Introduction
Energetic and cheerful, 14-year-old Masaki Hinaoka takes his pet corgi on morning runs along the beach bathed in the rising sun. Suddenly, Masaki's eyes sparkle in awe: a blond boy surfs, delicate and breathtaking, with a slight smile gracing his kind face. Before long, Masaki encounters him again as a new classmate named Shou Akitsuki.
Shou is a skilled surfer and has been immersed in the sport since childhood. Even though surfing is the hobby of choice for Masaki's best friend, easygoing half-Hawaiian Nalu Tanaka, Masaki has never shown interest in trying it himself. But his admiration for Shou's surfing style finally inspires him to try the waves for the first time—despite not knowing how to swim.
On the surfboard, Masaki shows surprising potential and talent for balance. He learns quickly and eventually enters a local competition, all with Shou and Tanaka by his side. However, behind Shou's gentle smile lurks a darker shadow, threatening to overwhelm his friends. Nonetheless, Masaki fearlessly steps into the fun world of surfing, stopping at nothing to be the very best.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Audience reviews
13 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
KomeadaBagel
As a surfer i was really exicted about this anime. I never expected it to be amazing but this was still pretty disapointing. Overall story made it feel like the MC was a prodigy but then they focused on all the side characters and some of them were interesting but it was less about the actual surfing than I would have liked. The surfing itself looked very average and its pretty noticable that none of the writters have ever acctually surfed before with some of the dialouge.
Overall Im glad this anime at least exists and was kinda fun at some points but mostly just not what I was expecting.
Read at the sourceFDTO
Will anyone really start surfing after watching this subtle anime?
It seems that if you let Takaharu Ozaki, a neophyte director of a genre that you have no interest in, create a subtle anime, not just this one.
This director pretends to be thinking about something, but in fact, it's obvious that he's the type of person who doesn't think about anything.
I'm sure he'll be ripping it up as an animation director from now on.
In a bad way, that's to be expected. At least he's not directing an original anime.
And he's not the kind of guy you'd expect to be an anime director in the future.
Read at the sourceWolverineK
This is probably one of the worst animes of 2021.
First off I wanna say that I had high expectations for Wave, I’d been looking forward to it since I saw the trailer in October 2020. Right when it started airing I was super excited because I had been waiting months, but after the first episode I was highly disappointed in the weird pacing and the main character was very bland. I continued watching hoping that it would get better but after episode 2 or 3 (I can’t remember) it got much worse so I dropped it for a couple months. Eventually I picked it back up and finished it, but the rest wasn’t any better. The pacing was awful, the characters were very dull, the story was meh, and the art wasn’t anything special. I can’t believe I thought this would rival Free or Yuri on Ice, in reality for…
Read at the sourcesyl__via
i was pretty excited to watch this anime as i have not come across any anime that surrounds the "surfing" theme however i was very disappointed after completing the series.
firstly, the main character doesn't want to learn surfing because he doesn't know how to swim however just by accidentally watching one of the side characters surf, he suddenly have interest in surfing. i don't feel that it make sense.
secondly, the anime is very choppy. i don't feel that it linked up very well from episode to episode.
thirdly, i cannot believe one of the main character's friend got killed off as i was expecting him to be one of the supporting character in the anime. most importantly, his death was not explained properly either, i was really sad and my head was totally full of question mark about him…
Read at the sourcesanriokawaki
My honest, and biased opinions// SPOILERS:
Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed in this show. When I tell you it had POTENTIAL!! It had potential but was a total flop. The only good thing about this show is the character design specifically everyone except Masaki Hinaoka. Idk for some reason, Masaki pissed me off whenever I see his character. Masaki character design was lowkey plain, and kinda obvious too when you add his personality... talk about cliche.
The show overall is really boring and hella CRINGEYYYY ASFFF. I can't stand cheesy stories, and this show is full of it, especially around Masaki. In the first couple of episodes, you can see that cringey-ness and cheesy-ness with Masaki and his friends.
The art goes on and off here, it's really good when they aren't surfing, and it gets…
Read at the sourceLeachieGekuu
This show is a trainwreck. It was an absolute chore to get through. It was just so boring. If it sits in that curve of mediocrity where it's not good enough to be interesting, but it's not bad enough to be funny. It's just a very nothing show. I can't imagine anyone getting anything out of watching it. The characters are copy-pasted stereotypes with almost zero character development. At best they were tolerable, and at worst they were downright obnoxious. The worst offender was white-hair. Christ, he was terrible. He was constantly raving about his favorite anime girl Miruru. It would have been ok if it was just a facet of his personality, but it is his entire personality. To the point that I remember Miruru's name and not his. It's honestly a little concerning. The only character who had…
Read at the sourceou97_pths
In the COVID-19 era, when we have to stay home during lockdown, I found this anime very enjoyable :)) it even gives me hints to understand my life more.
Because of the mood and tone this anime gives, I can hear the sea, see the waves, and feel the joy of surfing along with the characters without leaving my house.
That's WHY I like this anime.
But If I have to rate it, I will go with...
Story: 6/10
The episodes still don't fit together neatly into a continuous story. The story is overly simplistic but I like it and the way it ends. Art: 5/10
The art is so-so, and a CGI doesn't blend well enough with the rest of the animation.
Sound: 5/10
The seiyuu are fitting for the characters they portrayed, but the background music could be more fit for the story and atmosphere (in some scenes).…
Read at the sourceasteroidsmoke
[SPOILER WARNING! There are spoilers written under the story and character sections of this review, so if you haven't watched Wave, you'll be fine if you skip those sections. I don't ever write spoilers in my reviews, but for this show it's ridiculously unavoidable, so I apologize in advance.]
[Content warnings for Wave!!: mentions of suicide, but other than that, you should be all good.]
Overall: 4/10
All I can say is... what...? I've been so excited to watch this anime ever since I saw an announcement around September or October in 2020, but it was a huge let down. The story is painfully dry and jumps from place to place with no real motivation or reasoning. I don't particularly recommend watching this anime.
Story: 2/10 [SPOILERS]
I've never watched an anime and truly said, "This sto…
Read at the sourcespookee22
This anime really had me thinking that they were pulling something interesting in the middle, but, alas, I was misled. Honestly, it isn't a bad show, it just isn't worth watching. There were some solid characters in there who were genuinely likable, but overall the writing was not great. I think the best way to watch this show is with a friend that you can make fun of it with-- it's how I watched it and is really the only way I was able to get any enjoyment out of it. Also, fair warning because this show has No Warning, you probably shouldn't watch this if you're already depressed and are looking for a light-hearted show. It mostly keeps up a fun tone, but there are a few moments that are pretty dark (not enough so to make it an especially interesting watch, sadly). The last scene of the l…
Read at the sourceKyleRiley
UPDATED REVIEW
-Contains Spoilers-
So to preface this I am just going to say that Wave!! is really boring and has very one note characters with no clear end goal outside "let's surf da bestest".
Story: Incredibly boring and nonexistent. For the first three episodes you get an entire arc of main protagonist learning to surf and becoming good friends with the new kid in school. There's a one year time skip in those first three episodes making it all feel rushed. This leads to my next major complaint. The story has a lot of telling and very little showing. The first scene of the entire anime is them literally telling us the main group of boys' personalities in the same sentence it gives us their names. They constantly say "oh that was amazing!" or "this'll be worth a lot of points!" withou…
Read at the sourceSteblob
So I just finished the whole thing. I may say that the whole thing was a rollercoaster. From getting bored to getting excited. Anyway, I wanted to review this anime by my ratings.
(mild spoilers ahead)
Story - 5
The story always starts with the main character. Masaki never liked surfing till he saw Sho for the first time and now he wants to get better. That's it. that's the story, that's the plot. It's not that bad actually. It's like your typical sports anime mc goal.
Art - 4
The art is not that bad. In fact, I consider myself a Tanaka simp (lmao) but ever since someone mentioned the surfing animation. I got disturbed with how the characters look. It's weird but it's bearable.
Sound - 5
The op is mediocre. Nothing much to say
Character - 6
I don't care what symbolism this show tries…
Read at the sourcechocolattebjorn
There's 4 sport anime in Winter 2021 featuring ikemen characters and this anime is one of it. I watched this because I'm curious about surfing despite this anime seems like 'Handsome Boys Doing Handsome Things'.
(spoilers below)
Story
Masaki Hinaoka is an ordinary middle school student and always get along with Nalu Tanaka, his childhood friend and a surfer. At first Masaki didn't interested with surfing. But when he saw a random guy surfing in the beach, he got attached with surfing. Turns out the random guy Masaki admires is become a transfer student named Sho Akitsuki in Masaki's school. After that, Sho teaches Masaki how to surfing and the three of them always hang out together. Even they joins surfing competition together.
In some time, Sho seems presumably dead when Masaki saw Sho…
Read at the sourceKANLen09
YAPPE...a surfing anime! Let's go ride the Waves! Surfing Yappe!! Show must go on!
...only except that this is not only just bad, but it's boring also, catering to the niche audiences. And being the TV version of a 3-part film trilogy released in October 2020, I'd presume that the reception for this is moderately lukewarm (when COVID is still a thing), but who the hell was thinking to green-lit the "complete edition" TV version to milk more of the mixed-media project. This should've just stayed in Japan and not come out either way, we don't need mediocrely bad shows like this to waste our precious time.
There have been many sports anime, but if there's anything to prove this Winter season, is that the unknown have risen and emerged from the depths of the sports themselves, from volleyball…
Read at the source