Sometimes I pick up a show because I’m hoping for something mild to only pay half attention to, and sometimes that backfires because it turns out the show is really good. That’s what happened here.

Loosely based on the real-life Waseda University all-male cheer team Shockers, (and how loosely I don’t know, maybe just that Cheer Boys!! is also about an all-male university team) this was a sweet and colorful story about, in the timeless tradition of sports stories, a group of people coming together to Do a Sport With Friendship.

One thing I really enjoyed was that the characters are all in college (university), so they’re a bit older than the usual sorts shows I’ve seen, and that gives the characters a great reason to be independent of their families.

Our main character is Haru, college freshman and shy boy from a judo family with a judo sister and who really doesn’t want to do judo anymore. So when his best friend and fellow judo teammate Kazu suggests they both quit and start a cheerleading club, Haru is…well, not on board with the second half of that idea.

But he comes around. Like we knew he would, because it’s the idea behind the entire show.

First order of business: recruiting additional members so they can actually perform a routine. First recruit: this dork:

Wataru was my favorite character: a serious guy who likes to quote famous lines and makes up for his initial lack of skill with dedication and an inability to feel embarrassed. He ended up with some great lines.

The fact that they end up with recruits, put on a decent show at a school festival, and end up with more recruits and a goal of a regional competition isn’t a surprise–it would be surprising if none of that happened. Instead, the tension in the story comes mainly from personality clashes and individual worries.

Haru doesn’t face pushback from his parents, but his sister seems to resent him for giving up judo. Club members have differing levels of commitment, and irritate each other. Another cheer team gets offended that a bunch of newbies decided they wanted to cheer, because you can’t have a sports story without someone judging you for, heaven forbid, not dedicating every breathe and thought in your entire life to Sport.

oh no, people in my sport have more enthusiasm than talent

I did get irritated in the middle when one of the inter-group personality clashes was getting out of hand. Luckily it only lasted for a few episodes but one member of the team was not only annoyed with, well, everyone else for not taking it as seriously as he did, but he also started lecturing others and making the team an unpleasant place to be.

I just wanted to be like, Dude, there is a way to bring up your issues and criticizing others to their face, when you are not a leader and haven’t taken this to leadership, is not it.

(It resolves, because this is a sports anime about the Power of Teamworkfriendship, but ugh.)

But overall, it was a very fun show. I loved the character interactions–there are some great, funny lines, and it really did sounds like a bunch of college friends talking and joking a lot. Plus, even in animated form, cheer and gymnastics is fun to watch!

Verdict

English dub? Yes!

Visuals: Light and pretty! I was surprised when I started the first episode and found that it has a more shoujo style, but it’s very nice to watch.

Worth watching? Yes! It’s fun just to watch the characters interact, and the routines, but it’s also fun to watch a sports show that has fairly low stakes (this is an extracurricular club, no one’s life depends on them winning) and wraps up nicely (12 episodes).