Aim for the Ace!

Coming from the 70’s, Aim for the Ace was one of the first of its genre. While other series have done similar things to what Ace did, Ace stands as still one of the most commendable sports anime out there: air tight progression, the still timeless interpersonal drama, memorable direction showcasing Dezaki’s trademark style— this anime does it all well with little to complain about (aside from the poor audio quality that aged like milk).

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The obvious, fundamental appeal for any sports anime is in its characters and their struggles rather than the sport itself. While being a fan of said sport can allow for easier engagement, the sport is usually never the draw, and this is certainly true with Aim for the Ace. In fact, Ace plays it very shallow in terms of trying to be in any way technical about tennis. So much so that I could easily imagine some hardcore tennis fans giving this show flack for not going far enough in its portrayal of the sport and relies too much on attitude being the deciding factor for outcomes (even though it certainly can be one of them realistically). And I am glad Aim for the Ace is more about Hiromi’s, the main character, growth rather than tennis because it would be hard to treat this anime seriously as some realistic depiction of the sport when players sometimes volley an opponent’s serve and continue play as if there’s totally nothing wrong with that.

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Ace is a story about its amateur protagonist making strides towards being the best, which even if that premise was as common back then as it was today, it is executed with few faults. The conclusion this show wants to reach is something you can already predict, but, you know what? You watch anime because it’s good, and not every anime has to be something new or different to be good.

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At first glance, Hiromi herself could be passed off as a throwaway sports protagonist, but I found she has much more going for her. Hiromi initially leads a content school life in where she’s perfectly happy only idolizing her tennis teammates from the sidelines. She’s fine with not sticking her neck out because she believes herself to have no skill. Hiromi is timid, socially awkward… largely an observer, with words never quite coming out the way she wants no matter how hard she tries to nail her practice conversations.

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This is why when the new “Onii-coach” Munakata is introduced for the first time and appoints her to varsity, Hiromi couldn’t make it any more clear that she wishes the coach didn’t bother and just left her alone everyday. His training sessions make her feel uncomfortable initially, but, as Hiromi soon realizes, that discomfort only serves to make her victories feel that much more sweeter.

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For a while in the first half, even though Hiromi is slowly building confidence, she frequently urges Coach Munakata to rescind his decision. Sure being on varsity has its perks: she’s able to close the distance between herself and Ochoufujin, her teammate she admires the most, but her peers are quick to distance themselves from Hiromi and talk shit about her behind her back. The already established hierarchy for the tennis team is shook due to Hiromi suddenly replacing one of her seniors on varsity who is also the leader of the pack of students ostracizing Hiromi.

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Hiromi feels just as alienated as her peers because she’s the kind of girl who’s most comfortable admiring from the backseat. Why did the coach choose her? What potential does she have? She didn’t join the tennis club to get good at tennis. She even purposefully tries to play the worst she can to get the coach to reconsider his choice.

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Hiromi for much of this season has to decide between staying in her comfy shell versus striving for something she doesn’t think she REALLY wants, until she realizes she was wrong about herself! She can achieve much more than she first thought. Through her slowly revealing capabilities and her Onii-coach’s strong faith in her to be able to do the impossible, she learns that, instead of being a boring bitch and watching other people earn victories, Hiromi can find new satisfaction in being the one to carve her own wins.

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Despite Hiromi displaying mad potential, I like how this anime makes clear the gap in technique between her and her varsity teammates. She is constantly shown having a rough time keeping up with coach’s grueling training. Sure she has what it takes, but she still has a long ways to go compared to Ochoufujin, until this anime ends on a point where those two are able to stand eye-to-eye to each other. Having an established goal gives reason to want to continue following Hiromi’s journey, and it’s hard for the viewer to not hold as much faith in Hiromi as her coach does.

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The development of Hiromi’s character was so gradual from the first to last episode, that I didn’t even fully grasp it until I thought about it much later. There’s never a moment you can pinpoint as the key moment where Hiromi all of the sudden becomes a better person. But by the finale, you can say without doubt that Hiromi has changed. She is proud of her own capabilities as a tennis player and stops for nobody should they get in the way of her goals, a frame of mind that contrasts greatly with the one that Hiromi possesses at the start where she more obsessed over her other teammates’ perception of her more so than whether or not she actually liked tennis.

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Hiromi’s progressive increase in her love for tennis, I just find so inspiring. “Know your limits” is a common phrase used to discipline others for well… doing something that results in consequences outside of their control, but the concept shouldn’t be used as a crutch to undermine your own capabilities and to ignore how complex you actually are. There’s nothing more boring than staying in your safe zone because nothing new is going to happen to you. Don’t simplify who you are as a person, assume that there’s more to you than you think you know because you are deeper than you know. Hiromi wouldn’t have known she had a knack for tennis all along if she stayed dead in the water and wasn’t moving. It was through the pushes from the people around her was she able to feel the satisfaction of evolving as a person, and anyone could benefit from that kind of enrichment— being open to expand your horizons to new perspective and aiming for heights one might think to be unattainable.

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Which is why I implore you to be intellectually open about this anime to give it a shot! Sure it’s decades old, but the length for this 26 episode anime compared to something like Ashita no Joe, another Osamu Dezaki classic, makes it more digestible. Most people haven’t seen Ace, which is understandable considering the gateway to Dezaki’s work through legal means is pretty thin despite him probably being one of anime’s most influential directors via experimenting with countless directing techniques that others in the industry would never have dreamed of attempting to utilize during the time. The treaded waters the show covers can hardly be seen as a fault when its executed with little error. Matches usually don’t last for more than one episode, there’s never a moment where the pacing slows because some character wears the idiot cap for too long, and, despite the limited scope of the production, Dezaki’s style permeates throughout Ace with distinct use of watercolor backgrounds, pastel colors, techniques to make the presentation more cinematic than what’s typical of anime. Aim for the Ace's robustness lends so much in keeping a story this old, with ideas that have and are being told time and time again, still feel so fresh almost 5 decades later.