Forget jumping the shark – SK8 the Infinity just jumped the cliff.
I’m finding it difficult to comment on these episodes without shitting all over them. They weren’t terrible, but I did find their plotting to be terribly embarrassing at multiple points (especially today’s episode). In the span of these two weeks, SK8 took its depressed, moderately skilled protagonist and equipped him with a jetpack labeled “PLOT CONTRIVANCE,” which propelled him to a photo finish against the show’s strongest skater. Conveniences abounded in order to achieve this result: Reki was selected as a replacement after Adam’s would-be opponent was hospitalized, rain fell at the perfect moment for Reki’s anti-weather wheels to give him an advantage, Reki shrugged off life-threatening injuries and skated down the side of a sheer cliff because “it looked more fun,” and the list goes on. SK8 has been unconcerned with naturalism ever since Adam’s introduction, but episode 11 broke the believability barrier in such flagrant fashion that I had to wince my way through its twenty-odd minutes.
Reki rediscovered his passion for skating before all of his happened, at least, thanks in large part to a duel of perspectives with Tadashi. As Ainosuke’s manservant, Tadashi recognizes the danger that skateboarding poses to his master’s political career, and he’s allowed that to cloud his judgment of the sport as a whole. When he went on and on about the evils of skating, Reki felt obligated to defend not only his chosen sport, but himself (since it’s a big part of his identity). Not a bad scene, and it led to an even better one, namely Reki’s nighttime cruise through town in search of Langa. From the seamless way he hopped onto his board to his tight maneuvering around parked cars, nearly every cut in that brief scene looked sharp. The animation truly sold the idea that he’d had an epiphany and needed to tell his friend about it as soon as humanly possible. Unfortunately, his skating session with Langa after they talked it out at the park didn’t look nearly as clean, but that’s okay – SK8 is just another seasonal anime straining to meet its deadlines, so peaks and valleys are to be expected.
Episode 10 wasn’t so bad, then, barring its insistence on equating violence with drama. Reki got beaten up, Shadow was attacked by a bat-wielding lunatic in a parking garage, and Tadashi hit Reki with his car (at 13 mph, but we didn’t know that before the mid-episode cliffhanger was resolved). These were hokey ways of pushing the story forward, but I could have swept them under the rug if episode 11 hadn’t tripled down on the ‘violence equals drama’ concept. During their race, Adam shoved Reki off his board, grabbed his arm and twirled him in circles, dragged him along a rocky wall at high speed, and punched him in the gut at least a dozen times. Adam was only able to deliver those body blows because Reki hugged him for no discernable reason, so the blood that he coughed up was more perplexing than concerning. Despite all of this, series composer Okouchi saw fit to grant Reki several athletic triumphs during his race, as though he had the regenerative abilities of a Marvel superhero. There’s stupid fun, and then there’s stupidity – to me, this was clearly the latter, but if you’re into the sort of anime where characters can shrug off crippling pain in the name of friendship and fun, you probably had a blast here.
I’m sure there are some SK8 fans who think that Reki’s loss justifies his inhuman resilience and ludicrous cliff-skating abilities. After all, we’re still getting an Adam vs Langa finals, so what’s the problem? The way I see it, the problem is that Reki’s success here was not only unearned, but unnecessary. Finding his love for skating again brought his arc 90% of the way to completion, especially after he realized that he didn’t need to be as gifted as Langa to love skateboarding. He could enjoy his hobby in his own way, return to work at the skate shop, and maybe use his talent as a mechanic to help his friend prepare for the tournament finals, and that would have been perfectly satisfying. The breakfast scene near the start of episode 11, where he cheerfully wolfed down his meal (instead of eating slowly and sullenly as he had in the previous ep), was great for just that reason. A change in attitude was what Reki needed, not a neck-and-neck race with a psychopath whose view of skating he had already rejected. SK8 lost sight of itself today, and though I’ll be watching next week’s finale, I’ve lost sight of why I should care.
Honestly, I kinda thought you weren’t going to like ep 10 because it seemed like it was ep 7 all over again and you weren’t a fan of that, so I’m surprised by that. But in regards to ep 11, it seemed like there was a no win scenario on that end. They needed to get that rematch in there so we get those parallels in between Reki and ADAM no matter how ridiculous it would look because the alternative (Reki being sidelined permanently to just be a supporter for Langa) probably would’ve been just as bad. I guess this show proved again why you hate the shows that Okouchi writes. otoh, I do have a feeling that Utsumi is just going to recycle the Free s1 finale for SK8, which would be lazy, but sadly would make a whole lot of sense considering the direction it’s going with the finale (of which there was no episode preview which makes me wonder if it’s to hide spoilers or the production issues have reached a boiling point).
I was more annoyed by the fact that it wasn’t just the animation slipping, but how increasingly disjointed everything is becoming. The inspector seemed like she was going to have a much bigger role than she currently has (my theories involved her colluding with the main cast and bargaining a deal to take down ADAM), Miya and Shadow have been completely wasted, and even Cherry and Joe are being sidelined so we don’t get a proper end to their beef with ADAM. It’s hard to tell if this was always going to be 12 episodes, or that COVID once again struck and affected their plans (explaining somewhat why they would even announce a recap in an episode preview) like so many other shows last year and this year unfortunately.
Speaking of which, it seems like WEP is sadly going down this same path as well, unless it possibly takes the Kekkai Sensen route of airing the real last episode later. Original anime just can’t get a break these days it seems.
https://twitter.com/shipperinjapan/status/1373432588304547847
I’ll leave off with with an interesting queer allegory that this show is clearly leaning on.
https://twitter.com/beautifuIseiya/status/1375986044290600962
I did find another thread which did talk about themes related to Tadashi and ADAM, particularly in how the ED changed this episode to possibly signify what might happen next (we see Tadashi catch Ainosuke instead of covering his bail).
Adam tripping himself up in his attempt to bludgeon Reki is the only scene I enjoyed ever since Hot Spring shenanigans gave way to melodrama, I’ll give the writers that at least.
Oh and the moms worrying about the boys were good too, but seriously straightforward good hearted scenes like that are just too few and far between ever since the tournament started. They can’t even bother animating skateboard-like techniques and tricks anymore, I know production is noticeably falling off even in conversation scenes, but I just hope last episode isn’t going to be superhuman fest like power jumping off rockfaces and steel beams again, please.
Sounds like you and I are on the same page, especially where the mother/son scenes are concerned. I wish SK8 had kept them in focus instead of whatever is happening with Adam’s political career and the irrelevant redheaded cop.
The easiest guess I can think of for next episode is that to cap off Ainosuke’s very bad day, he arrives back at his mansion just as Kiriko and the police are raiding it and gets arrested (Tadashi despite being told that he’ll take the fall is spared). Then in a sort of rehash of Free! s1 (given that it’s Utsumi after all), no one is feeling particularly happy about this (due to similar reasons as when Rin got eliminated in Free!), and we get a semi-redemption for ADAM where he will still be in bars after this (along with Tadashi), but he gets one more race with Langa, drops the ADAM persona and rediscovers his love for skating, and Tadashi reveals that he is his true EVE just before the police arrive to cuff them both.
It feels like Kiriko was supposed to play a much bigger role than she did (at least I thought so since my theories involved her colluding with the skaters, even arresting and interrogating them due to their connections with S, and striking a deal to leave it alone in exchange for busting ADAM). Plot/pacing reasons?
I feel like Joe and Miya are really missed opportunities in having a candid reunion scene with Reki. Instead all they do is keep prolonging Reki’s moping forever and forever, culminating in Reki running away from Miya, which will never sit right with me. So I was hoping for a heartfelt friendship reunion scene. Make it look like Reki actually cares about his non-Langa friends in return. SOMETHING. But then they just waved it off with a “thank god Reki finally realized skating is FUN and came back!” scene that took like a total of 5 sec and threw whatever affection I have for Reki out the window. It’s really sad for Miya boy if this is the only choice of friendship he has.