I'll CKBC

By Chris Beveridge     August 12, 2004
Release Date: August 17, 2004



What They Say
Can rivals become teammates? Will teammates become enemies?

Akane Tachibana and Hitonari Hiiragi were stars of high school basketball and bitter rivals on the court. But when Hiiragi is transferred to Kokufutsu High school, they find themselves as teammates. Will the two masters of the court reconcile their differences in time for the big game against Kokutai, or will Hiiragi switch teams to challenge his rival face to face?

The Review!
While sports anime hasn't stormed the buying public, there are more titles touching on it coming out lately. Though more drama than sports, I'll / CKBC adds to the overall library of titles in the genre that are coming out.

Audio:
For our primary viewing session, we listened to this show in its original language of Japanese. The two episodes have a decent sounding stereo mix that has some noticeable directionality during the various game sequences as the ball hits the floor across the screen. Dialogue has a few areas as well but it's not as heavily noticeable. During regular playback, we had no problems with dropouts or distortions.

Video:
Originally released to video back in 2002, the show is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 letterbox. With the show being a in a school setting there's the usual palette of colors associated with it such as the soft greens and tans. There is a very strong feeling of a soft transfer here that seems to be intentional as it gives it an almost dreamlike sense at some points. Some of the areas are pretty sharp looking, but combined with the colors used it looks soft in general. While cross coloration is very minimal there were numerous instances of aliasing throughout the show but it didn't reach a really annoying level. Backgrounds maintained a nicely solid feel and overall the transfer looks good.

Packaging:
Giving a definite feel for a soft image, the cover has a very stylized piece of artwork and coloring that has Hiiragi in his standard school clothes set against the town backdrop. The way it's colored and the way it seems to shift off and on the character gives it a unique feel, especially with the character design and the minimalist nature of the background. The back cover has a few animation shots from the show set against a collage while most of the artwork is done in the same style as the front cover. There's a brief summary of the shows premise, which really does explain the bulk of it, and the listing of the discs features and production information. The technical grid provides the usual around of information while the insert has the chapter listings on one side and advertisements on the other.

Menu:
Going with the dual sides that drive this show, the logo is set down the center while headshots on each side showcase the two lead characters set to a brief active piece of music. The look and feel of it mirrors both the show and cover with its colors and overall soft feeling, at least for the artwork. The actual menu items are nice and sharp and easy to read. Access times are nice and fast and the layout easy to navigate, though the disc did not read our players preset language defaults.

Extras:
There are two extras to the disc, one of them an introspective set of interviews with the Japanese voice actors where they really seem to emphasize with their characters and a promotional video that was done for the shows release in Japan.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With one of the most awkward titles out there, I'll / CKBC (which we'll hereafter refer to as CKBC) stands for Crazy Kouzu Basketball Club, which is a school team that things are focused on here. Based off of a manga of the same name, the show revolves around two rival players who are trying to reach the next level in their game and have their situations changed so that it becomes even more intense.

The two stars, Akane Tachibana and Hitonari Hiiragi, are on opposing teams and have had a rivalry for some time. There's a number of issues with them in their backgrounds that force them along the paths their on, such as older siblings that have excelled at the game in the past as well as parental expectations, but the thing that really drives them is their own ambition. It's something that they don't realize at first and have to figure out. For both of them, it becomes a much more intense rivalry when Hiiragi is scouted and brought to Kouzu to play on the team there and to find out if he's really go what it takes to reach that next level. While the two have had a solid rivalry on opposing teams, their personalities are so strong that together there's plenty of conflict that comes out in addition to all the drama.

The conflict is what helps to push them along to finding out if they really have what it takes, and it comes down to a game within the group that's there for the week long basketball camp to show off what they can do when the two leads challenge each other. Both episodes build up to this game for both the players and their friends who watch them, mixing in flashbacks to past encounters and exposition on what makes them tick. While sports are a fairly sizeable aspect to this show and it takes up a good chunk of the second episode, half the time these kids feel like amateur philosophers.

The character designs for the show are pretty good, with most of the boys getting close to being in the pretty boy category but not quite, so that it isn't filled with unbelievable looking guys running around and working up a sweat. The animation quality is something of a mixed bag in that it's fairly representative of where things are today. There are a lot of stills and panning motions with just characters talking, but with as much exposition as there is here it isn't surprising. When the animation counts such as during the game sequences it comes across rather nicely but still not much more than a lot of TV series that are running these days. In the end, both story and animation for this show are good but they don't really stand out all that much.

In Summary:
CKBC suffers really from just one thing; it's based on a manga and they tried to bring in only the elements they were sure could work in a short OVA series. There's a sizeable cast here in the players alone never mind the secondary cast members such as the coaches and the girls that fall for them that you really don't get much more beyond the two leads. There's a feeling of a lot missing from the show in its translation from one media to another, but these two OVAs do a nice job of presenting a somewhat more mature and introspective show about two athletes trying to realize their potential. It's well done for doing that, but at the same time it feels very unrealistic because of the exact same thing.

Features
Japanese 2.0 Language,English 2.0 Language,English Subtitles,Japanese Cast Interviews,Promotional Video

Review Equipment
Panasonic PT50LC13 50" LCD RP HDTV, Zenith DVB-318 Progressive Scan codefree DVD player with upconversion at 720p, Sony STR-DE835 DD/DTS receiver, Monster component cable and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.