epic. The entire series was epic.
What was your least favourite moment?
The series ends with the girls graduating from Setouchi and being assigned to the regional branches to begin their professional careers. Nozomi and Sayaka have been assigned to the same one since they are from the same area and arrive to register. However, rather than being seen as just a couple of rookies, they are revered as the start of something new as the girls who beat Sugura for the first time. We got to see glimpses of all sorts of crazy characters and then that’s that. There’s no second season nothing. How can they just leave that there? We need more!
Who was your favourite character?
It has to be Nozomi, however, I would be out of line if I didn’t mention several other girls. In fact, most of the Elite Class ended up being a lot of fun, which was surprising after the initial rivalries set them off against one another. Girls like Rin and Kotone started out feeling like potential villains but ended up being great friends to Nozomi and the others. I’ll admit that I had a soft spot for Mio Kusaki from the beginning which she firmly cemented by being more than a little crazy.
It’s worth noting that while Nozomi was the star of the show, Sayaka, Kazane, and Non were very much a part of everything that went on and their friendship was a large part of what pushed them on and got them to where they ended up – a part of the elite players of Setouchi Keijo Academy. That made them all incredibly endearing. I want them to win. I wanted them to succeed and that made it that much harder when they didn’t. I really felt sorry for Kazane as she lost to Mio in the Class-Change Race and then was part of the second match in the East-West War and lost again. She deserved better, but then we wouldn’t have gotten the incredible final match where Nozomi stole the show. There were so many great characters that it almost feels wrong to single anyone out.
Who was your least favourite character?
All right, so there is one person that needs to be singled out. That is the coach of the Sugura Keijo Academy, Ayako Sakashiro. We first met her as she gave a press conference and basically slammed Setouchi, calling out the ineptitude of their coaches, and the poor quality of their players. In short, she lacked class and that made her look like a huge asshole. Even when they were losing, her insane levels of confidence seemed to convince her that her team were going to win regardless of what she was seeing. I hated her. Even her “redemption” arc was a pile of garbage where she adopted Maya because she had a strong butt attack. Yeah, I have no time for her.
Would you like some more?
Of course! Where is my second season? I’d love to see Nozomi and Sayaka attempting to move up the professional rankings, especially as the matches would just get more and more crazy. The parody potential is unlimited. There really is no ceiling for what this series could achieve if someone had the balls to let it go wild. There is a manga that I will be looking into at some point in the future because I need to see where they end up.
What have you learned?
This series showed that it’s possible to take two established genres and smash them together like a couple of rock-hard butts. If you respect the tropes of both then there’s no reason that it can’t succeed. One of the strengths of this show was that it knew when to take things seriously and when to go nuts. And surprisingly, it wasn’t always when you would expect it. I loved that everything outside of the matches was fairly serious, even the bizarre butt and boob-based workouts were done with the utmost sincerity. And then, when we got to the matches, they threw the most outrageous moves at us but did so without even cracking a smile. I really appreciated the dry deadpan humour that this show used to deliver some of the best lines ever. This must have been so much fun to make.
Series Information
| English Title | Keijo!!!!!!!! |
| Japanese Title | Keijo!!!!!!!! |
| Genres | Combat Sports, Ecchi, Sports |
| Demographic | Shounen |
Anime
Love this series, good review Lynn! gates of bootlyon is my fav, along with titty hypnosis xDD
Thanks. I love it too. Just wish we had more. There’s so many more things it could parody now!