I’ll be honest: I pick this up based solely on the image (poster? key image? Surely there has to be a name for these things?) that Funimation used:

Let’s see, we’ve got 1) mention of gymnastics, 2) a bright and happy color scheme, 3) guy who looks like an adult, not creepy, 4) little girl, unsexualized, 5) random assortment of weird items.

So, the vibe I’m getting is “not serious but not wacky, with gymnastics.” And gymnastics is cool!

I’m a simple person, really.

We start off with Jotaro, in his late 20s, presumably past his prime as a pro gymnast, and with few recent wins compared to his glory days as “the gymnastics samurai” in 90s Olympics, the nickname coming from his ponytail hairstyle. With his career stagnating and a daughter to raise, he must make changes. While trying to work up the courage to tell his daughter (and biggest cheerleader) that he’s going to retire, they take a trip to Edo Wonderland and meet a character who changes everything.

This wasn’t your typical sports anime, though the gymnastics are featured and fun to watch. Jotaro has competitors, yes, but his main problem isn’t a rival, it’s having to change himself. And not just “work harder, take things seriously” as is normal in sports stories, but he essentially has to re-learn how to listen to people.

Jotaro was a nice, interesting protagonist. He’s not mean or dumb, but he tends to take things at face value and sometimes not even that, processing comments through the filter of what he’s already thinking about, and therefore missing things that aren’t metaphorically flashing neon signs in front of him.

And it’s not just played for laughs, it’s an actual weakness: he’s completely missed things his longtime coach has been trying to tell him, and it nearly leaves him gymless. He was emotionally supported by his wife, and when she died–a few years (I think?) before the series started–he didn’t notice that his young daughter started picking up some of those emotional responsibilities. So through the series, Jotaro has to learn to listen—actually listen—to his fellow adult professionals if he’s going to be a real competitor.

Don’t mistake this for a show about a manbaby or deadbeat dad, though. Jotaro struggles to balance home life and pro life, but a large part of the show is him realizing that the balance doesn’t just happen, and working to pay better attention to daughter Rei, so she doesn’t feel the need to act as an adult that she’s not. And he’s a caring and loving dad, not just a fun-loving bro.

There’s a theme through the series: whether in gymnastics or personal life, what has been happening is not sustainable, and needs to change. Not because what has been happening is horrible or bad, but because what has been happening is based on expectations, bodies, people, or conditions that have changed. If the characters don’t change in response, they’ll stagnate.

Jotaro isn’t the only focus of the series, however. His daughter Rei, and the ninja Leo they pick up from a historical theme park in episode 1 get a lot of the focus in the second half of the series. Both characters have their own issues and insecurities that show more as the series goes on: both have their own relationships with Jotaro, and their own emotional investment in his career that they partially use as a proxy for their more uncomfortable, personal issues.

The setting is 2002, and The Gymnastics Samurai won’t let you forget it, whether it’s the characters’ cell phones, or the ganguro bartender Ayu, a wonderful character about whom I would watch an entire series.

The show, while overall light, has some deep themes of attachments and relationships, how people see themselves and others, and how feeling other people’s expectations (or even what you think their expectations are) can affect you, even if you have a different relationship with the thing being expected.

Verdict

English Dub? Yes

Visuals: Very nice, modern and clean lines. CG models are used for some of the gymnastics routines, but they’re done fairly well.

Worth Watching? Yes. It’s not particularly realistic (ninja Leo is pursued by mysterious sunglasses-wearing professionals during several episodes for reasons that are explained later, but which you can generally accept as cartoon drama; the family owns a talking turquoise bird), but it was fun. And more than that, I enjoyed a sports show with an adult protagonist, and the growth the characters (but especially Jotaro) have in learning to change.