Note: This was originally put up as a Deviantart journal entry on October 22nd of 2016, in order to explain references to events that were relevant at the time.

The following Journal entry will contain spoilers for Keijo!!!!!!!! Episode three.

Well yay me, I am actually motivated to keep writing this series. Not only that, but I am actually excited to do so that I am trying to think of if there are any other anime this season that I would like to commentate. I was initially planning on covering Yuri on Ice, but then I realized that the Yuri in the title was not the type of Yuri I was thinking of so to hell with it. Now that I think about it though, I never covered the OVA for Wolf Girl and Black Prince, and Sailor Moon Crystal has had a shit ton of episodes since the last piece I did on it, so maybe i should just finish those up.

But for now, we have Keijo!!!!!!!!, with exactly eight exclamation points. The previous episode ended with a short four on one match between Nozomi’s team and their teacher Nagisa. The events of the match ended with Nozomi managing to accidentally use a special technique against Nagisa that is, in true anime fashion, far beyond what a beginner should be capable of. Of course it still doesn’t work because Nagisa dodged it and all it did was tear off her team mate’s clothes Senran Kagura style, and ended with her hurting herself and collapsing.

It turns out that the technique Nozomi used is one known as the vacuum butt cannon (and praise be to the flying spaghetti monster that it isn’t toilet humor based). It turns out that just about everyone who has ever used the technique has gone on to become a very high ranking Keijo player and have had very successful careers. Unfortunately, the catch is that the technique causes severe damage to one’s hips and has sent every player who used it professionally into an early retirement, so she forbids Nozomi from using it.

But of course, Nozomi wants to use it anyway because she wants to be the best and will do anything to achieve that goal, even if it is dangerous to her well being. Now it isn’t too unbelievable that some people would be this determined and would go to ridiculous lengths to achieve their goal, but there are a few other problems that make this feel like kind of a forced plot point. The first of these is that, as Nagisa said, there ARE other techniques than the vacuum butt cannon that Nozomi has not learned yet because she just started training. This is quite literally the first technique that she hears about and she already decides that she just has to use it. Secondly, where was her “never give up” attitude when she wanted to compete in the Olympics? Part of her backstory was that she originally wanted to be in the Olympics and that Keijo is her second choice, so why is it that she doesn’t become determined until now?

As a result of Nozomi pleading to let Nagisa use the technique, she says Nozomi can use it if she wears the UTM swimsuit at all times. Unfortunately, even by the standards of a school where people need to train using their ass, the UTM suit is fucking absurd. It is basically a suit that constantly pulls every muscle in your body in different directions, meaning that if you lose focus for just one second, your limbs are stretched into the awkward positions shown in the pic above. In real life, a suit like this would have probably killed whoever wore it, most likely because Keijo is a sport that takes place above water, and if you fall into it, there is no way you could possibly stay afloat since the suit makes it difficult to even walk. Additionally, Nozomi wears this thing at night to, meaning it must have also caused some serious sleep deprivation. Conveniently though, Nozomi does not have nearly as much trouble getting used to the suit as she should since she stops having trouble with it when someone gives her the advice of “just relax.”

How the hell does “just relax” help you with this suit, when the suit is designed to prevent you from relaxing? Even doing a typical training montage that shows time passing until she is strong enough to move normally would have made more sense. Instead she just manages to get used to it in a few days. Well I suppose I have made my point now, so now to continue with the plot.

Anyway it is also notable that this is the episode where Nozomi and her friends meet Rin and Mio, both of whom are heavily implied to be lesbians. This leads to a yuri moment where Rin demonstrates her speed by groping Non, to which she has an… interesting reaction.

Aside from the yuri shenanigans, it also indicates that Rin is a formidable rival and that Sayaka wants to be able to beat her. Unfortunately, she is basically the Joey Wheeler of this series and is likely only going to serve the role of Nozomi’s sidekick who is stronger than everyone except for those who are important to the plot, or at least that is how I predict it is going. In this analogy, Rin is obviously Seto Kaiba who only has her eye on Nozomi and does not consider Sayaka a threat. As such, Sayaka does a bunch of training in order to get stronger, which of course seems very weak when compared to what Nozomi is doing with that suit.

The episode then ends on a cliffhanger before the class placement match that gives the students a chance to move up to a higher class. As for my overall thoughts, I can say that I noticed the storyline holding my interest more than before, yet at the same time, I’m noticing more plot holes and inconsistencies. The thing with this series is that I can somewhat understand why it wouldn’t appeal to everyone given the wacky premise and heavy emphasis on fanservice. At the same time, however, it has yet to do anything that I really dislike.

So far it seems like a fairly average anime as far as I’m concerned, although it could be possible that it has a twist that makes it stand out later, but I’m also rather skeptical about this one. Either way, I’m still interested in what happens next.

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