What’s the show? Anima Yell! Episode 12.
So how’s this episode? It was predictably adorable, or adorably predictable or both!
One sounds a lot more positive than the other. Predictability in cute girl shows isn’t a bad thing. It means it’s familiar and comfortable, it can be a great feeling–as it was in this final episode. That said, this episode both simultaneously opened up the potential for future seasons as well as made it clear that they would be absolutely unnecessary all within the span of one scene, but I’ll get to that later.
Right. So what happens in this episode? So the girls participate in their first cheerleading tournament but not before the usually bright and energetic Kohane comes down with a bad came of nerves! She becomes suddenly self-conscious about slipping up and ruining everyone’s hardwork so much so that she gets caught up in a spiral of self-doubt and nervousness. Thankfully, she comes to the realisation that she has her friends around her to support her, not just her fellow cheer club members but all her friends and family supporting her from the stands. Unfortunately she only comes to this realisation half-way through their performance and so the lackluster first half of their cheer routine means they don’t make it to the second round of the competition.
Oh dear. It’s okay though, because Kohane rides the high of the second half of their routine and everything is fine.
And what about Hizume’s previous cheer squad, is the potential for drama that you thought might occur, occur? Not really, no. But it kind of doesn’t matter, there’s a confrontation between the previous group’s cheer leader and Hizume and she pretty much just apologises. But not in a way that feels forced or just trying to make everyone friendly friends for the sake of it. The lead cheer girl acknowledges that they had a genuine issue with how Hizume was back then, but that they went about fixing the issue in the wrong way but most of all she was just happy that Hizume’s found a place where she can be happy and a part of a team. It was a really nice scene.
And what was this about a scene that as you said: “simultaneously opened up the potential for future seasons as well as made it clear that they would be absolutely unnecessary”? Right, so there’s talk of future competitions and getting better and doing bigger and better cheer stunts and that’s interesting to me, like the competitive side of cheerleading was barely touched upon but what we did get in this episode was a nice change. It felt like a sports anime for the first time and that was a fun feeling to get from a CGDCT show. But they also mentioned that they had cheer requests for the basketball team (again) and a festival (again) and Uki’s brother’s soccer team (again). And as fun as those things were the first time through it just kind of brought home the point that there’s not a lot to do with this series if it’s going to stick to the club anime formula. This isn’t a complaint about the show we got, I’m more than happy with it, rather just that I’m fine with the episodes we got and unless it went full competitive cheer sports anime I don’t think I’d need a second season.
I guess that makes sense. Overall thoughts on the final episode? It’s not the best episode but it’s still as consistently entertaining as the majority of episodes and that’s what is important. Overall just a damn fun and wholesome time with a bunch of cute cheer girls, what more could you ask for? Well maybe more gay stuff… but still, lots of fun to be had!
Previous Anima Yell! Reviews:
The Cutest Sports Anime Ever? – Episode 1 Review
An Echoing Cheer – Episode 2 Review
Love Knows No Gender – Episode 3 Review
Fighting Form – Episode 4 Review
Food For Thought – Episode 5 Review
Something To Cheer About – Episode 6 Review
Piggy Bastard Does Not Dream Of Snacks – Episode 7 Review
Get Well Tsun – Episode 8 Review
Girls and Goals – Episode 9 Review
Drawing Closer – Episode 10 Review
Yuri On Nice – Episode 11 Review
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Anime QandA 
I thought they kind of overplayed Kohane’s anxiety in this episode. Not that it was out of place for sports anime, but that it was out of place for *this* anime, which is not a sports anime, it’s much more of a CGDCT club anime. And they’d also really expressly laid off of the anxiety having any effect on performance throughout the show, so that’s why it felt like it didn’t really belong here. But I did like how they got out of that mode. And I really liked that they didn’t pass the prelims. A 2-month-old, 5 person club, with 3 beginners, 1 veteran and 1 novice, that doesn’t do any significant stunts? And that has someone robot-walking through half the performance? They should have been in last place. It’s fine that they participated, but no, they shouldn’t have been competitive.
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I’m only referring to it as ‘sports’ anime because most websites do. I agree that the previous 11 episodes weren’t but this one certainly felt more like it.
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“Most websites” (and anime genres on reference websites are generally crowdsourced) are loathe to admit that a CGDCT slice of life club show is any good at all, so they’ll do whatever they can to call a show that they like something, anything, else, like sports or romance. And unfortunately, that perpetuates the elitist “slice of life is just boring” opinion, because they won’t let slice of life actually stick to anything they wouldn’t consider boring, even when it’s the most slice of life show ever.
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