Yowamushi Pedal: New Generation

[Possible spoilers ahead! Skip below for TLDR version!] As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the first two seasons I was strongly anticipating the continuation of the YowaPeda series. And while the first two installments of it were solid sport series, this one disappointed me greatly and had me wondering what the author was actually thinking most of the time. STORY: The story starts at the point the 3rd years leave the club after the Inter Highs due to exams and skips to the beginning of the 2nd year for Onoda and his friends. This is the point where the first season already had it's major flaws: The story takes way too much time to start and keeps itself busy with character introductions and training. Oh and overly dramatic speeches of course. Also another thing that bothered me was how everything keeps repeating itself. They have the beginners race, the training camp with the 1000 km race and so on which was very tiring indeed. The writer could've come up with something fresh/new instead of reusing the same plot-line. But what disappointed me the most was that the aim of the team is still the same. Of course it's logical that they'd want to win the Inter Highs again but it took me 18 episodes to realize that all the hype around it was away. I didn't even care for them winning a second time because they already won it and that's it. Could've introduced another kind of tournament or maybe even an international one...but nope "InHi" again I guess. And with the same line-up. Yes, there NO new teams. They're still up against Hakone and KyoFushi (and some fodder schools but they aren't worth mentioning). CHARACTERS: Here is where the show usually shined, but paled this season. First of all, our Senpais are away and will be missed for sure. But of course I hoped for some cool, new characters. What did we get instead? Bratty first years, copycats of prior third years and unnecessary character additions for plot convenience. The team of six is completed by a guy named Kaburagi Issa who is pretty much a more obnoxious version of Naruko. He's an arrogant, childish and rude teenager whose purpose is not quite clear to me. The narrative wants us to think he's the "perfect" sprinter (while he wants to be an all-rounder). Why not introduce a type of character we didn't have yet instead? Why the fk does he look like Naruko? Also we have our main characters, which didn't change much except that they're a bit more mature. Naruko gets some kind of development, while Imaizumi is irrelevant most of the time. Oh and Onoda tries to be Makishima 2.0 while he fails at it. Sugimoto showed some potential, but was cut off sadly. I was rooting for him actually... Then at the training camp some guy who apparently everyone knows except for the viewer appears and challenges Teshima to a ride which shall decide who will be the captain. And ofc EVERYONE is ok with that. I mean dude, who are you even? Why is no one bothered by him? He was literally added just to give Teshima a justification for being captain and that's it. The idea of giving Teshima some spotlight was good though, as well as Aoyagi. I enjoyed their scenes mostly. I liked how Teshima said "I'm weak" as opposed to the infamous "I'm strong" of Hakone's Fukutomi. But it could've been handled better. But the worst thing was how they handled Midousuji. After the second day race and his "trip" with Onoda I thought he was inspired by him and changed a little concerning his attidue towards his team. However this season completely omitted that and made him even more evil and weird. He got some battle shounen-esque transformations where he literally evolves to a butterfly or something. And he has a gay-ass massage guy as assistant who likes touching people. Oh and of course he has his Zaku-army. Hakone's new members are pretty disappointing too. Kuroda is too much of an Arakita try-hard, Shinkai's brother is literally Shinkai and the big guy was not terrible but also nothing special. Oh and there's a tall guy who likes Beethoven. MUSIC/ART: The music was excellent as always and we also got a new Hime song. The animation was good although there was awkward CGI at times. OVERALL: While it was not utterly terrible I was overly disappointed by the new seasons repetitiveness. It had absolutely nothing new to offer and recycled old formulas from season one instead. The new characters were not refreshing nor had anything interesting to them. TL;DR: + Music/Art is good as always, although animation is not perfect + More spotlight/development for Teshima and Aoyagi - no new plotline, recycles old elements - not as exciting as season one, lacks some new goals/teams/reason for competition - takes much time to start with the tournament - characterization is weak, new characters are uninteresting

Third season of the show about bicycles and bicycling. This one brings many new things. Are they good? Time to think about it. First, third years leave highschool, therefore they leave bicycle's club. There won't be anymore several characters which we were so accustomed to in previous seasons. Personally, I missed "I am strong" thing of Hakone's ace. Sure, it's sad. But, life continues on. The next Interhigh gonna come soon. Time to prepare for Hakone's revenge. And that's what they do. But not only them. Kyoto Fushimi and Hakone hone their skills too. Without a spare second to waste. The season covers a part of their training for the Interhigh and a part of the first day. No doubt, sequels should appear soon. There's no reason to be worried about the quality. It's just the same as it was. It's not perfect, yes. But it does its part. And does it excellent. Some scenes are very good, mark my words. Furthermore, you're gonna to listen to the new OP of HimeHime! Doesn't that make you go to watch Yowamushi Pedal right now? Does it? Begone right now and listen to it. Everyone knows that bicycles' thing is just dust in the eyes. Little magic girl - that's the thing we waited for. :). More new characters roll in. And they are good characters, I have to admit. Peculiar and interesting in their own way. Also, this season makes a good job on revealing old characters. We see them training, changing, becoming stronger. I like this part of Yowamushi pedal the most. No one stands still doing nothing. Everyone wants to achieve something, everyone has a pride to keep on. To keep on doing things they decide to do. I think this variety of characters makes it possible to find the character with whom a viewer could sympathy with. In my case, I found this one. I very much liked watching the growth of Teshima. Literally, I couldn't help but to cheer up for him. The season gives a bit another feeling. However, it turns to be not bad. Still, the same atmosphere remains here. Still, there's Onoda who's capable of doing miracles by his sheer power of will. Still, there's Sohoku which supports each other. Still, there's Hakone which is unstoppable. Still Midousuji... So, you've got the gist. If you had liked previous seasons there's 85% you would like this one as well. Maybe you won't because, to be honest, it starts to be a little self-repetitive. At any rate, the show has everything to make me watch it and wait for more sequels to come. To underline everything I've just written... Yowamushi Pedal is like a little push on your back which tells you to think about your aims in life. About what you've got to do to achieve something. Maybe, it's only my case. Watching Sohoku's ride makes me a bit envy, you know. It's inspirational.

Coming off from the masterpiece of a season Grande Road was, I was excited for a new season of one of my favorite sports anime, Yowamushi Pedal. However I don't know if my expectations were too high or not but this season didn't move me as I hoped it would. Some things that bothered me was that I thought the pacing felt off in the first half of the show, in particular I felt like it took too long for the new members of the team to be introduced. Another issue I had was that certain things(transformations etc.) were exaggerated to the point where the anime felt more "shounen" which I didn't feel needed to be done especially since I thought the previous season had the right balance when it came to the genres. Other than those things I mentioned, everything you know and love about Yowamushi Pedal is still here that definitely makes it worth the watch. If you checked out the previous two seasons then I recommend you give New Generation a watch! Maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did.

Well i believe that if you are here you already know what happened on the last 2 seasons so i will explain this season only!! its the same concept as the last two seasons(especially the 1) but with new characters i dont see any big difference expect for the animation that i believe that is improved because they have less cgi on it and thats what i liked especially on this season. Also i liked a lot the development of Teshima and Aoyagi as they grew so much as a characters that i thought they were amazing not like the last 2 seasons where they were useless.Especially Teshima in this season he was my favorite character in Yowamushi Pedal. But what i didnt really liked it was the story i dont want to spoil a lot but i feel that its exactly like the 1 season expect for the characters but thats my opinion and of course it wasnt bad i do like it but i wanted to see something new. I wish that i will see it on the 4 season(yes it will have 1 more season).

background: i'm an avid sports anime fan, i love this series to death among other sport animes andddd i just finished it so i'm still in that high phase. i try my best to be spoiler free! *********** story: 8/10 its basically like season 1, although the 3rd years have graduated so there's always that sad melancholy theme throughout the story. sometimes it pulls the character down, sometime it gives them spirit. i miss the third years but yeah sports animes are like that. i still find it enjoyable despite it using the same mold as season 1 art: 9/10 the characters are designed distinctively enough that i can recognize and remember each one of them fairly easy. i like how the artist isnt reserved in this, just looking at the hair color is enough xD the scenes were drawn really nicely... facial expressions too sound: 8/10 the background music fit well with the atmosphere. less marks due to personal preference, i enjoyed the previous OSTs more. i still loop Transit (OP 02) tho XD character: 10/10 ok, this is where this season TRULY shined. i'm not gonna lie, i usually hate sport animes after the 3rd years graduate. the team usually isnt as appealing and watching new juniors struggle is sorta... boring. haha. BUT. this season they showed Junta and Aoyagi shine so brightly... they improved so much from previous seasons making them worthy team members for interhigh. despite Junta being the "weaker" member (self-proclaimed), he always manages to motivate his team members (and opponents) with his hard work and dedication. its just so beautiful to watch, i get teary all the time T^T the fact that Junta is referred as "normal" (calling people who can bike 1000km in 4 days normal is sorta a stretch) and always looked down upon, really struck a chord in me. it made me relate to him, and i definitely grew fond of him. i'm not gonna talk about the new members, to avoid spoilers enjoyment: 10/10 just watching the characters develop gave me all the enjoyment i needed. the racing scenes were thrilling. i like the slight plot twist they always manage to slip in. can you tell i'm still in that high? XD oh one more, you know how after the ending song they always have these short comedic snippets? i fcking LIVE FOR THESE. they are sooooooo fun to watch. this alone can get a 10/10. hahahaha. some animes try to do this but meh, i never found one i like as much as yowapeda's (Gintama does a good job too!) overall: 9/10 can this show be better? yeah, probably, if it wasnt copying season 1 altho if i were the creator i'd probably do the same thing? since its a club and every year starts the same way, only with different members XD will i recommend this to people til i'm blue in the face? hell yeah

Story: 7/10 This season feels very similar to season 1. There is the new members' race, the 1000km, inter-high, etc. It is a fine story but doesn't surprise me after watching the first season. Art: 9/10 The art/animation style changed from season one/two, and is the same style as the OVA. Mostly great, but personally disliked some of the changes, such as Imaizumi getting blue instead of the darker coloured hair. The audiences on the side also disappear every so often, which I don't really mind or find distracting. Sound: 8/10 A new Love Hime op was revealed, although not as great as the first, it still sounds great. Other sounds remain awesome. Character: 6/10 Lots of new characters introduced. Most of those characters don't get enough development in this season, but more may be revealed in the fourth season. Aoyagi and Teshima finally get more screen time and becomes part of the team instead of side characters. Enjoyment: 7/10 I really enjoyed the past 2 seasons, and still enjoy this season, but not as much. I really was not surprised when Onoda fell to the back because the same happened 3 times in the past 2 seasons. Overall: 7/10 Worth watching if you loved the past 2 seasons. (this is my first review)

The end of Season 2 was a very natural end to the story as a whole. It didn’t really need to continue but I was on board for continuing the story provided that they fix the issues with the story. They didn’t, in fact they made it worse. Despite a very weakly written protagonist, the whole of Yowamushi Pedal is held together by the fact that the Sohoku team is a group of relatable average joes while all of their rivals are overconfident jerks who push them to be better. That is completely lost in this third season. Not only have they not developed Onoda’s character (he really needs to calm down and stop freaking out at every little thing) but they added a literal narcissistic idiot to the team which hurts the overall development of the main characters because they are forced to compensate for him. Plus the writing of the rivals has gotten worse with Hakone acting as if they are god given talents and guaranteed winners despite losing last season. For this franchise to survive long term, it needed to have completely reset itself post Season 2, wrote out all existing characters and started fresh.

Possible spoilers ahead! I absolutely loved season 1 & 2! I knew 3 & 4 would be different so I had medium expectations, but was super disappointed. The new characters weren’t that interesting and lowkey really annoying most of the time. It made me dread the flashbacks because of it (and I like flashbacks). I only stuck through it because, again, I loved the first two seasons and that was enough to actually finish it. However, it just slowly got worse and towards the end I fast forwarded a lot. Honestly the only good thing is the trio! They are just as good, so if you loved them before, then you will still love them. [Characters] Sorry, but not sorry, I'm just going to describe them because I forgot their names. The new member annoyed me because he was too cocky. When I think he learns to be more mature and tolerable, he just reverts back. In the first two seasons I loved the friendly rivalry and competition, but in seasons 3 & 4 there are assholes everywhere. It almost feels like there is no sportsmanship. Eyelash dude goes from being overconfident/underestimating his opponents then learning from the loss in seasons 1 & 2 to being rude and cocky. How did you become like that after being the captain?? Did you not learn anything from your great captain last year?? The music dude makes me uncomfortable. Also, I don’t understand why you are ignoring/being rude to your past friend, now opponent. Would it kill anyone to be a civil human being. They are your opponent, not a inhuman enemy who deserves hell. Goodness… The pervert guy also make me uncomfortable. Most of the other new characters were okay, nothing special or memorable tbh. There were probably things I complained about while I was watching, but now I don’t remember. [Things that I didn’t really like, but didn’t mind] The new hime song was obviously not going to be as good. I expected that. I honestly don’t remember how it goes. I just missed the first one. The second turned third years are okay. I know a lot of people were annoyed with them, especially the captain, but I thought it was fine. They could have been written better or more likable. The timing/flow made sense but it’s just weird. I know some people said it felt repetitive, which it was, but I would have enjoyed the series if the characters were more interesting and dynamic. The race didn’t even end, which I honestly was okay with. They barely focused on our team and paid more attention to the underwhelming new characters anyways. That was too negative for what I’m used to, but that was my honest opinion. I still say give it a try and watch the first 4-5 episodes before you drop it or finish the whole thing to see if you agree with me. Despite really not liking it, I’ll probably watch season 5 if it comes out.