I'll CKBC

I'll CKBC is a story about Hiiragi and Tachibana, two teammates who act as each others rival in basketball. Hiiragi is a very gifted player who comes from a prestigious family of basketball players. While trying to find himself and determine what basketball means to him, Hiiragi begins to stray from his team and find a better team that can help him get to the next level. Its up to Tachibana and the KOZUO team to play one of the most important games against Hiiragi and his new team in order to bring him back to KOZUO and show him a their way of playing basketball.

Being on OVA made up of two 30 minute episodes, I'll CKBC attempts to tell quite a bit of story in an hour. As a whole, the story wasn't too difficult to follow. There were some moments where it was a little challenging to understand the flow of events while they were happening, but ultimately the pieces of the puzzle were connected as the story progressed. For a sports anime there tends to be a lot of story and little sports action until the end of the second episode.

The art and design used for this series used a lot of flat color, helping to set the dramatic tone and evoke the emotions that the character dialog was intending to express. as for music, it was almost non-existent. As I write this, I am struggling to remember a single track from the OVA. That being said, the lack of strong musical presence does allow you to really pay attention to the characters dialog.

Given the amount of story being tackled in the time allotted the character development was relatively decent. While there are character whose names you will most likely forget or miss altogether, the develop of Tachibana and Hiiragi as individuals and their relationship to each other was clearly expressed.

Overall, this was a pretty entertaining show to watch. If you are in the market for a drama with some athletics overtones and none of the male-female romance dynamics then this is worth checking out. If you are in the market for something with a little more sports action then some other titles to check out are Big Windup, Dear Boys (Hoop Days), and Princess Nine.