トライナイツ

TRY KNIGHTS

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
October 16, 2019
LENGTH
23 min

DESCRIPTION

There are several ways to score in rugby, but a "Try", where a player touches the ball to the ground inside the opposing team's goal area while remaining in contact with it, is the hardest. It's also the way that earns the most points and sets up yet another way to score, a conversion. Riku Haruma, who played rugby when he was younger, has a conversion of his own when he sees the school's struggling team practicing on field. Although he's not big enough to keep up with powerful players like Akira Kariya, Riku has far more experience and, when a bit of offered advice causes an immediate improvement, Riku realizes that what the team really needs is leadership.

(Source: Sentai Filmworks)

CAST

Riku Haruma
Shougo Sakamoto
Akira Kariya
KENN
Valentine Pears Shotani
Shuuta Morishima

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO TRY KNIGHTS

MANGA SportsTry Knights

REVIEWS

YunariDiamond
20/100
Existence of this rugby anime makes me question my sanity.
Note: I'm not familiar with rugby, so don't count on this review to break down the rules and comment on how well this anime portrays this sport.

Seasonal animes are truly a wonder. Some of them are remembered and praised even after years, while other become Try Knights.
This anime is based off of a 3 volume manga that tells a story of Riku, a boy who once was a passionate rugby player but decided to abandon the sport due to his body not developing the way he wanted. He then encounters Akira, who's also very passionate about rugby and wants Riku to make a comeback. After spending time together with Akira, Riku feels like his passion for rugby is slowly overtaking him yet again. They decided to join they forces to bring down other rugby teams.

Clearly this plot isn't winning any awards for originality or innovation, but it can be greatly uplifted by good visuals, animation and character writing! Yeah, about that...

One can't talk about visuals without mentioning manga's character designer: Takarai Rihito. She's a very famous mangaka, known for Seven Days, Only the Flower Knows and Ten Count in the West. Some people speculate the manga only sold well thanks to her fans, and I can totally believe that. So let's see how the anime managed to replicate her style:

Rihito's version is dynamic and striking: characters look at the viewer with different expressions, the difference in floating accessories attract the eye and the chess piece in from of them is an interesting way to foreshadow themes of the series. The whole image gives me strong "they're the same, but different" vibes.

The anime version of key visual looks like a bad parody. It's just two guys starting at each other with copypasted expressions. They lack any character that was seen in Rihito's version. And this problem that's seen throughout the whole anime: nobody in production cared about this series and thought it'll sell on Rihito's name alone.

The animation is...the less said about it the better. Originally I was planning to fill this review with gifs of horrendous animation, 2-frame running cycles and off-model faces but decided against it. See, it almost feel like a spoiler to show off this anime's main attraction: budget lower than my self-esteem. Feel free to look up clips of Youtube even if you're not planning to watch this masterpiece, I promise you it's worth it! Midway through the series everything starts to look even worse, can you believe it??

I'm even more impressed about the fact they fucked up adapting even the simple key frames from the manga:

At first it looks okay, but then you notice how Riku's body looks uncomfortably stiff and his right eye is getting ready to fly away, you can't unsee it.

And character writing is a final nail in the coffin. Notice how I didn't mention any other characters besides two main leads? That's because I struggle to find anything to say about them, outside of the leader of the main rival team. And here's the only noteworthy spoiler: him and Riku are brothers! Cue the attempts at tugging the viewer's heartstrings. I swear this storyline was taken from some horrible sitcom. Not to mention the resolution of this conflict flopped harder than this anime's Blu-Ray sales.

Another point I wanted to address: just like many other sports anime, Try Knights was swiftly accused of being a "fujobait". This couldn't be further from the truth. This whole cast lacked strong personalities, chemistry and fun interactions with each other. Riku and Akira's relationship has no progress beyond episode 2 and by the end of the series I had no idea why they stuck around with each other. The rest of the characters don't even get enough screentime for me to justify even thinking about them, much less shipping them together. If the producers of the anime wanted money from Rihito's fans, why not adapt her actual BL manga? Seven Days and Only the Flower Knows are right here! But fans of those series clearly dodged a bullet this time.

But here comes good news: in terms of sound, this anime is almost great! Yes, I was not a fan of SFX they used during matches, but otherwise no complains. The seiyuu cast does a good job with what they're given(and I immediately recognized KENN as Akira's voice). OP/ED songs are enjoyable and the BGM was better than I excepted it to be(same composer as Kuroko no Basket). But at the same time, my brain had hard connecting hype music and horrendously animated games of rugby.

Try Knights was a hilarious train wreck to watch for a while, but by the end of the series the result of terrible budget and zero care have lost their charm. If you're on board to watch a terrible portrayal of rugby in animation form, I would recommend watching first three episodes and dipping. Unless you're a hardcore completionist, you'll get tired of this series quickly.
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