Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho

Information of Anime

Kaname Okimura is a student at Prefectoral Umineko Shougyou High (aka Umisho) & a member of the swimming club there.  He doesn't swim for the club, but coaches & times swimmers.  He has a fear of swimming when he was pulled down in the water by what he calls a mermaid when he was a child.  But the club is a laughing stock in the school with members that aren't really into swimming competition.  A new student named Amuro Ninagawa transfers into the school.  When she sees Kaname, she tells him that they have met before but he doesn't believe it.  Amuro joins the swimming club due to her love for the ocean & has an unique swimming style.  Being a member, the swimming club has a chance of improving itself by winning in competitions & tournaments.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The story focuses the swimming club's activities & the relationship between Kaname & Amuro.  The meat of it is really the club itself as it tries to redeem itself as a serious swimming team in its district.  But the members aren't really interested.  The girls are playing in the water, the boys like to look at the girls, & a captain that likes to get naked & shave all body hairs.  But the club gets better with Amuro in there.  Even though she's fast, she doesn't know the rules which created some initial problems.  When idol & swimming champion Maaya Nanako joins, the club starts to earn some reputation slowly as its joke members still make problems such as the boys.  When the storm calms down, the show goes to a series of tournaments.

Umisho becomes a force to be reckon with as their club wins a large number of events that surprises many schools.  The final arc has an injured Momoko Orizuka out of the race due to a cramped leg with Amuro replacing her & winning for the team with a tremendous comeback as it put them into the inter-high tournament.  After the tournament, everyone goes back to their original lazy ways.  But, the relationship between Amuro & Kaname gets deeper & he finally realizes that the time where he nearly drowned that he was saved by Amuro who was that mermaid.  Although he still doesn't know how to swim, his fear of water has lessen a bit.  After & during the ending credit roll in the final episode, the viewers see how close Amuro & Kaname are now.

My Personal Review

Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho is a new type of harem that I never seen yet: a bunch of girls in high school swimsuits.  It's so simple, yet this is the first time I actually seen an anime that uses this as the main theme.  Although I like funny harem anime shows, this one is a bit over the top for me as the sexual jokes are littered heavily in the show.  Not recommend for a young audience.

Animation

The character designs are simple & kind of flat.  They have that manga feel to them & looks almost like the show is a children show.  The eyes are either large & round or small & weary for the girls.  The faces on the girls look too similar with one another.  The guys are different as they are drawn very weird.  We have one guy that has a head of an onion & one that looks like a pencil head.  They are ok once you watch a lot of the show.  But the show didn't get lazy on the girls body proportions.  This is a sexy harem anime after all.

The backgrounds are okay.  Has some detail, but not much.  It's mainly like quick work.  The transitions between scenes aren't bad as it has a bit of manga style layout.

The colours are mainly on the dull side with some bold colours.  The shading is dull as well as it seems to make the characters almost flat & one dimensional.  The characters stand out from the background heavily as the bold colours are used on them.

In terms of the animation movement, it's mainly silly stuff with comic movements.  As for the flow, it's pretty good in terms of the swimming motions.  The recycling of the frames are very smooth.

Sound

The sound effects are mainly on the silly side.  This gives the show it's manga feel & comedy appearance of a harem anime.

The seiyuus here are ok.  They perform their characters well & provide that punch.  However, none of the characters actually grew to me much.  They are quite funny & some of them are quite annoying.

The music is on the pop side.  They fit the show okay but they aren't that great.

Story

Basically Umisho's swimming club trying to get itself back on track.  Although it does have the relationship between Kaname & Amuro shown at times, it doesn't really go too deep into it.  Plus, the character development isn't here as well.  The show is almost basically fanservice & entertainment.  However, it does provide a wide variety of interesting characters to make the show running.  For its final arc, the show continues the same pace & format of Umisho proving itself as it gets better & better.  However, things go back to the way it used to which makes things almost pointless where the team improved itself.  The ending was ok & I couldn't see it going any further.

Overall Conclusion

Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho is a funny show to watch if you are into harem.  It's pretty neat that the writer went for the swimsuit approach.  Because of it' over the top sex humour, I wasn't really enjoy the show much.  I did laugh, but I felt this was a bit too much for me.  But I would recommend it to people that what something funny with ero humour.

Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho gets a seven out of ten.  The show is funny with all the ero humour & gives a new approach on the harem ero theme.  However, the show lacks a proper focus on a storyline & the jokes can be over the top at times.

Last updated on January 22, 2008