Preamble

So right now, the way I watch anime is simple: I intentionally recreate Toonami for myself. Not the way it is now, but the way it was growing up. A block of television curated with the best animation available. I've got a sizable physical collection. Anime has never been more available on streaming. It's not hard. Just pick a couple shows and start watching them, one after another, one episode at a time.

Eventually I got tired of watching my nostalgic favorites though. I started watching stuff I'd never seen before. Today I finished Aim for the Ace, a shojo tennis anime from the 1970's. It was delightful.

Rundown

It's 26 episodes and sub only. It has a movie remake, and more than one sequel (none of which I've seen). I watched it on Retro Crush for free. Like I said, its main genres are Shojo (produced for girls) and Sports. It's also pretty queer.

Story

The story is simple enough: protagonist Hiromi goes to her high school that's famous for its tennis team and she's actually joined the club because she has a girl crush on ace player and undisputed queen of the team, "Madame Butterfly". (She likes the boys on the men's team too, but the series is unquestionably unafraid to be queer)

Hiromi was content to coast through High School, being a part of the club, but never being good enough to actually make the short list of girls good enough to compete. She was very much there to have fun ogling the pretty boys and girls playing tennis.

But with the arrival of a new coach, suddenly she is being dragged into the spotlight, as he takes special interest in Hiromi, giving her extra lessons and forcing her to compete for the very first time, totally upending her high school life in the process.

Random Points of Interest

Random thoughts:

the series is rich with mean girl energy. All kinds of rumors start to spread after the new coach takes an obvious special interest in a not particularly talented freshman and they play it up hard early on
This series doesn't teach you how to play tennis. It's a series about a tennis player, not tennis itself. Don't expect to learn how to swing a racket, or even what the rules are. I don't think it even tells you what an "Ace" is (It's not the top ranked "Ace" player)
Coach Munetaka might be a psychopath. His determination to turn Hiromi into a pro goes a bit far. He is merciless in his instruction. He never even told Hiromi what about her caught his eye initially.
It took Hiromi way too long to realize... yeah, she might actually enjoy playing Tennis. You wouldn't think you'd need an epiphany like that for someone already in the tennis club, but you kinda do this time
The matches themselves are streamlined. Most feel like a montage with narration and dialogue over it to describe which way the game is going. In such a short series, it kinda maybe works better that way

MVP

The animation deserves a special shoutout. It's not incredible by today's standards, but it's rich in personality, and I think the reasons the show holds up so well today is because of the intentional choices they made for what not to do at the time.

Every shot/storyboard involves a minimum of animated elements on a detailed watercolor background, including action shots of them actually playing tennis. It might seem disjointed at first, but I think the reason the series holds up today is because rather than trying to do long tracking shots following the action, they instead go for shorter shots at more interesting angles that show off personality.

Or something. Tbh, it's not the easiest thing to describe, and it might just boil down to personal preference anyway

In Conclusion

It's definitely worth a shot though if you're into either shojo or sports anime. It seems like it's one of those shows that everyone who's seen it loves it, but not many people are willing to give it that first chance based on the outward presentation.

Ordinarily, I would want to include some kind of trailer or something to cap off the review, but youtube is remarkably short on such things for the TV series. I don't use other people's words/ideas when I'm recommending something, so that's out. Instead, here's a trailer for the movie remake covering the events of the tv series. Most people seem to think the TV show is a better watch though.