[Anime Review] Ro-Kyu-Bu! & Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS
Ro-Kyu-Bu! just the name itself is cute! I actually don't really know what the significance of their name means though. Ro-Kyu could mean 6th Grade and of course the "Bu" probably means Club. 6th Grade Club? Meh... Doesn't have a really good ring to it. It could also mean Low-Queue Club or Mini Club like they all call it in the show. Mini Basketball Club. This show is about a girl named Minato Tomoka (Hanazawa Kana), who transferred into Keishin Academy. She has a love for basketball and wants to form a basketball club at her elementary school. She finds four adorable, and irreplaceable friends. Misawa Maho (Iguchi Yuka), Kashii Airi (Hidaka Rina), Nagatsuka Saki (Hikasa Youko), and Hakamada Hinata (Ogura Yui).
Even though these girls are all different, even in size, they somehow form a group and bond together to create the mini basketball club!
Tomoka, she is a girl with a gift. In Subaru's eyes, Tomoka looks like an angel sent down from heaven. He breathes in new life after seeing her play basketball. Because she is Subaru's hope, or angel, or whatever you would like to call it, he gives her the nickname, Shiny Gift, which means Flowers, that bloom in the rain.
Maho is a girl who is pretty energetic and a little bit aggressive. She sometimes likes things to be done her way, but as the series progresses, she also progresses. She no longer holds much of an aggression and loves basketball just like Tomoka. Subaru has nicknamed Maho, Fireworks!
Airi is a girl who is shy and asthmatic. She is also probably one of the tallest in her age bracket, at Keishin. However, over the course of the first series she gets over her trauma of being tall and is able to use her height to her advantage. By the second series, she becomes a role model for another student from Suzurudani Academy. Subaru has nicknamed Airi, Prismatic Bud, which means Two colors of seven buds.
Saki is the brains of the group. She is very smart and is able to see things through. She is also the one to come up with strategies if their first plan backfires. She is known to stop feuds and keep the group together. She is nicknamed Ice Age, which also means Snow Queen.
Last, but not least we have Hinata. She is the most adorable of the group. She's probably the tiniest in her age group. She is able to do a lot of things that most of the others can't do. She can move and not be seen by the other team because of her height. Unlike Airi, she's not traumatized or sad that she's shorter than her younger sister. She is nicknamed, Innocent Charm, but don't let those looks fool you!
The main male protagonist in this series is Hasegawa Subaru (Kaji Yuuki), who is a high school student. He is part of the high school's basketball club, but the club was suspended after the basketball club's captain was thought to have a scandal with the coach's underage daughter. A golden opportunity opens up for him when his aunt, Takamura Mihoshi (Itou Shizuka) who is a teacher at Keishin Academy, asks him to coach the elementary school girl's basketball team.
At first, he didn't want to take this seriously. I mean, who would want to coach a bunch of 11-12 Year-Old girls? *BUZZ* He is determined to not coach because he feels that he's not a good basketball player himself. However, when he sees Tomoko play with her teammates or by herself, he sort of sees himself in her. More perhaps, he sees what he could have. With a newfound confidence, he strives to make the Keishin Girls Basketball Club a club that won't be defeated by any other school!
The Ro-Kyu-Bu! Series ends with the Keishin Basketball Club going up against Suzuridani Academy's Basketball Club. However, the girls did not win, but they don't lose hope. They continue to strive for success with Subaru-san as their coach.
Let's now move forward to the second season! Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS
In the second season of Ro-Kyu-Bu!,the main cast returns to the scene. Tomoka, Maho, Saki, Airi, and Hinata are reunited with Subaru and reluctantly, Aoi (I don't like her!). However, in the second season, there is a new adversary. The 5th Grade Basketball Girls! Wait!? Can there be two different basketball clubs in one school? Non! The girls are pitted up against each other to see which one will win. If the 5th graders win, then the 6th graders can't be a club anymore? o_O To be more frank, the 5th graders, Balgeri Mimi (Kuno Misaki), Takenaka Tsubaki (Tsuda Minami) & Hiiragi (Suzaki Aya), Fujii Masami (Taneda Risa), and Hakamada Kagetsu (Seto Asami), challenge the 6th graders because technically they are rivals?
Mimi just wants to play against Tomoka again. She first meets Tomoka at Subaru's house when Subaru's dad comes home from Hawaii. Mimi is of french descendent.
Tsubaki & Hiiragi, also known as, TsubaHii are practically rivals with Maho. For some odd reason, they don't like Maho, and quite frankly, I haven't a clue why! >_<
Masami and Saki's families restaurants are practically right across the street from each other. Although Masami looked up to Saki before, now she views her as a rival in sports and in food!
Kagetsu, Hinata's younger sister, who is taller than um... well, almost as tall as Airi, probably just wanted to play a sport or something that her sister is in.
The fifth graders and the sixth graders have their match, and ultimately the sixth graders won. But that doesn't go well with the fifth graders, so they enlist help from Aoi. It still doesn't go well. However, by this time, there is the mini basketball tournament coming up, and the fifth graders now have a new rival to go against rather than the sixth graders. Ashihara Rena from Suzuridani Academy starts some trouble, and ends up causing TsubaHii to be really aggressive.
At the end of the series, the 5th and 6th graders team up, in order to compete in the official mini basketball tournament, and beat Suzuridani Academy. Even though things started out good, by the 3rd quarter Maho injures her ankle, while Rena gets fouled about three times already. The tables are turned and it seems that all hope is lost for Keishin Academy. However, the girls pull through to the end and even go into overtime. However, when Tomoka was about to shoot, they didn't make the time limit and the Keishin Academy lost the tournament.
Somehow, I couldn't have asked for a better ending for this series. The 5th and 6th graders have become friends. But now the 6th graders graduated and are now going to attend middle school. However, that isn't stopping them from playing basketball! They will continue to play and have Subaru-san has their coach.
At the very end of the episode (12), they show how Tomoka got her love for basketball. *wink* She saw a little Subaru playing basketball, and that's what happened! XD... If only they were able to say that in the series itself!