How To Build Strong Camaraderie By Facing Adversity

Tsurune Episode 5 Review

The training camp is on but the boys are fairly annoyed to discover that their ‘servant’ duties, having lost the match last week, pretty much exclude them from actually training. That’s okay. Because like with most sport based anime, they aren’t just getting better at sport, we’re making better people, or in this case a better team.

I was actually a little put out in the second half of the episode where Masaki’s brother pointed out how ‘close’ the boys had gotten and used his photos from the camp so far to demonstrate the point. It seemed really unnecessary given the visuals throughout the episode had already driven that point home as the space between characters visibly shrank and they began actually looking at each other when they spoke. It just seemed a little heavy handed to then have a side-character draw attention to something that had served its purpose well on its own and felt a bit like they were worried that maybe the audience would miss the point (which seems really unlikely).

Though if I’m going to start nit-picking at this show for being heavy handed that’s probably going to be the kiss-of-death because Tsurune is unashamed of what it is and makes no attempts to break the mould. It focuses instead on giving us a well paced and visually stunning sports focused slice of life with characters who are slowly revealing themselves to the audience. In this it succeeds admirably but there’s nothing much subtle about what it is doing.

Still, there’s a genuine delight when you see the boys coming together. From their united displeasure at realising they won’t going to have time to train, to their argument over pork or beef at the supermarket, to the amusing hat rescue sequence, and then traditional bath sequence and barbecue, every scene builds up a sense of camaraderie between these previously fairly detached characters.

And of course, there are clearly some further details about Minato that have yet to be revealed. Any anime character with a scar that large has some angsty story. We kind of already know that Minato has an angsty backstory but the details are still pretty vague.

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• Episode 1 – On Target
• Episode 2 – Finding Your Target
• Episode 3 – It Isn’t Easy To Overcome Trauma
• Episode 4 – What Happens When Individuals Become A Team
• Episode 5 – How To Build Strong Camaraderie By Facing Adversity
• Episode 6 – The Best Revenge; Go Forth and Succeed Your Own Way
• Episode 7 – Why Strong Competition Caused the Need For Contemplation
• Episode 8 – Reaching the Target With Some Help From Your Friends
• Episode 9 – Shots Fired: Seiya Being Jealous and Lashing Out
• Episode 10 – Emotions Run High This Week and Are Handled Beautifully
• Episode 11 – You Have One Shot: Seize the Moment
• Episode 12 – Is It Time For The Team to Get It Together?
• Episode 13 – The Final Draw of The Match But Not The End
• Episode 14 – More of the same but different
• Images from: Tsurune. Dir. T Yamamura. Kyoto Animation. 2019.