Keijo!!!!!!!! – 12 (Fin)

The Finale: Cockroach-chan’s showdown with Kaya, Maya’s abuse-fueld alter-ego is intense but ultimately morphs back into a duel with Maya, after a rousing pep-talk about wanting to be proud of the fight. Cockroach-chan wins, of course, having been upgraded by her team mates and having unlocked the full power of the vacuum butt cannon.

But all it well that ends well and the girls have a lovely banquet together afterwards. Despite their on-land meanness, team evil is all puppies and kittens now, and quickly becomes friends.

Final Verdict: This was pretty terrible. I get the point is exploitation backed by friendly non-objectifying girls who love (and take seriously) a sport but… nah this is just nipple-less T&A wrapped around generic fighting tourney tropes. There was no charm at the end, no humor to balance the final fight, and Team-evil never had a chance, nor was there 5 episode arc built up enough for it to have weight or stakes.

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 11

The Gist: Cockroach-chan takes Qi-girl head on and gets a whiff of victory… yes, literally. Ultimately, after a lengthy duel that breaks Qi-girl’s mind and turns her hair white, they are still at a standstill.

Meanwhile, Neko-chan and the other girls who’s names I don’t remember defeat a magician who pulls cards out of her butt and a girl with green hair who joins with the magician to form a combination-attack form. Yes, they literally share a swimsuit to do this.

Also there’s a heavy set girl who hasn’t lost yet but she isn’t given much screen time and doesn’t seem to be a real threat…

The Verdict: there are a few truly fantastic moments of comedy this week surrounded by dull fighting tropes, unnecessary backstory elements for the villains, and sloppy pacing. Over all, this was a see-saw affair and how much enjoyment you get from it depends on how much the highs charm you and the lows irritate you.

The magician’s butt cards had me giggling like an idiot but her boob flashing and her ultimate KO were a snooze. The combination form with green hair chan was also great, especially due to the sound effects and the hilarious giant-robo style camera angle for their ‘hook up’ but the minutes spent ‘locked butt to butt’ with Pink-chan was totally uneventful on the flip side. Cockroach-chan sniffing Qi-chan’s arse — especially the poor voice actress doing a pig snort — was to die for but the fight itself was bland paste. I don’t care at all about Qi-chan and didn’t need her backstory or second form to pad out the episode :(

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 10

The Gist: the second race is underway and, surprise surprise, Team Pompous gets mauled by our clever underdogs. First, two girls get flung overboard when The Ass of Varja and Hillbilly-chan sync-bounce the seaplane wings. Then Heart-Eye-chan takes out another girl with mutual annihilation. Finally, Hillbilly-chan and Aoba use their roommate attacks to bring down the last opponent.

Unfortunately, everyone is eliminated at the same time and, in a twist, the last Pompous girl uses propeller breasts to stay in the air a split second longer than Aoba, thus winning the match narrowly upon video review.

The Verdict: while more watchable than last week, Keijo’s second act remains fairly generic by sports anime conventions. Yes, the various attacks and super powers are silly and raunchy but there isn’t much warmth to the character interactions and, honestly, the novelty has worn off.

Structurally, I don’t know how Keijo un-jumps the shark here? Introducing new girls and new abilities with more epic effects is just an extension of what it was already doing. There’s nothing unusual about the underdog team winning (or doing well against) the expected power house in sports anime either. Making them mean girl jerks doesn’t make them compelling characters to boot.

:/

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 09

The Gist: Judo-chan and Bi-chan survive a cringe worthy battle between a generic body-builder type, twins, and a sneering redhead who apparently knows Judo and uses synesthesia to understand body heat, movement and strength. And Yes, Judo-chan wins by giving herself a hard nipple to launch a Keijo-legal shoulder throw.

Evil-chan and team evil seem completely dumbfounded as they lose, despite obvious strengths and advantages shown early on by team good guys. Their mean-lady coach seems surprised too, again bizarre because everyone knows Judo-chan was a world-class judoka ahead of time, and that Bi-chan is the best of the best.

The Verdict: Oh how the mighty have fallen… There’s no better description than generic for this one and, were it not for the production quality, this week’s pandering would have kicked it down to a 5 or 4.

As is, the episode felt gross to watch, contained no real humor, and was a predictable good guys beat the pompous bad guys first match.

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 08

The Gist: The girls finish their training camp with 2 battles. Cockroach-chan eventually obliterates Twin-Tail-chan with a Meteor Hip but they become friends afterwards.

Flash forward 1 month and the girls arrive at the East-West War and immediately dislike Suruga’s girls. To be fair, they are trash talking and obnoxious ‘B-team’ character designs. So who can blame team Cockroach?

After some trash talk and lengthy character introductions, the girls are split into groups of 4 to fight in 2-round races. The first up includes Judo-chan and a jungle gym. Apparently, she’s going to take her swim-top off and get an erect nipple but what the hell that’s all about will have to wait for next week…

The Verdict: while I appreciated the 1-month-jump forward to cut out any training between camp and the battle of east and west, while I appreciate that this choice trims fat and will make some new moves seen at the war ‘surprising’ …however. However, the episode itself was a completely conventional setup episode otherwise. We meet see Suruga’s team, know they are pompus jerk tools, and know the format for the war but nothing actually happens.

Combine that with the relatively pointless two battles that end camp at the opening of the episode, which really just repeat the joke about Cow-chan being fat and introduce Twin-Tail-chan as… another character of no significance, and the whole experience felt slow.

Judo-chan’s father says it best: “This is just not right”

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 07

The Gist: Cockroach-chan practices pulling turnips out of the ground with a rope tied to her butt. Eventually, she learns how to do it, which should make her vacuum butt cannon more effective.

Elsewhere, the rest of the class has to wear the bondage swim suits but mostly they touch each other’s boobs, wear tight bras and panties and yuck-around.

The Verdict: While the visuals were basically amusing at first, the only meaningful aspect of this ‘camp’ arc is technique building and some side-exposition by the teachers. Unfortunately, technique learning was more interesting (novel) at the beginning of the show. ho-hum

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 06

The Gist: This marks the beginning of the school-team-against-school-team portion of Keijo but first, it’s time to stop at the obligatory training camp for some pro-pointers. While there, Cockroach-chan learns she has a weakness but doesn’t learn what that is.

The other girls go shopping.

The Verdict: Keijo hasn’t really suffered for its soft T&A so far but, when the goofiness of the sport isn’t front and center, and when the girls are mostly just screwing around/dry humping each other, things rapidly fall apart.

If anything, the biggest failing of this week’s episode is that it did nothing with the sports-anime convention. It doesn’t help that I just watched Days’ take on sports camp rivalries, and still remember Haikyuu’s dull exploration a few seasons back. Worse worse, at least Haikyuu!! built up some of the friendships and rivalries across its sport (and school league) while doing the technique-learning of camp.

Not here. Nope. This may as well have been fill.

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 05

The Gist: Cockroach-chan faces off against a thoroughbred student who’s bottom does all the fighting for her. Literally, Cer-chan is a seeking-missile of dog-faced chi, and it demolishes everyone. Well, except Cockroach-chan, who’s now fast enough to dodge the attack, and wacky enough to remain unpredictable.

In the end, the Vacuum Butt Cannon comes into play and lobs BL-chan into the drink. That’s right, BL-chan is a huge fan of Boy Love and her mind wanders off to BL regularly during matches.

Oh! All 4 girls are promoted to the elite class. Even Hillbilly-chan, who’s leadership pushed the top student to use a forbidden attack. That’s right! There are forbidden attacks in this show…

“I’m goin ‘ta tame that Cer-chan of yours!” – Cockroach-chan

The Verdict: Keijo keeps things positive in a way that skirts the flesh-peddling grossness it could descend into. The girls compliment each other and keep competition ‘on the land.’ In it’s own twisted way, the yuri vibes of this show even reinforce that idea. These girls are not mean girls.

Can’t wait to see where this is going. Apparently, a show down with ‘the East’…

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 04

The Gist:  Miyata-chan faces off against RinRin for a lengthy fight that ultimately results in her stunning surprise victory… because she gives herself a wedgie to go faster.

Clumsy-chan faces off against all the strong girls next… and also wins, because her butt is super soft and the muscle-ladies just bounce off into the water. Hillbilly-chan seems like she will win too, except she and her allies are hypnotized and fall into the water.

Cockroach-chan is up next but we don’t see her fight against Headphones-chan. However, we do flash forward after the credits and see Headphones-chan’s butt skimming across the water like Jaws in what probably amounts to a nightmare for Cockroach-chan.

Roll Credits!

The “Ass of Vajra” is thus, totally defeated…

Keijo continues to be blissfully insane, pandering, and very well crafted. Each of this week’s three fights each captured aspects of those strengths, in its own way, but the major standout was definitely the giggle inducing sound design.

Miyata x Rin featured butt-gattling blur and so-fast they dissapear cliches of any fight anime. The sound was conga-drum like, but when Miyata yanked up her swimsuit to accelerate higher and became a flashing blue-blurr, a scifi’esq fart noise came in. Serious, I can’t find a better description.

Clumsy x Yajra was the shortest, least interesting fight, with the most distorted body rendering but major props must be given for the GONG sound that rang out each time a tough girl’s butt smashed together.

Lastly, the creepy song that descended on Hillbilly-chan as the Number 1-chan’s boobs slowly transfixed her was dead on for Vampire Princess Miyu effect. I’m not sure why that worked either but Hillbilly-chan’s appalled shock sold it as a joke all the way.

“No Way! Titty Hypnosis??” – Hillbilly-chan

The Verdict: if this show was any less absurd or well constructed, the pandering would really have dragged it down this week. But I’ve gotta assume that its crumple-butt and farting sounds are intentionally unsexy in a way to poke fun at anyone who really gets into the pandering.

Man, what a bizarre gem this is!

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 03

The Gist: Cockroach-chan and Miyata-chan spend this week upgrading their skills, one more obviously than the other. While the vacuum butt cannon is obviously powerful and highly regarded by the instructors, Cockroach-chan is forbidden to use it due to significant health risks it entails. However, she earns the right to learn more about it by wearing a BDSM swim suit for a month.

Meanwhile Miyata learns about… making a tighter butt crack to increase her multi-hit speed, which she will use during the episode-ending challenge with the elite class players.

We also learn about the 3 types of players: Infighters that rely on strength, outfighters that use speed and position, and counters that …use counters. This is very straight forward but lends a bit more credibility to the sport, which is massively important in a show that could otherwise be about butts only.

Straight up, this week was packed with pandering shots. There’s no escaping all the boobs and butts and that’s not even getting into the moaning and homosexuality that seems more erotic than character related.

Still, the episode remained very well rendered, full of charm, and carried the characters forward. We even see some cleverness in the other room 309 players: they give free massages to the girls, which gives them a deeper understanding of muscle and each girl’s tactical strengths.

The Verdict: The fact that Keijo calls out its hero’s super attack as dangerous and possibly career ending, goes way beyond more serious sports anime like Haikyuu!! or Days. I still can’t believe I’m saying this but this show actually puts thought into a typically formulaic genre.

This is sports anime it its best, most pandering, well rendered, and likable. Call it shameless for all its boobs and butts, but Keijo puts all of its heart in the right place: it treats its absurd subject sincerely.

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 02

The Gist: “Cockroach-chan” Kaminashi Nozomi and her room mates in #309 start their first real week of Keijo training. The regimen is detailed, butt specific, and handled about as seriously as any sports anime. Despite the obvious T&A pandering going on, that seriousness really sells it.

Beyond jiggle, the episode’s goal was to introduce the room mates more roundly, and establish their strengths in team work and friendship. cockroach-chan also pulls off a Vacuum Butt Cannon, which impresses the teachers enough to earn her an Ujibe Training Mail swimsuit… that looks like an Alien BDSM getup.

The Verdict: in many ways episode 2 leaned harder its baser presentation values than episode 1. However, it provided so many magically stupid gems to chuckle at AND some of the action, especially involving Cockroach-chan, is fantastically well rendered.

“Know not thy rump, never shalt thou triumph”

“Asstronomy. It’s the science of the Butt.”

And the homeroom teacher back-smacking an eraser into Cockroach-chan’s head, yes, with her butt. I can’t make this stuff up. It’s wonderful schlock!

Keijo!!!!!!!! – 01 (First Impressions)

The Gist: Kaminashi Nozomi and Miyata-chan have qualified to become Keijo players—a sport where girls must push each other into the pool only using their butts, boobs and wits…

Our story begins as the girls move into Keijo high school, share their reasons for being there, and flash back to the admittance examine. The press is there focusing on the top scoring players and ignores Kaminashi, but is quickly surprised by the number of elite players who talk to the new girl and treat her as an equal.

Also, Kaminashi’s hair makes her look like a cockroach. So I will refer to her as cockroach-chan from now on!

Keijo is better than Anitore! XX because it actually does something with its fan service. Yet it doesn’t pretend to be anything else than fan service. Yes, it is fan service and it is utterly ridiculous that this show is just about girls using their boobs and butts to push each other off of floaties in a pool, but everything the entire experience is grounded in the reality of a sport. A flesh-peddling sport but a sport all the same.

You may freely ignore this show because it is sanitized boob and butt and fighting fodder and you can easily find sexier, raunchier skin online. And if you want more than that, It is unlikely to develop a serious plot nor develop its characters emotionally beyond where they are.

That said, the characters have an earnestness to them and it is well animated and styled for what it is.

The Verdict: I can’t believe this show has made a space on my review docket—and it may get cut mid season—but, for now, the fun high school training vibe, bright colors, and idiocy has me hooked.

My ancestors are rolling in their graves…