Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story Season 2

Marinate1016★ 10

The. Best. Sports. Anime. Ever. Yes, I know that’s a bold statement, but it’s one I will gladly stand by. Birdie Wing took a sport that I had zero knowledge of or interest in prior and turned me into an avid golf fan. That’s what we call impact, and that’s something only the best of the best anime can do. Birdie Wing season 1 was one of my favourite shows of 2022 and I praised it nonstop. I was cautiously optimistic about whether or not they’d be able to keep the momentum going, and Sunrise made me feel like a fool for ever worrying. This 2ndseason was absolutely insane from start to finish. The same over the top golf battles, but with a much better plot, bigger stakes and a ton of drama. Everything that season 1 had, but bigger and better. Even the yuri bait is turned up another notch this season which is a major plus. Characters like Ichina and Amane took on much bigger roles, and teases, this season. I loved seeing Eve and Aoi’s backstories revealed and they gave it to us at the perfect pace. It was slow enough to keep you on the edge of your seat and craving more episode after episode, but fast enough to not make the story drag on. Some people were not fans of how dark the story got in this season with the increased stakes surrounding Aoi’s condition, but I liked it. It added a sense of urgency to the story and kept me in suspense week after week. I also really liked seeing the two of them develop independently for most of this season. In season 1, they were largely a tag team duo and I think that kind of held the two of them back from growing as people and as golfers. That leads me into my biggest criticism of this season though. I felt like the pacing got rushed towards the end of the show. I thought we would get an entire season of Aoi and Eve competing in the Japanese and European circuits respectively, honing their skills and then meeting up in a potential third season for a big showdown. Instead, we got what seemed to me like a very condensed story. Now, to my knowledge, besides the recently announced LL stuff, Sunrise have not done many season 3s. So perhaps this was planned from the start to end things in this season, but I really think we could have had a whole other season of build up. That’s not to say that the ending was bad, I just love this show and these girls so much that I want more. Now story aside, you can’t talk about a golf anime without talking about the actual golf. The actual golf matches this season were way better than season 1, which is saying something because those were great. Eve and Aoi both push themselves beyond their limits and create their own unique brands of golf. Both reflective of who they are as individuals and competitors. Their ultimate techniques were a joy to watch, and even though you knew they’d win their individual matches cause MC armour, they were still pushed quite a bit and grew from those experiences. Birdie Wing s2 feels much more like a second cour than a proper second season. We even keep the same OP as season 1. No complaints at all from me though. The show took a solid foundation from the first cour and improved upon it in every way. My only negative about this show is that it ends. I am very excited for the upcoming Switch game and hopefully more content from this franchise. Birdie Wing S2 gets 10 rainbows out of 10.

Grain_of_Salt★ 4

How do you turn the world's most boring sport played mainly by middle aged men into an interesting anime? Season one seemed to have figured it out, struggled with some pacing and budget issues, and then completely threw out the winning pieces in season two. As an initial fan of Birdie Wing season one when it aired and before it gained mass appeal, I absolutely despise season two. The show initially gained attention by bombastic, adrenaline fueled situation writing that seemed to involve taking psychedelics, shonen anime, and campy lesbianism and throwing it all in a blender and painting with the resulting slurry. And it worked!Season one may have been silly, but the high stakes and insane gambling golf games managed to be enjoyable and compelling, and the characters had enough appeal and eccentricities to be enjoyed. There was often a method to the madness and it was a blast, and any shortcomings could be forgiven because we operated on rule of cool. The latter half of season one struggles as it changes setting and arcs, but any stumbles were easily forgiven as it was still exciting to see what comes next. Season two starts off very painfully aware that we ended in the middle of an unfinished arc, but rather than sidestep issues with the usual energy, it disregards everything. The insane golf powers reminiscent of gambling anime like Yugioh or Kakegurui or sports anime with crazy finishers like Prince of Tennis are gone. While each new character is hyped as a bigger threat, gone are campy perfume tricks or robot arms or godlike precognition. Even our main character loses her ability for a worse, new one. Her individual bullet shots were a little silly, but had specific functions. One had crazy backspin to make interesting moves, one was a strong enough shot to break trees, one got impossibly high vertical angles to go over any obstacle. The powers were campy, but followed understandable rules and ideas. The new Rainbow Bullet, Rainbow Bullet Burst, and Shining Rainbow Bullet are just different ways that she hits the ball really good and wins while we put different effect filters over the camera or show stock footage. And now the in universe audience states that the shots leave real visible rainbows. I never assumed her colored shots LITERALLY had visible light, that was just an effect. I can only watch Eve shoot the OP rainbow shot that everyone tells me is so good and she wins so many times before I'm bored in a way I never was in season one. We also completely remove any fun setting. Gone is the underground golf mafia and their billionaire funded insanity. Instead are boring and bland tournaments where if I wasn't being told that something cool was supposedly happening, I wouldn't know. We fight a mafia battle exactly once and during it Eve looks directly into the camera and screams THIS IS NOT REAL GOLF. It's been a long time since a show told me to go shove it quite that hard. Birdie Wing season two can tell me all it wants that the tournaments are important, the new random competitors are strong, and the shots are cool but it feels like all talk and no show. And most damning, we take away the fun lesbian bits from the show. Eve no longer hits on girls and has her swooning fandom. Her main lover Aoi is even nerfed once we bring in the absolutely terrible "your daddy is secretly my daddy and we might be sisters" bull. I watched Birdie Wing for the lady killer with attitude doing trick shots against golf assassins to impress her innocent lesbian girlfriend, not...whatever this is. So what does Birdie Wing add in place of all it removes, besides more identical uninteresting tournaments? Mainly a really bad attempt at backstory, first shoved at us for an entire episode and then progressing at a breakneck speed to try to replace the former energy with character writing. But the show's strength was never in compelling and well written story, it was the camp we left behind. I resent every moment wasted in the lame drama and subsequent injury and sickness arcs. They were bad ideas and poorly implemented with jarring pacing. Any deep or dark moment fell short because I was too busy either lamenting what I lost or staring into space bored. The only decent aspect that stayed was the music...quite literally. The great jazzy OST stayed and tried its best to carry weak writing. The opening song from season one also stayed. And don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic song that I never tire of hearing. But with the same song and a half reused OP sequence I began this season worried about budget and pacing and was really never proven wrong. Season two lacks any ability to wow or impress, and since we had those skills previously I couldn't help resent watching it. It seems I both got on the Birdie Wing hype train before average, and then left it early too since I don't hear many complaints matching mine. But I was absolutely miserable, and no matter how much I wanted to get back on the train, Eve never was able to do a trick shot between the cars like in season one and repeat the same lightning in a bottle.