126th G-View: Ayane’s High Kick

Hello and welcome to the G-Views, where creativity is respected and Dokuro-chan is rejected. Seeing as my Triple Dose review looked very frightening with its wall of texty doom appearance, I decided to take the more logical approach and simply split the review in 3 parts. Hopefully this will ease the tension for visitors and regular readers alike.

The theme remains the same: The fun, the lame and the fugly. Let’s begin with Ayane’s High Kick.

No, not that Ayane (Favorite Dead or Alive character by the way), this Ayane.

Genre: Sports

Genre: action, comedy

Theme: Kick Boxing

Number of OVAs: 2

G-Rating: 6/10

Plot Summary: Ayane Mitsui is a very athletic high school girl who wishes dearly to become a great professional wrestler like her idol Manami Toyota (Real life Wrestling legend) of the All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling circuit. However, despite many auditions, she cannot qualify. A brilliant kickboxing coach, Kunimitsu, notices potential within the girl and persuades her to train with him. Ayane hates kickboxing and is very vocal about it, but happens to have a greater potential with the sport and sticks with it. Meanwhile, some of the less-savory teachers from her high school have become aware of her extracurricular activities and threaten to expel her if they get proof. And if that’s not enough, another kickboxer, Sakurako Miyagawa, has taken notice of the girl and wants to fight her in the ring.

To cut the story short, Ayane wants to become a pro wrestler, fails, is then later “tricked” by Kunimitsu into becoming a kick boxer instead. Basically it’s an anime version of the classic Rocky movie series in 2 OVAs (Not really but close enough). Heck it even has a training montage in it for good measure. I’ll describe the characters with their Rocky movie counterparts and I you’ll agree with me should you decide to give this set a go:

Ayane Mitsui = Rocky Balboa

Sakurako Miyagawa = Apollo Creed

Kappei Inagagi = Clubber Lang

Natsume = Adrian Balboa

Kunimitsu Tange = (Sort of) Mickey Goldmill

Before I continue, a little rant concerning the “trick” by Kunimitsu where he coaxed Ayane into becoming a kickboxer instead of a pro wrestler. Look. The guy had her train high kicks on a punching back for most of the day, and sometimes punches. She hasn’t done the basics of wrestling (such as running the ropes or I dunno…PERFORMING A GRAPPLE) even once. He gave her so many hints that he wasn’t teaching her to wrestle, such as “I’ll teach you how to grapple in 10 years” and she STILL didn’t figure it out. Good gravy woman, get a clue. Other than that gripe, it’s a decent show to spend an hour of your life watching.

Oh and my thoughts on the fights you might ask? Decent. They aren’t 5 star fights but I got a kick watching Ayane get her ass kicked.

Lastly, why is this show called Ayane’s High Kick? Simple, that’s her signature move, and a good one at that.

The animation’s got that old school charm to back it up. It’s not bad at all, though it does have some choppy editing errors here and there but nothing to gripe over. Ayane looks hot in her kickboxing gear and that’s what matters.

The music is okay. Nothing memorable but still neat tunes to listen to, though I have no idea where to find the OP and ED songs.

In conclusion: It’s a neat little number that could have worked as a 13-26 episode series had it received that opportunity. I certainly wouldn’t have any problems watching that. Kick Boxing/Wrestling babes duking it out for total supremacy of the squared circle, SIGN ME UP!