Of course, Manaka decides to try something new after a day of embroidering. It becomes obvious what it is.
At the glimpse of the opening, we see the team Manaka and her friends are on facing off a girl’s ice hockey team from Canada. While Canada is supposed to be good at ice hockey, it seems that Japan managed to win. What surprises me is an idol performance, yes to the likes of the those Winning Lives after a race from Uma Musume. Yes, I wonder whose idea is this? It becomes obvious who soon.
Of course, there is more to that winning moment was we are back to where it started. Manaka came into the embroidering club room late. Manaka also has a younger sister, Ayaka Also in the club is Kaoruko and Mami. It’s obvious that Aya is colder than the laid back and cheerful Manaka.
After Kaoruko and Mami came over to Manaka’s and Ayaka’s house, they bathed and ate strawberries. I find it funny how Ayaka becomes worked up over Manaka eating all of them and eating them plain. Of course, Mana becomes upset up over Ayaka covering strawberries over condensed milk. Yep, they are complete opposites.
Of course, Manaka reveals the reason she is late. Yes, she is putting up a flyer on the bulletin. Yes, it’s an ice hockey team recruitment team from Nikko’s pro team, Dream Monkeys. Of course, Kaoruko wonders what it’s about. Eventually, Manaka and her friends decide to give it a try. After all, Manaka’s grandmother encouraging Mami to try new things.
As expected, we see the coach, Yoko being passionate about recruiting more members. I guess her passion to recruit female students and retain them hits a fever pitch that she scares the receptionists. I guess she has bad luck trying to retain those members. After all, she not only wants to have a skilled girls’ hockey team, but she also wants them to become idols and have victory performances.
From this, I wonder if she came up with this idea after watching an episode of Uma Musume. Then again, she is a big fan of idols in general. She is not hiding her intensions either from the warmup exercises she has the girls do.
Of course, after Yoko introduces herself to Manaka and her friends, there are two other girls. They are Riko and Naomi. Of course, Riko had Naomi tag along. I have a feeling that Riko is serious about the hockey thing and becomes suspicious of Yoko’s warm up exercises. It seems as if Yoko isn’t hiding the fact that she is also training the girls to become idols too. At least Manaka is having fun.
After the so called “warm-up” exercises, the girls put on the equipment and ready to go to the ice rink. There, Yoko teaches them the basics of ice hockey along with how to skate. Of course, the girls find out that moving the puck is harder than it looks. Not only that, skating with all that protective gear feels different. Yes, Manaka eventually screws up while passing the puck to Mami and hits it too hard. Thankfully, Mami manages to stop it.
In the end, it seems that the girls have a lot of fun. While Manaka and her friends head back home, the girls don’t know if they want to continue or not. Of course, Mami shares how much fun she had and willing to continue. As expected, Manaka agrees to continue. Of course, I wonder when the last member will finally appear on the team, who is probably more serious about the sport. I wonder how she will feel about those idol performances. We’ll see soon enough.
This is shaping up to be another fun girls’ sports anime with idol stuff like Uma Musume. Hopefully less of the latter and more of the former.
Definitely. I wonder if this is the start of the idol sports genre where we merge idols with sports. We’ll see. but this should be interesting.