Aim for ace was introduced 70s now lot was changing then womens rights it has good rivalry within the women character's represents them as strong its one those series makes like characters more than tennis itself.lot drama and personalities along way.
4 Reviews
Surprisingly great and timeless
onze-kris12 April 2022
This is almost 50 years old .I just watched this last month though for the first time. The show has two big aces up it's sleeve.
First the soundtrack it is fantastic. So fitting of that time.
Second the artwork. Ochoufujin especially looks like the classic art we know from some 70's French advertisements.
Than it has a lot of determination and trying to be better.
The editing and some points and scores are not always correct. Otherwise it would have been a 9.
Also we should not forget sbout the position of the Japanese woman. Portraying the girls tennis club and their independence is a great example of how it should be.
First the soundtrack it is fantastic. So fitting of that time.
Second the artwork. Ochoufujin especially looks like the classic art we know from some 70's French advertisements.
Than it has a lot of determination and trying to be better.
The editing and some points and scores are not always correct. Otherwise it would have been a 9.
Also we should not forget sbout the position of the Japanese woman. Portraying the girls tennis club and their independence is a great example of how it should be.
A good Tennis anime
ramalho197918 September 2003
When i saw this, it was called "Jennie, Jennie", but the real name is Ace o Nerae. This is the story of a girl that became a great tennist (Hiromi), and how she won the best females tennists in Japan, and there is too a love story with a male tennist, that she like, but there are many problems with this love.
For me, what i liked in this anime is the plays that each tennist has, like after in Captain Tsubasa, each player have their "power play", and she got to find out how to win, because each player has a special quality, and a special handicap,its worth to see, even if is to see one of the first anime (1973).
For me, what i liked in this anime is the plays that each tennist has, like after in Captain Tsubasa, each player have their "power play", and she got to find out how to win, because each player has a special quality, and a special handicap,its worth to see, even if is to see one of the first anime (1973).
"Aim for the Ace" - Classic anime about women's tennis
BrianDanaCamp14 March 2010
"Ace wo Nerae" (Aim for the Ace) is a 26-episode Japanese animated TV series that aired from 1973-74. It was based on a manga series by Sumika Yamamoto about a female high school tennis player and was popular enough to spawn a movie (with all new animation), a follow-up TV season and two series of made-for-video (OAV) sequels, the last one appearing in 1990. It's focused on Hiromi Oka, an unassuming 15-year-old who takes up tennis at Nishi High School after watching glamorous star player Reika Ryuuzaki in action. Reika is a rich girl with striking features, an air of privilege, and long, flowing blond hair with lots of curls. She manages to make everything she does look easy, while Hiromi has short brown hair and little confidence and has to work much harder to achieve even the minimal level of competence required by the team. There's a handsome classmate named Todo who likes Hiromi and is liked by her as well, but they hold off any expression of feeling once Hiromi's stern (male) coach insists that she focus entirely on tennis and practice incessantly in order to catch up to the other members of the tennis club at the school.
I recently purchased two VHS tapes of the original series, containing episodes 19-23. They are, of course, in Japanese with no subtitles, yet I found the episodes compelling enough to watch them all in one sitting. The stories are told visually, with bold graphic design and great use of color and dramatic imagery designed to capture the characters' emotional states. There's a lot of tennis playing and heavy doses of exercise, jogging, and practice, so it's not that much of an effort to follow without translation. (As far as I have been able to determine, this series has never received an official release in English.)
What impressed me most was the sheer physicality of the animation. You feel what Hiromi and the other players are feeling. You are immersed in their experience. When Hiromi misses a ball and takes a nasty spill on the court in ep. 19, I felt a jolting twinge of discomfort. That had to be painful. Even in the quieter scenes, there are plenty of details that make the experience so vivid for us. When Hiromi jogs in ep. 20, we see her breath in the cold of the early morning as she jogs through the woods and on the walk of a bridge alongside chugging trains. When she exercises to the point of exhaustion we see and hear the labored breathing that results.
The director, Osamu Dezaki, likes to break down a scene into individual components, including facial closeups and shots of the ball speeding by or hitting the racket in slow motion, often with abstract color backdrops. Closeups of Hiromi are set against an overcast sky with jagged strokes of dark blue, even though a cut to another player is framed against a sunny sky. I'm assuming that Hiromi's backdrops are meant to stress her vulnerability and insecurity. (In one game, however, a storm actually breaks out, complete with thunder and lightning, and the referee stops the game only after it starts pouring.) While there are all sorts of animation shortcuts during dialogue scenes and interior sequences, the tennis games boast a high degree of extraordinarily intense and fluid playing action, with fast-and-furious exchanges in each of the games seen in these five episodes. It's all very exciting.
One sequence in ep. 23 includes illustrations of then-famous female tennis players, including the celebrated American player of the 1970s, Billie Jean King.
Osamu Dezaki went on to become one of the master stylists of anime, as evidenced by the rich visual imagination on display in so many of his later works such as the "Black Jack" OAV anime series (1993) and two Golgo 13 films, "The Professional" (1983) and "Queen Bee" (1998), among many other titles. Before "Ace wo Nerae," he directed another acclaimed sports series, "Ashita no Joe" ("Tomorrow's Joe," 1970), about a poor boy in Tokyo who becomes a boxer. He also went on to direct another famous adaptation of a shojo (women's) manga, "Rose of Versailles" (1980), set in France during the reign of Marie Antoinette.
I recently purchased two VHS tapes of the original series, containing episodes 19-23. They are, of course, in Japanese with no subtitles, yet I found the episodes compelling enough to watch them all in one sitting. The stories are told visually, with bold graphic design and great use of color and dramatic imagery designed to capture the characters' emotional states. There's a lot of tennis playing and heavy doses of exercise, jogging, and practice, so it's not that much of an effort to follow without translation. (As far as I have been able to determine, this series has never received an official release in English.)
What impressed me most was the sheer physicality of the animation. You feel what Hiromi and the other players are feeling. You are immersed in their experience. When Hiromi misses a ball and takes a nasty spill on the court in ep. 19, I felt a jolting twinge of discomfort. That had to be painful. Even in the quieter scenes, there are plenty of details that make the experience so vivid for us. When Hiromi jogs in ep. 20, we see her breath in the cold of the early morning as she jogs through the woods and on the walk of a bridge alongside chugging trains. When she exercises to the point of exhaustion we see and hear the labored breathing that results.
The director, Osamu Dezaki, likes to break down a scene into individual components, including facial closeups and shots of the ball speeding by or hitting the racket in slow motion, often with abstract color backdrops. Closeups of Hiromi are set against an overcast sky with jagged strokes of dark blue, even though a cut to another player is framed against a sunny sky. I'm assuming that Hiromi's backdrops are meant to stress her vulnerability and insecurity. (In one game, however, a storm actually breaks out, complete with thunder and lightning, and the referee stops the game only after it starts pouring.) While there are all sorts of animation shortcuts during dialogue scenes and interior sequences, the tennis games boast a high degree of extraordinarily intense and fluid playing action, with fast-and-furious exchanges in each of the games seen in these five episodes. It's all very exciting.
One sequence in ep. 23 includes illustrations of then-famous female tennis players, including the celebrated American player of the 1970s, Billie Jean King.
Osamu Dezaki went on to become one of the master stylists of anime, as evidenced by the rich visual imagination on display in so many of his later works such as the "Black Jack" OAV anime series (1993) and two Golgo 13 films, "The Professional" (1983) and "Queen Bee" (1998), among many other titles. Before "Ace wo Nerae," he directed another acclaimed sports series, "Ashita no Joe" ("Tomorrow's Joe," 1970), about a poor boy in Tokyo who becomes a boxer. He also went on to direct another famous adaptation of a shojo (women's) manga, "Rose of Versailles" (1980), set in France during the reign of Marie Antoinette.
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