Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 13 (Final Hole) – Killing You, In Golf

As Birdie Wing outings go, this last one was a bit tame; I’d almost go so far as to say leisurely. But I went in almost certain the entire All-Japan Girl’s Tournament wouldn’t get wrapped up in one episode; if it had, it would have surely sucked.

While expectations were lower, I still looked forward to lots of Eve and Aoi flirting, and in this I was not disappointed. Eve even starts things off frisky by giving Aoi a Nafrecian peck on the cheek and then claiming Ichina as her personal body pillow for the night, while Coach Reiya rightfully shoots Kinue down.

It’s a good thing Ichina shared a room with Eve too, as neither Eve nor Aoi would have slept a wink and not been ready for the golf. That said, due to their high qualifying rank they get a fairly late tee time, giving them time to good off more.

As Kuyou and Kaoruko do battle against another pair, their coach Date gets trash-talked by Reiya, who is confident his two first years will win decisively, seeing as how Aoi is golf royalty and Eve is the apprentice of the legendary Leo Millafoden.

This wouldn’t be much fun if Eve and Aoi didn’t run into a little adversity, as Eve’s worst enemy turns out not to be Himekawa Mizuho, but her own over-aggressiveness. She puts a ball into the bunker, and Aoi, perhaps a little too wound up about getting to play beside Eve, misses getting the ball out. That said, the two win their first round comfortably.

The thing is, Eve wanted to defeat their opponents to a pulp—kill them, with golf—as funny a collection of four words as I’ve heard spoken in an anime (I particularly love that comma in there). Their win, while easy, is also much closer than either of their elite rival pairs from Kouran and Nada.

We also learn that while Aoi is the daughter of Hodaka Kazuhiko, Himeko seems to have inherited his brand of golf, so much so that Aoi recognizes it instantly. Himeko and Kaede destroy their opponents in their two rounds, an impressive response to Eve and Aoi’s superior score in the qualifiers.

Eve’s usual mind games won’t work on the Kouran or Nada girls, but Ichina feels it’s actually good for her to be experimenting with her aggressiveness in earlier matches where it’s safe to do so. Eve and Aoi will have to take every risk they can to defeat Kaoruko and Himeko, to say nothing of killing them, in golf.

Naturally, this ends before those key duels take place, and a second season of Birdie Wing in Winter 2023 has restored my faith in both anime and humanity. As far as I’m concerned, the golf flirting and murder can go on indefinitely; a veritable Hole in One Piece.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 12 – They’re Coming After Us

Nadaminami’s Himekawa Mizuho, Japan’s Number One high school golf girl, knows the upcoming doubles tournament is meant to be a coronation for the Athena CEO’s daughter Aoi, another stepping stone to the pros. Mizuho’s partner bristles at the idea, but Mizuho wants the best rivals possible in order to become stronger. Aoi isn’t an obstacle, but a tool to hone her own greatness.

But before Mizuho can face off, both she and Kaede and Aoi and Eve need to get through prefectural qualifiers, which for both pairs amounts to barely more than a warm-up. Coach Reya doesn’t even bother attending; if they can’t win the qualifiers, they never had a chance anyway. Aoi and Eve stand out, being incredibly cute and blonde, respectively.

Their only serious competition in the qualifiers is Satou, a third year and an absolute unit, but while she drives the ball further than Aoi, Eve drives it even farther with her Blue Bullet, crushing not only Satou’s spirit but the other players watching as well.

The qualifiers become a match between Aoi and Eve; whoever has the best score will treat the other to burgers. We’ve been waiting for the opportunity to watch Eve and Aoi do proper golf battle, and this episode does not disappoint. It even has their caddies Ichina and Amane getting along, despite their analog and digital approaches to caddying.

In addition to their personal wager, Reiya tells them before their match that Nadaminami and Mizuho already advanced with a 10-under score. Aoi and Eve end up tying at 11-under. When an underling gives Mizuho the report, she warns Kaede that Aoi and Raiou’s new “secret weapon” are coming for the crown, and she’s fired up.

After a brief call to Klein and Lily (who is upset Eve shipped her the wrong Gunpla), Eve hops on the Raiou bus to the tournament fashionably late, wearing her “battle gear”, a bodacious outfit that flaunts the school dress code. Kinue is appalled, but Reiya allows it, because he wants all eyes on Raiou.

Eve also declares she doesn’t mind guys like Reiya, but Kinue grabs his sleeve and tells Eve she can’t have him, which…girl, get you someone who doesn’t make you golf your elbow off on purpose! After Ichina explains tournament-style match play rules, Aoi expresses her excitement over playing so many strong golfers, and Eve gives her a teasing head pat that turns her ears hot pink. I never tire of these two flirting.

Once they arrive at Athena Golf Course, venue for the tournament, Eve walks right by Kuyou, whom she pretty much beat, acknowledges Kaoruko, and then loudly calls Himekawa Mizuho out. Kaede can’t believe how uncouth this foreigner is, but Mizuho has no problem walking right up in Eve’s face and introducing herself.

Eve can tell Mizuho is strong and “worth defeating”, but Mizuho isn’t intimidated in the least—just as Aoi wasn’t when she tried her usual shtick—and says something with dead seriousness that just made me laugh out loud because it’s so dumb and awesome: “I’ll kill you, in golf.” Mizuho may be Number One now, but that was before Eve dazzled the Japanese high school golf stage. She’s coming for the Queen, and she’s not planning to miss.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 11 – Polishing the Diamond

We check in on Aoi, who is finishing off a lauded competitor who couldn’t bring it in a practice match, and she’s looking forward to reuniting with her soul mate Eve when instead she’s summoned to her grandfather’s house. She’s only mad until he serves her her favorite cake from Hokkaido. The true purpose for the visit is so Gramps can find out who Coach Amuro is pairing Aoi up with.

Shinjou says without hesitation: Eve is the best replacement for the injured President Jinguuji. Back at Raiou, Amuro doesn’t bother putting Eve in the standard golf practices with the plebs; he knows he has a diamond in the rough on his hands, and when Jinguuji removes her arm sling and volunteers to polish her, he agrees. Ichina also tags along for the three-day retreat to the Athena Golf Resort, the better to build chemistry with Eve.

While Jinguuji wants Eve to learn about Japanese courses, Eve starts off their training sessions with her bullets. Jinguuji throws a wrench in her works by moving her balls into uncomfortable and difficult positions. Easy Mode is officially cancelled. Eve complains at first, but when Jinguuji assures her that she’ll have to master all kinds of unplanned shots to beat the best Japan has to offer, she rises to the challenge.

A nifty day-to-night training montage ensues, with Even getting the hang of Jinguuji’s coaching and actually seemingly learning something. Jinguuji also makes sure to run Eve ragged across their three days, so much so that Eve falls asleep in the hot spring and leans up against Ichina…something she’s lucky Aoi didn’t see.

Everyone, including Ichina, venerates President Jinguuji, but she claims to know the truth about herself: that she’s a “weed” who can grow to impressive height but can never reach the sun. In trying to become the golfer Amuro wanted her to be, she ruined her elbow, and it will never be the same. We see Jinguuji at her lowest moments, the imperious façade she shows Eve completely broken down.

Amuro, the asshole, actually seemingly engineered things so that Jinguuji would injure herself and make way for Eve, presumably after he saw her play on TV. That’s pretty shitty, and my skin crawled when he gave her a commiserating hug. After treating her like a tool and literally breaking her, now you treat her like a human being?

The next day, Amuro announces that Aoi and Eve will be the two Raiou representatives for the All-Japan Girls High School Doubles Championship—a tournament that, again, Aoi’s mom invented to serve as a spotlight and springboard for her daughter. Amuro wants to eliminate any doubts the other golfers might have about his choice.

What results is Aoi and Eve’s much-anticipated first golf date in way too long a time. Both of them remark how they’ve been disappearing from one another ever since Eve arrived, only to laugh it off and quite casually put on one hell of a show for their club-mates, both with their golf and their lovey-dovey interactions.

Here’s hoping Birdie Wing continues its brisk storytelling by covering the start (if not all) of the tournament in its final episode (or two). I’d hate to think the show is ending so soon with so many big golf names being introduced for Eve to challenge and defeat, and to not give this splendid series at least another cour (and ideally three or four more, a la Chihayafuru) would be criminal in my eyes.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 10 – Every Shot’s a Gamble

Eve attracts a lot of attention at her knew fifties diner-looking fancypants school, and on her first day, she doesn’t really like it. She dresses and acts like a yankee or delinquent, because she’s not here to make friends. She’s here to fulfill her promise to Aoi, whom she longs to “play with” all day long, only for Shinjou to put the kibosh on an after-school game.

Aoi giving Eve blue-bullet-balls only makes her more pent-up and frustrated, but Aoi tells her they can play all the time if she joins the school’s Golf Club, so with Ichina in tow, that’s what she tries to do. Unfortunately, the coach, Amuro Reiya (voiced by the same seiyu as Amuro Rey of Gundam fame) only pisses her off more. Of course, that’s intentional on his part. He’s testing her.

Unaware of how much money Eve made in the previous arc, Ichina assumes Eve has nowhere to go after school, but Eve proves her wrong by sidling up to the first pair of admiring classmates, captivating them with her ladykiller skillz, and proceeding to have a grand night out of shopping and games. Eve demonstrates she’s not just good at golf.

When her new friends (whose names she probably won’t remember) head home just before their curfews, Eve reveals she’s known Ichina has been stalking her all along. Ichina doesn’t consider it stalking; she’s observing one of the best golfers she’s encountered, and wants to be her caddy so they can win together. When one Iseshiba Kuyou appears and challenges Eve to a game of mini golf, Eve is ready to do battle.

While Kuyou demonstrates sublime precision in her putting, both she and Ichina are equal parts shocked, outraged, and entranced by the unique way Eve plays, which involves jumps, bounces, and lots of ricochets. Every shot feels like a gamble, like Eve is walking a tightrope…and yet the balls keep going in all the same.

After witnessing a few of Eve’s holes, even an elite golfer like Kuyou is well and truly shook. Fortunately for her, her senpai and teammate, Iijima Kaoruko, is nearby and tags herself in, sensing Kuyou is about to miss a shot. Keenly aware of the psychological aspect of golf, Kaoruko proceeds to use her In the Zone skill to shut off the outside world until there’s only her, the ball, the hole, and the route to get there.

After Kaoruko sinks her hole with a wedge, Ichina stops Eve from taking her shot. Eve remembers that Ichina said she could help her win the all-girls tournament, she stops and listens to what her caddy has to say. Kaoruko set a trap with her wedge shot, denting the green right in front of the hole. Ichina proposes not avoiding that dent but using it to get the ball in the hole. Eve is able to do so, and learns the value of Ichina as her caddy.

Kaoruko learns that both Eve and Ichina aren’t as dumb or inept as they look, and cuts the match short for the time being. That said, Kaoruko fully expects to see Eve at the All-Japan Girls High School Golf Doubles Championship. She’ll most likely be paired with Kuyou, and gives Coach Amuro a call telling him it was cruel to use her kohai to a player like Eve.

Turns out both Kuyou and Kaoruko comprised the test Amuro laid out for Eve, and she passed it with flying colors. With his ace Jinguuji Kinue out of commission, he needs someone to replace her by Aoi’s side at the championship, and it’s looking like that person is Eve. She’s already shown she can take and benefit from advice from a caddy; perhaps her crazy style of play can find a home at Raiou.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 09 – Drive Distance

This week we have a new setting in Raiou Girl’s Academy and a new protagonist in Saotome Ichina. We got a glimpse of both earlier in the series, but now they take center stage. Rather than a pro golfer, Ichina wants to be a pro caddy, as the best of the former make more money than the lower tier former.

Ichina takes pride in her knowledge of the sport and her ability to guide others, but she has her standards. First-year Misono Haruka may have potential, but Ichina refuses to be her caddy, because at the moment there’s no way she can beat Amawashi Aoi. Then these two fancy schoolgirls’ worlds are suddenly rocked by the Blue Bullet of one “Evengeline F. Kimishima”.

That Eve has to whip out her fake passport to recite that obviously fake name is only the tip of the comedy iceberg. There’s initially a language barrier as she speaks English to Ichina, but then switches to Japanese like it’s nothing, and wonders why she’s fluent (another hint about her past).

Eve is here for one reason: to see Aoi. She’s scolded by Golf Club President Jinguuji Kinue for trespassing, but Kinue’s arm is in a sling and Eve isn’t leaving until she sees Aoi, so the prez makes a compromise: Eve can see Aoi if she beats Haruka. Ichina will serve as Eve’s caddy, and if they lose, she has to be Haruka’s caddy.

With the stakes set, it’s all down to the golf, and well, none of these Raiou girls have seen Eve’s color bullet-themed golf before. Eve misses an Eagle by a couple of inches, while Haruka is totally thrown off her game by Eve’s aggressiveness, which Ichina has always maintained is the key to good golf.

Aoi demonstrates an excellent sense of timing by arriving just after Kinue told Eve she could see her. The resulting reunion is as adorable as you’d expect, with an elated, blushing Aoi literally throwing herself at Eve, who instinctively dodges. The other girls proceed to watch an entirely different side of Aoi…the side hopelessly in love with her one true rival and soul mate.

For her part, Eve plays all of this cool, even though it’s clear she’s just as happy to see Aoi as vice versa. Aoi insists that Eve stays in her dorm, which she leads her to hand-in-hand as a bus full of Raiou golfers watch stunned. In the locker room, Eve doesn’t have time to dress after a shower to challenge Aoi to another game right then and there. Aoi is scandalized, but is also clearly looking through her hands.

Before she knows it, Eve is completely swept up in Aoi’s world, as Aoi flexes the family muscles by having Eve enrolled at Raiou as a transfer student. She’s an immediate sensation with the class, who is so enamored by the tall, cool blonde they don’t flinch when she once again has to read her name off her passport.

All in all, Eve’s first episode in Japan is a wonderful clash of cultures and styles. Most importantly, she’s back with Aoi for what could well be the remainder of the cour. There’s nothing better out there than when these two light up the screen together. Haruka may have been an easy win for Eve, but I’m looking forward to the possibility of other Raiou girls posing more of a challenge.

 

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 08 – Live Your Own Life, Then Die

Moments after Rose’s prosthetic hand and wrist shatters after one too many Crimson Rose Bullets, we learn how she ended up with it in the first place: she got in too deep with the underground, and one day (or probably more appropriately, night) she lost, and the price was her hand. Leo only visited her to tell her she was stupid and he was having nothing more to do with her. He found someone new.

Rose meets this someone new, watches her fire a Blue Bullet, then tries to get her to work for her, but Eve isn’t about that. In fact, she didn’t show up on Rose’s doorstep until she wanted to play against Aoi. Fast-forward to the present, and Rose is going to play golf with one arm. Yes, you heard me. And she does.

Not only that, she comes heart-crushingly close to sinking the ball on just her second shot, a perfect shot from 140 yards away. But close is no cigar, which opens the door for Eve to take the win. The episode then jumps forward, to when the construction vehicles are about to level Klein’s bar while she, Lily, and the kids watch.

That’s when Eve shows up in Vipére’s car (and Vipére does a J-turn waaaaay too close to the children) and tells them to hop in, even though the car in question is tiny. Their problems are solved. She opens her new briefcase full of cash (again, a questionable decision in an open convertible traveling at high speed). She won. Rose lost.

From there, things start flying high. Vipére, as a treat, gives Klein’s whole family new identities (a snake keeps her ear to the ground), which allows Klein to buy a new bar, Lily to help out there, and the three refugee kids (from Palestine, Syria, and Somalia, by the way) to go to school for the first time.

Vipére herself ends up on a yacht, seemingly retiring both from golf and from wearing fangs. But while her family’s future is secure, it’s not all gravy for Eve. She meets Rose’s underling Anri on a rooftop, where Anri tells her that as a result of her victory, Catherine has put hits out on both Rose and her. Anri can’t quite kill Eve herself, even though she wants to. Instead, she runs away in tears, telling her to live her life however she wants, then die…with emphasis on the “die”.

Certain for some reason that A., Catherine won’t go after her family and B., Catherine will never know to send hitmen to Japan, Eve gets on a train to the airport bound to Aoi’s homeland, to fulfill the promise she made to meet her on a legit golf course. It’s the promise that drove her stunning victory, bouncing her ball of Rose’s and landing in the cup.

Mind you, shit like that probably won’t fly in above ground golf. But knowing her best years were behind her, Rose always intended for Eve to surpass her, and is glad her ass was kicked so thoroughly. She sits by the water with a cig, having summoned Leo to ask why he gave up on Eve. He tells her because he didn’t believe he could awaken her full potential.

But that time is seemingly coming. As if to underscore the official changing of the guard, Leo’s departure is immediately followed by the arrival of Catherine’s hitman. Before he pulls the (real, not metaphorical) trigger and ends her life, Rose briefly glimpses an ideal possible life when she was on the pro tour, with Leo as her proud caddy. Maybe in another life. This tragic moment is followed up by Eve is on a plane bound for Japan and to her beloved Aoi, who just can’t believe the drinks are free.

I will savor and treasure this episode for a long time, and you should too: it’s about as good as anime can get. Engaging, deadly serious, and absolutely window-lickingly bonkers in the same breath. And with only 4-5 episodes left, I desperately hope we get a second season, as it seems Eve’s golf story is only beginning now that she has emerged from the shadows and leapt into the light. The world would be a better place with more Birdie Wing in it.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 07 – Around the Bend

When you consider that Nicholas and Catherine are using Eve and Rose to settle a score that might’ve taken a lot more time, cost a lot more money and spilled a lot more blood on the streets, you can’t help but think that her $100 million underground golf course is worth every penny of her money—both dirty and legitimate.

Of course, Eve and Rose don’t particularly care about their bosses; they’re doing this for pride. Rose even told her underling to leave Eve alone a year ago, when she was only six months into her betting golf career. Only now that “the fruit is ripe” does Rose want to pluck it from the branch and sink her teeth into it.

Make no mistake: Rose is good. Like Eve, she was trained by Leo (who makes a rather baffling appearance at the bar while Klein is packing up) and also calls her shots “bullets” (though in her case she has only one color: crimson rose). The two play hole after hole to draw after draw. Since the stakes are their lives, this is a double-edged sword.

There is certainly a level of suspense, especially the way the balls just miss the holes. But that’s tempered by the inescapable knowledge that Eve is most certainly not going to die as a result of this match, and I’m not even convinced Rose will either.

This episode is also let down a bit by two factors: the ridiculousness of the underground configurable golf course was already established for the duel with Vipére, so its novelty and shine wear off a bit (especially as they use all the same shots as the first time we saw it, only in a different order).

When Catherine cheats and has a hole made that requires a slice, she does so believing, Wile E. Coyote-style, that the Road Runner isn’t capable of learning. Turns out Aoi taught Eve a new “Purple Bullet” that does indeed slice. Worse for Cathy still, there’s a very concerning crack when Rose hits her shot.

When Rose tries to match Eve’s 287-yard Blue Bullet bomb, she manages to do so, but there’s that cracking sound again, and it’s followed by Rose clutching her right arm and screaming in pain. Then, and mind you this is after the credits, something happened that made me cackle like Catherine after something goes her way.

Turns out Rose’s freaking arm is a bionic arm, and it shatters. I’d say that’s the end of the game…but this is Birdie Wing. It’s possible she has a spare, or just plays with one arm. Either way I can’t see her outright dying … but by golly that arm was one hell of a surprise.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 06 – Deep in the Sand Trap

In a rather nasty twist of fate, the land for a new casino that Eve was golfing for on behalf of Catherine is the very land on which her found family presently squats. I had assumed Klein owned the bar they live in, but nope. We also learn that the three little ones are immigrant orphans who will be deported. Eve can’t help but think she’s responsible for potentially destroying her family.

She visits Rose to voice her outrage, as Rose most certainly knew full well that Eve’s fam lived on the future site of the casino. But Rose has no sympathy for Eve; she did her a favor by letting her play against Aoi, while Eve repaid it by beating Vipére. Eve goes over everything that’s happened in the episode so far, and decides that the solution to this crisis is, of course, hitting a ball with a stick…in a way only she can.

As luck would have it, Vipére just happens to stop at the very spot Eve is doing her reflecting. Eve asks for golf betting gigs, but if Snake Woman had any, she’d take them. After she lost to Eve, Nicholas took everything she had (except, oddly, her Morgan roadster…). I must say, the speed with which Vipére became a comic book villain to a charming and likeable (temporary?) ally to Eve is truly impressive.

Aoi’s sole scene in this episode is a brief one, as we follow her on her extended press junket. The scene makes clear two things: 1.) No matter how cutthroat the Japanese high school golf circuit is, Eve has a lot more shit to deal with than Aoi, and 2.)  Eve is still foremost on her mind, so much so that she confuses journalists by insinuating she lost to someone in a tournament she won by 12 strokes.

Much to Catherine’s consternation, Nicholas does not honor their proxy golf deal and assassinates her politician so that the council votes for him to maintain control of the Casino. When Cathy won’t accept a 70-30 split in Nick’s favor, it comes down to another game of golf (though why either party would believe the other again escapes me). One of his underlings is, ahem, good friends with Vipére, who gets the lowdown on the impending game.

Knowing that Eve will give her a better chance of crawling out of the abyss, Vipére basically takes her in (to what I assume is a safe house) and puts her on a grueling training regimen. Or at least the thought it would be grueling; instead, she’s astounded by Eve’s stamina. Turns out Eve already underwent even more grueling training under Leo, the man who taught her how to golf with a lot of tough love.

The name Eve, AKA Evangeline, is the only thing Eve remembers when she suddenly woke up with bandages on her head. She was saved by Klein and Lily, who were then living and working at a brothel at the tender age of 14 and 10, respectively. Eve accepted Leo’s tutelage so she could golf her new sisters out of that brothel and into a life of safety and comfort. But now that life is back on the line.

Back down in her high-tech underground course, Madame Catherine learns that Nicholas, through Vipére, has hired Eve to be his golf proxy this time around, with Vipére serving as her caddy. Catherine, in turn, has picked Rose to be her proxy, and clearly this is something Rose has set up from the beginning…and something tells me she’s immune to Vipére’s stinky charms.

The stage is thus set for the most over-the-top, high-stakes golf game yet: one that may decide whether Eve’s friends have to return to prostitution to survive while the little ones get shipped back to their home countries. As halfway points of cours go, it’s not a bad place to be. I can’t wait to watch Eve potentially struggle but ultimately prevail over a too-arrogant-by-half Rose…and wish nothing but the best for dear, déar Vipére.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 05 – Golf Eve Online: Aoization

After that doomed mad dash to the golf course in a poorly chosen classic car driven by Tinarina from Raw Time, Aoi feels betrayed…until she sees Eve’s ball soaring through the sky as the plane takes off. Once back in Japan Aoi tries to get back on the first flight to Nafrece, and she’s only stopped by Shinjou.

Aoi is feenin’ for Eve so hard, she barely manages a shrug at the appearance of her top amateur rival Himekwa Mizuho, and even lets slip to her mom/sponsor Seira that she met someone amazing at the tournament. Seira immediately launches an investigation into this “Eve Aleon”.

Meanwhile, Eve can think of nothing more than getting back on the course with Aoi. She’s listless, and needs to get the doe eyes from her three kid siblings to get off her ass and hustle Mr. Kevin a sixth or seventh time. She ultimately wins, since Lily buys pizza to celebrate, but it’s touch and go at the beginning of the three-hole game.

Eve just isn’t feeling the “heat” she felt at the tournament playing Eve, and worse still, thinks she may never feel that heat playing golf again. I mean, if you can’t play with your soul mate, what’s the point of anything? I be she wishes she’d gotten Aoi’s contact info, huh?

While Aoi and Eve struggle with being apart, Rose stops by Cathy’s HQ to collect the not inconsiderable payout she got when Eve beat Dollar Tree Morticia. Cathy wants to hire Eve to work exclusively, envisioning she can “service” fans even if she loses. Rose says that sounds like a great idea but probably wouldn’t fly.

Mind you, Rose most assuredly doesn’t discourage Cathy for Eve’s sake; Eve is a tool she wants to use to make money. Cathy knows this too, and so her pursuit of Eve has probably only just begun. As for Seira’s investigation, when she learns Eve is an “illegal golfer with mafia ties” she stops worrying about Aoi having a genuine rival.

To Seira, Eve is just a “pebble” on Aoi’s otherwise smooth road to success (and succession), but to Aoi, Eve is everything. When Clara introduces Eve to the concept of VR golf and how it’s particularly popular in Japan, Eve decides to try it out, presumably in the astronomically small chance she’ll run into Aoi virtually.

I love the whole VR setup, which is the kind of advanced SAO-style full-dive tech our world has a long way to go to achieving. The details are great, from how she’s so focused on golfing she lets the attendant dress her up as a techno cat maid, to the way the course uncannily moves so she doesn’t have to.

Rose’s manipulation of Eve’s motivation is so unyielding, she not only sends a message to Aoi in the middle of the night masked as a message from Eve, and shows Eve rankings that indicate there’s one player in all of VR-dom better than her…she listens in on the two when they inevitably reunite on the course, albeit a fake one.

And what a reunion it is, what with how wildly the two are dressed and how much they missed each other after such a short time. It’s clear even seeing virtual versions of each other (which aren’t that different from their real selves) really puts a spark back into both of them after how down they felt in each other’s absences.

Still, Eve is frustrated that she can’t play Aoi on a real golf course, so Aoi gets her to promise to meet her one one someday soon. That means getting on the youth golf tour for real—without “special invitations”, but if it’s to play golf with Aoi, Eve is ready to pinky swear. She would have, too, if she wasn’t suddenly logged off.

A tearful Lily is the one who logged her off, and she has terrible news…they’re about to lose their home. Is this more Rose fuckery, as in they can buy the place from whoever is taking it if Eve wins another match for her? I wouldn’t put it past her. Either way, if there’s a way out of this crisis, I’m sure it will be golf-related. Hell, it had better be…

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 04 – Snakebit

When Aoi missed her putt, Eve confronts her angrily, thinking she let her win. But Aoi admits the miss was “her mistake”—apparently no one noticed Anri flashing a laser into Aoi’s eye before she putted, including Aoi herself. But she wants to have another go at a real game with Eve, so they agree to meet back at the course at 5 AM so they can play until her flight back to Japan.

Normally Eve would be able to keep such an appointment, but Catherine cashes in on Rose’s favor to her for letting Eve into the tournament that very night, and Rose and Anri deliver her to a massive configurable underground golf course. This is just the window-lickin’ craziest shit.

Eve is Catherine’s golfer, while her opponent in a real estate deal, fellow mobster Mr. Nicolas, has hired the thoroughly corny Vipère, a vampy minx in a leather catsuit. In addition to their employers’ bet, Vipère makes it interesting for her and Eve by saying whoever loses becomes the personal property of the other for a day.

Eve is neither amused nor impressed by all this nouveau riche and faux-vampiric posturing, and simply wants to get on with the game. But every other shot she makes is totally off, and she has no idea why…until she notices the same thing most of the audience probably noticed immediately: Vipère stinks. Not at golf, but literally.

Every time Vipère unzipped the front of her catsuit near Eve, she messed up. Turns out her perfume is a sublt poisons that threw her game off just enough to almost lose. Not about to lose to a cheater with fangs and a way too active tongue, Eve uses her Yellow Bullet to drive her ball out of a bunker and straight into the hole, beating Vipère and fulfilling her favor to Rose and Catherine.

What follows is a lot of plot malarkey, unfortunately. First, Eve has Vipère drive her to the course to meet with Aoi…in Vipère’s slow antique car. Aside from it not being Vipère’s style at all (why is it yellow?) Anri was right there in the parking lot with a Jaguar XJS, which if I know Rose had a V12. Combined with the fact the distance from the underground course to the above-ground one wasn’t revealed until it became a problem, and my eyes were rolling like a Titleist on the green.

Just as Anri manufactured Aoi’s loss and Vipère almost manufactured Eve’s, the the plot tomfoolery ends up manufacturing the first major interpersonal conflict between Aoi and Eve, as Aoi waits as long as she can but has to board her flight before Eve gets there. She leaves her Pac-Man ball on the tee, but drew a tear in its eye and “Liar” on the other side.

As her plane takes off, Aoi spots Eve and her Blue Bullet taking flight. So, I guess the airport is right next to the golf course? What with that crazy golf bunker, I half-expected Eve’s golf ball to go into the jet engine, forcing it to land and giving the two a chance to play.

Of course, there’s a good chance that would have ended in fiery tragedy, so maybe it’s best Eve didn’t hit the plane….I just hope their budding friendship hasn’t been shattered irrevocably. After all, Aoi began the episode with a mistake caused by others; now that Eve was late, the two are even par, as they should be.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 03 – Just Golf, Baby

Eve doesn’t half-ass anything. When given an audience with Rose’s boss, a higher-up in the Nafrece underworld, she offers up her damn body in exchange for the chance to play in the U15 Tournament. Fortunately, the boss lady rejects that offer, but I am worried about the one she accepts, which Rose brings up without Eve knowing what it is.

Whatever Faustian deal Eve is now tangled up in, all that matters is that she’s able to keep her promise to Aoi to play one round—in this case, the final round of a world tournament. Rose makes sure she looks the part, dressing her in her boss’ brand name attire and giving her a full set of clubs. After a couple episodes in street clothes, it’s great to see Eve all glowed up.

The two other girls in her team unfortunately go through hell, as Rose tells Anri, because Eve is a simple destroyer, concerned only with defeating her one opponent; Aoi, who enters the final round 9 under par. As Rose racks up a -3 in four holes Rose further describes how Eve’s style of golf methodically destroys any opponents in her vicinity, causing them to forget their own styles in a hopeless bid to keep up.

While her group mates are probably going to be feeling the negative aftereffects on their own games for many matches in the future, Aoi is spellbound by Eve’s performance. As the leader, Aoi is in the final group with the latest tee time, but she just can’t wait to get out there and play “in the same air” as Eve, who she can tell is having a blast.

Aoi begins her round knowing Eve’s score, and insists that Amane keep her updated every three holes via hand signals. Amane is fine doing this because 1.) she’ll take whatever motivation for Aoi she can get and 2.) she’s quite certain even Eve can’t hope to beat Aoi. But while Amane knows Aoi’s game like the back of her hand, she’s only seen a little bit of what Eve can do. This time, she sees more, including how accurate she can be even while driving her ball through the same woods where it got lost in her last game with Aoi.

While Eve and Aoi duel, their respective support groups watch; her classmates at the fancy Raiou Girls Academy in Japan (the architecture of which reminds me of a car dealership or auto parts store for some reason), where we meet Haruka, Aoi’s supposed rival in her homeland, and Ichina, who wants to be a caddy for someone like Aoi, not a player, and is training accordingly.

They, like Amane, and even Eve herself, believe it’s a foregone conclusion Aoi will go one point under Eve to take the win on the 18th hole. But on what should be a straightforward birdie putt misses the cup, an error so timely and uncharacteristic it makes me wonder if there’s some kind of chicanery involved. That feeling is amplified watching Rose spreading her arms at the sun like a villain about to cackle.

While I don’t forsee I’ll be the biggest fan of Eve and/or Aoi being pawns to these gangsters, this episode was 99% Eve and Aoi enjoying the absolute goddamn hell out of a match together, and however it ends, they’re going to want to play each other again as soon as possible. After all, until someone shows up who can beat either of them, they’re all they’ve got.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 02 – Blue Bullet vs. Blue Blood

Amawashi Aoi is the daughter of two pro golfers and has been raised since she was tiny to be one of the world’s finest. But she’s not the slightest bit conceited or unpleasant as a result of this specialized and very exclusive upbringing. She’s pure, sweet, and very excited to meet someone like Eve.

Aoi wants to play a whole round with Eve, but Amane says there’s only time for one hole, so Aoi picks the toughest: a 400+ yard L-shaped Par-4 with the sea on one side and a thick forest on the other. Eve naturally smashes her ball through the woods but doesn’t quite get all the way through.

Aoi keeps her ball out of the forest by unleashing a majestic slice that turns the corner and leaves her with less than 140 yards on her second shot. Eve gets her ball out of the woods, but misses the green and a clear shot at the hole. Aoi hits a perfect strike that places the ball mere inches from the hole and a sure Eagle.

Amane’s narration of this exciting hole of golf lays it on a little thick that Aoi is the “Innocent Tyrant” whose gleaming smile will effortless crush anyone in her way. And even Eve admits that there’s something about Aoi that threw her ever so slightly off her game. That, and Aoi genuinely can’t take her eyes off Eve’s golf.

As for Eve, well, after years of simply using her talent to put food on the table, this one hole with Aoi is the most fun she’s had playing golf. Not that surprising considering how amazing Aoi is. Despite herself, Eve finds herself both charmed and inspired by Aoi, and absolutely hell-bent on beating her when next they play. And they will play again quite soon.

After easily beating a street scammer’s magnet-ridden putting green, Eve gains an audience with a mid-level figure in the mob, who wields a club like a yakuza would wield a katana. This is where I first realized that Eve is still a kid—closer to Aoi’s age than I thought. This is one reason how she’s able to convince the mobster to get her into the U-15 tournament. Another is that Eve’s heart is aching to face off against Aoi again, and while the mobster will make sure Eve owes her big for the privilege, she’s as eager as I am to see a rematch. 

But Aoi’s heart is aching too. Before meeting Eve, she seemed pretty bored by golf—and considering it’s been her whole life, who can blame her? But when you’re at the top of your game, you seek out others at the top of theirs, especially when they take such a fascinatingly different path to that top. Now that these two have found each other, they both have new fires burning in their chests…and they want nothing more than to stoke them.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story – 01 (First Impressions) – Direct Strike

We meet “Rainbow Bullet” Eve in disguise. Paid by an injured pro golfer to play in her place to keep her ranking, Eve does this just for the payday. When she wants some excitement, her ebullient friend (or sister?) Lily arranges a high stakes midnight one-hole match worth €6,000. The man challenging her has a ringer wearing a mask.

This ringer takes the first shot, driving the ball 240 yards off the tee. But Eve is so confident in her abilities, she lets Lily tee off for her—to the tune of only 70 yards. Eve takes it from there with her “Direct Strike: Blue Bullet”—a move that sounds straight out of a tokusatsu anime—and obliterates her opponent, who turns out to be the pro golfer she played for earlier!

As the sun rises, Eve and Lily head home, where they, a bartender (their big sister?), and three kids are squatting. They arrive to find their friend being shaken down by a dirty cop. While Eve was looking forward to splurging, she instead rushes towards the cop and tosses all €6,000 she just won at him, along with the invitation to fuck right off. Eve has a chip(shot) on her shoulder, but a heart of gold, and will fiercely defend her family.

The next hustle job involves a wealthy businessman on a fancy first-class course, but even when said businessman reveals his talented, up-and-coming niece will be playing for him, Eve doesn’t flinch in the slightest. She knows precisely how hard she’s worked to achieve her level of play, and it only takes one out of four planned holes to cause the poor girl to forfeit, shaken to the core by Eve’s brute strength and gumption.

Eve doesn’t meet her match until episode’s end, when she finally comes face to face with someone the episode had been following on the periphery: Amawashi Aoi, a prim, proper, and exceedingly talented Japanese golfer about to make her pro debut. Flanked by her doting assistant Amane, she politely but firmly and confidently challenges Eve to a match…but pointedly not for money.

The clash of their philosophies is clear, but after twenty minutes of wailing on hapless peons, even Eve can sense she’s standing before someone special…especially when that someone, who can’t be more than 100 pounds soaking wet, whips out a 48-inch driver and howitzers her Pac-Man-emblazoned ball a few feet further than Eve’s Blue Bullet.

But this doesn’t look like the beginning of a knock-down, drag-out grudge match between two young women from hopelessly different backgrounds. It looks like the beginning of a mutual respect, and the potential for both to learn something about themselves while learning about each other. This a bright, crisp, clear and above all fun opening drive.