SK8 the Infinity

SK∞ is your generic sports anime where there are your 2 main characters who thoroughly enjoy a specific sport which in this case is skateboarding. The anime starts with the main character Reki who is a skateboarding geek, he pretty much lives and breathes skateboarding. The other main character Langa is introduced to him who seems to be a mystery. Langa has a past of snowboarding and is looking to move on from snowboarding after some unfortunate events. The groundwork was set for a great take on the sports genre but how wrong that was to believe.

1 | Reki and Langa
The friendship of Reki and Langa was a bright spot of SK∞. From seeing Reki teaching Langa how to skate and him being ecstatic about Langa progressing to both of them loving skateboarding was such a joy. Once Reki introduced S and beefing to Langa we got to finally see how talented Langa actually was. The way he raced was so elegant and made him look like he was meant to be skateboarding. It was so wholesome to see Reki wholeheartly support him with all his heart. There obviously was some complications with the friendship due to certain events which I will talk about later onwards but their friendship was definitely wholesome and only wanted to skate together. Once all their complications were fixed it was such a joy to see them skating together so happily.

2 | Adam
The main antagonist Adam was introuced half way through the series as this superior skater who created S and beefs. Not many had seen him but the ones who have talked highly about his skating ability and about his reckless nature to find his "eve". If I was to rate him out of 10 as a character it would be a 2. His obessive nature and his reckless tactics made him an unpleasing character to watch. He was willing to risk skaters lives just to find someone who can match him as he was bored of everyone else. The implications he brought was in fact just annoying and felt unneeded, he influenced Langa to wanting to skate with him more which ruined Langa's friendship with Reki. When Joe and Cherry talked about Adam in a unpleasant manner and both of them wanting to beat him in a beef just goes to show how bad of a person he was. I understand that the creator of S and beef's should be superior to others but to go so far that he's willingly injuring people and truly ending skater's enjoyment of skating is just wrong and doesn't push a good narrative. Nonetheless Adam was a poor character which only led to the downfall of the plot.

3 | Plot
The plot was honestly a letdown. After the incident Langa had with Adam the plot just lost all purpose. The bright spot was gone after all this and to fix all this felt forced and ingenuine. I originally enjoyed the friendship of Reki and Langa but it felt like they moved away from this and wanted to focus more on the tournament Adam was running to find his "eve". I believe the plot could have been so much better with the inclusion of Reki but sadly he was pretty much excluded for the most part. I understand that his ability was obviously worst than everyone else but he was the one who loved skating the most. They had a big opportunity to include the one person who truly loves skateboarding so much but yet they went with a different route which felt unpleasant to me. I did enjoy the beefs on their own since we got to see everyone's strengths in a 1 on 1 even though some outcomes I do not agree with but just to push their narrative it made sense. I just wished Reki could have been included to express his love for the sport and make S are enjoyable place rather than people risking their lives just to find purpose.

In conclusion SK∞ is your generic sports anime with a variety of good characters but without a solid plot to fully enhance the characters which what made the series enjoyable at some aspects. This series could have been so much more for what was given to us but if you are more focused on the characters than the plot you will still enjoy SK∞. Personally I can't look past the plot and Adam so I cannot rate this highly but I do understand if people are willing to look past that with focusing on Reki, Langa, Cherry, Joe and Miya as they were all amazing characters. Also shoutout to Shadow I do feel bad for what happened at the end for him :((.