Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story First Impressions

“If you want to play, it has to be a match. A battle, with survival on the line!”

Thank god! Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story is good. I mean, I don’t love it. It’s a style of sports anime that doesn’t quite click with me, but after 5 shows in a row that were varying flavors of mediocre and bad, it’s nice to watch a show that is pleasing, even if it isn’t quite my cup of tea. That’s not to say I won’t be following it, but my preference would be for a series that is more grounded and didn’t contain high-stakes golf games set at midnight in active train yards with a masked competitor. Still, for all its wacky qualities, Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story is an enjoyable romp that is anchored by its compelling lead while centering itself around a sport less commonly found in anime. If you’re looking for a sports anime to follow this season, you could do a lot worse.

Birdie Wing follows a talented golfer named Eve who earns money by taking part in high stakes bets and occasionally disguising herself and subbing in for injured players. As a premise, it comes across as a bit insane, and the presentation calls to mind last year’s Sk8 the Infinity, though the only connection the two series share as far as production is concerned is they’re both anime originals. Still, I’d give the point to Birdie Wing for being the more realistic of the two, though I will remind you that Sk8 featured a skateboarding matador who was airdropped from a helicopter, so as far as realism is concerned, the competition shouldn’t even be close. Most of this first episode follows her as she and Lily, a young woman who lives with Eve along with a bunch of children they care for, go around scrounging money through various bets. The final venue they attend results in them encountering a Japanese golfer who is preparing to make her debut and instantly catches Eve’s interest. Eve has something of a Good Will Hunting dichotomy at play, which is interesting to see. Despite being a prodigy, she is still an underdog due to both personal and societal factors. In keeping with that comparison, she’s also confident to the point of cocky, but consistently backs it up with her capabilities.

The production is pretty good. It isn’t as polished as Sk8 the Infinity was, but that was crafted by Bones, whereas Birdie Wing was brought to life by Bandai Namco Pictures, the same studio that contributed the 2D animation for Cestvs: The Roman Fighter a year ago. Aside from that travesty, they’ve mostly produced recent seasons of Gintama and a few other children’s series. This might seem odd, as the name Bandai Namco is recognizable, but that’s because of the prominence of Bandai Namco Filmworks of which Pictures is a spinoff. My biggest gripe with this first episode from a production standpoint would be that I didn’t love some of the show’s musical choices. There’s an odd melancholic interlude that occurs while Eve is practicing and it was the one section of the episode where my eyes glazed over. Nothing is being said, the episode just cuts back and forth between clips of Eve hitting golf balls and sepia tone images of her lounging around town. Between the cheesy English lyrics and nothing happening visually, it easily outstayed its welcome. The music at the end wasn’t as bad, but I can’t say I was a fan of it either. There was no official OP or ED in this episode, so I don’t know if they’ll use the same track in the future, but I would say that, generally, the soundtrack was a bit overdone. Most of the time when watching the first episode of a new series, I don’t notice background soundtracks that much, but I was actually driven to look up the composer, and was surprised to learn it was Nakagawa Kotaro, the composer for Code Geass. Let me correct that statement. I was momentarily surprised. Code Geass’ soundtrack was good, but it wasn’t exactly subtle.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• This review sent me down a rabbit-hole because I remembered there being a golf series in Shonen Jump a few years back, but couldn’t remember who did it. Evidently, it was Robot x Laserbeam by the creator of Kuroko’s Basketball, and it lasted about a year.
• I’m not entirely clear as to where Eve is supposed to live. My best guess is they’re in a fictional European country, given the currency is “Eurus,” but for a while I thought it might be a wildly-off approximation of what New York is like.
• This is the second to last sports anime of the season. The only one that remains is Saturday’s Aoashi… “Blue Feet?” I’ve never had much luck with soccer anime, but we’ll see what Production I.G. has in store with that one.
• I completely forgot the “the Infinity” part of Sk8‘s title. I knew there was more to the name, but I had to go look it up.