Kora
“Hibiki knew she’d definitely joined the wrong gym.”
This is an odd one. Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? or How Heavy are the Dumbbells You Lift? almost feels like an odd twist on the old “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” subgenre as it follows a bunch of cute girls while they pursue their passion for… getting ripped! It’s like K-ON, if K-ON was about cage fighting. This does hit on one particular detail I’m particularly terrible with. I can’t judge measurements to save my life. I can’t even begin to guess how much something weighs, and I generally can’t translate a number into a proper sense of how much weight that entails, and having measurements be in metric only compounds the problem (CANADIAN EDITOR’S NOTE: Silly American). This puts me in a position where I can feel oddly unequipped to process aspects of the narrative. Our main character feels she needs to diet because she now weighs about 55 kg at 160 cm in height. Is that a lot? That’s roughly 120 lbs… Is that a lot? I’m dealing with a degree on entitlement as a male viewer, but, still, I’ve watched plenty of anime about sports, group activities and self-improvement. I’m sure I can manage this hurdle… As long as I’m not asked how tall the hurdle is or how much it weighs.
Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? follows Sakura Hibiki, a high school student whose poor impulse control when it comes to eating has led her to gain some weight over the last few months. In an effort to lose the weight, she joins a gym hoping that the community atmosphere will help motivate her. There she encounters a classmate, Souryuin Akemi, and Sakura is quickly disappointed to realize that the gym is a much more intense environment than she anticipated and her classmate is actually a muscle enthusiast and “health nut.” However, upon meeting an attractive young trainer at the gym she ends up joining despite her apprehensions. She then begins her journey of self-improvement, much to her chagrin. Sakura and Souryuin are rather stock characters at the moment. Souryuin is overly enthused by anything related to fitness, while Sakura serves as more of a straight-man and audience surrogate. There are hints that a key part of Souryuin’s enthusiasm at Sakura joining is due to the fact that she’s never had a friend that she could share her passions with, but even that’s pretty well tread territory when it comes to anime. Still, even if the characters are pretty one note currently, it isn’t an unpleasant note, and the humor is capable of carrying the slack.
From a production standpoint, Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? is an oddly charming series. It’s surprisingly effective at balancing its wacky sense of humor with actual education about fitness. Seeing Sakura’s expectations constantly being subverted should start losing out on the humor side. It constantly feels as if the show is about to become completely irreverent and wander into total nonsense territory, particularly when it comes to a gag that’s revealed in the opening. Studio Doga Kobo has proven their comedy chops in the past with series like Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun, but it’s nice to see that they’re still great at delivering on laughs. Despite its silly tone the show is always able to pull it back by returning to being informative and occasionally focusing in on the characters. The show is also prone to fanservice, which isn’t altogether surprising, but it’s able to earn back some good will, by combining the fanservice with explanations of various methods of exercise and by having Sakura complain about the pandering. This first episode kept me chuckling regularly, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I checked back with it throughout the season. The actual workout information in this first episode is a little limited. They only cover the basics of bench presses and squats, so it remains to be seen how much the anime will be willing to get into the nuts and bolts of the varying exercises it features. Despite my griping, plenty of time needed to be devoted to introducing the characters and premise, so choosing to keep the explanations brief and simple would be a logical move.
Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:
- Anyone who has ever done squats on a regular basis probably laughed out loud at Sakura’s preliminary appraisal of how difficult they would be.
- There is a neat little detail where the anime constantly lists the calorie count for Sakura’s snacking. This isn’t so much a recurring gag as it is a neat bit of information to familiarize viewers with the calorie content of the food they eat.
- I’ll acknowledge that my questionable awareness when it comes to weight and measurements is primarily due to lack of practice. I don’t own a scale at home, so I only know my own weight due to doctor’s visits. I did appreciate the show’s decision to list Sakura and Souryuin’s percent body fat, as that’s a metric that I have a slightly better grasp of, as it is a more reliable metric for tracking one’s health than weight generally is.
- Now I’m curious whether they’ll address the problems with certain means of measuring one’s health.
- The anime does a dual color feature to its character’s eyes. I’m not a fan of the aesthetic, particularly in the case of Sakura where they use the colors green and pink for her eyes.
- I’ve never been able to write dumbbell properly on the first try. I always leave out one of the “b”s and have to go back and correct it.
- The OP is nuts, and I kinda love it for the sheer “Da fuh!?” factor.
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