A viewer's final impression of a series can depend heavily on their initial expectations of it. As the saying goes, "expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed". I went into Harukana Receive expecting nothing but what was promised on the cover, and I came away with everything I wanted, and a little bit more, too.
Does this series stand out amongst the many other fanservice/sports anime out there? Not really. But there's something beautiful about an anime that does what it sets out to do in the best way possible, without trying too hard to be more than what it really is and potentially sending the plot in a cringe-worthy direction. If you want a quaint, heart-warming, sight-for-sore-eyes sports story with no pointless frills or bells and whistles attached, then I would say this is the one for you.
Premise (3/5): As with most sports anime, there's legitimately nothing in the setting that viewers might consider anything approaching complicated. There are no branching subplots to keep track of. The story follows a very linear, bottom-to-top, coming-of-age progression that doesn't try to throw you for a loop and introduce twists and turns for the sake of artificial complexity. Some people might find that off-putting, but considering that 99% of the show's total budget probably went into the audiovisuals, you might expect the anime to simply follow the yellow brick road, never trying to get off the beaten track. And, to its credit, that works perfectly well.
The anime is set in the idyllic environs of Okinawa, with a few flashes to mainland Japan and the USA here and there. It's the perfect location for beach volleyball, and nothing about the school, the home setting, or the venues of the various beach volleyball tournaments suggests otherwise. Simple, yet effective.
Characters (4/5): It's difficult to find a sports anime that doesn't have at least one obnoxious character, usually a rival, spoiling the show by being as horrible to the protagonists as humanely possible. Thankfully, Harukana Receive, perhaps due to its more easygoing nature, doesn't seem to have such a problem (with the possible exception of Sunagawa Mai, the arrogant midget who Haruka and Kanata face in their first ever official match, though she also becomes a lot more bearable later on).
None of the characters are all that multi-faceted in terms of personality, though they compensate for this lack of depth with a focus on figurative growth. Each of them has a set of interconnected personal issues that they seek to overcome - Kanata, for example, starts off with uncertainty about her height, which leads into her broken promise with her childhood friend, which leads into concerns about her style of play, and so on and so forth. What was of particular interest was the way in which the beach volleyball club interacted during the climax, when they were pitted against each other in the finals of the preliminaries. There was a lot of bittersweetness both in victory and in defeat, something which spoke to the unseen bonds formed between the five girls in a subtle yet deeply touching manner.
Ultimately, the moral of the story is, as always, the triumph of friendship and willpower over the obstacles one faces. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Audiovisuals (5/5): A show that is promoted chiefly on the basis of its fanservice can hardly expect not to have at least a decent amount of effort expended towards that regard. Yet Harukana Receive goes above and beyond the call of duty - its background art is of such high quality that it almost steals the show from the "main" attraction. The animation is decent, with a little clunkiness here and there, but nothing that takes away from the general feeling and smoothness of the action. The eye-candy is good - though, in all honesty, it's a little bit restrained for an anime that's purely about babes in swimsuits doing sporty things. But I can't complain as long as what's already there is done well, which it is.
The soundtrack, a thoroughly thematic beach- and summer-styled repertoire of music, is something of a hidden gem, and one that I'd actually like to have a more in-depth listen to if the chance arrives. It's never so overpowering that the drama feels overblown, but it always manages to hum along underneath the surface, setting the tone for the tension that accompanies it, and fading away during the quieter and more relaxed moments. The OP and ED are catchy and fun to watch, and set the scene well for the rest of the episode.
Execution (4/5): The bread and butter of any sports anime is, as aforementioned, the development of its characters. This often takes the form of flashbacks, which, if overdone, can feel corny and annoying, taking away from what's expected to be a tense or touching moment. There are many flashbacks in Harukana Receive, a necessity given that the relationships between the characters are unexpectedly storied; nevertheless, very rarely do any of them feel overly out-of-place or in-your-face. They are serenaded in at relatively optimal times, some of them repeating segments of previous flashbacks so as to provide further clarification regarding a previously unexplained plot point.
Harukana Receive puts a lot of disparate and volatile pieces together in a satisfyingly straightforward and stable way. Each individual facet of the anime has the potential to ruin it completely - as an example, fanservice can be tiresome if it's too ubiquitous, even if fanservice is the whole point of the anime to begin with - but that fortunately doesn't occur. It's nowhere near close to being eye-opening or inspiring in any sense, but Harukana Receive is the ideal anime to watch on a calm Friday night with a beer and a pizza by your side, a setting which might be especially familiar to many given recent circumstances. It's feel-good, it's exciting, and it's touching. Above all, it's a lot of fun.
