The second volume of Hoop Days suffers a little from the infamous sophomore slump, but the show still develops nicely.  In this volume Miho High wraps up the big game against their rivals in the first episode, then move on to other troubles as these five boys try to achieve their goal of playing in the Inter-high tournament.

Series Synopsis:

Kazuhiko Aikawa is the new kid who just transferred to Mizuho High School.  He's a cheerful guy who talks a lot and wants to be everybody's friend.  If you went solely on first impressions, you'd think he's a happy-go-lucky idiot.  He's also really interested in joining the basketball team.  There's a problem with that though: the team is all but dissolved.  They were suspended from playing other teams for a year after one of their players, Fujiwara, punched their coach in front of some reporters.  The coach transferred to another school, and all of the players slowly quit.  Now there is only Fujiwara, a very talented player, and his three best friends on the team, and you need five men to play.

Aikawa sees this as only a minor setback.  He rallies Fujiwara and his friends and gets them back on the court.  You see Aikawa is an excellent player himself.  He led his old school, Tendoji High, to the city championship last year.  Why he left is still unclear, but he didn't make any friends doing it.

Now, with the team reformed and the girl's coach also running the boy's team, the group of five friends are determined to get into the Inter-high Tournament, the high school basketball championship.

This volume:

The team finishes up their first practice game, in an exciting and close game.  There are more problems for Mizho's basketball team.  First they get a new manager, and a girl at that.  Anzaki knows a lot about basketball, and what's more, she knows a lot about Fujiwara.  While watching the boys practice, she notices that his knee is still injured from their practice game.  Fujiwara won't admit that he's injured though, and he clashes with Anzaki who wants him to sit out of the practices and exercise his knee.

His injury isn't the only problem that Fujiwara has to face.  When he got the Mizho basketball team banned for a year, that meant that the seniors wouldn't have a chance to play in the Inter-high, something that all high school b-ball players dream of.  When they hear that Fujiwara is playing ball again, they return to their alma-mater to pay him back for their perceived disgrace.

This volume was a little slower than the first one, but I still enjoyed it a lot.  There was a sub-plot of the girl's basketball team playing in the finals that didn't grab me as much since we haven't gotten to know the female players as well as the boys.  There were some bumps for the girls along the way, and some of the games were pretty good.

This volume also gives some more background on Fujiwara which was nice.  Anzaki is also a bit of a mystery which makes her interesting.  She used to be a great player in middle school, but she never went out for the high school team.  She knows as much as any of the boys, but doesn't want to talk about her past association with the game.  Her character is developing nicely.

On the down side, there are the same problems that the first disc has.  The animation is just so-so.  The characters move alright but the ball doesn't seem to follow the laws of gravity.  When someone is dribbling, the ball will often stay up in the person's palm longer than it should.  Also, when someone dunks the ball, the ball falls to the court faster than the person who dunked it.  I guess universal acceleration doesn't affect basketballs.

They also put in as little motion as possible, especially during the games themselves.   There are a lot of pans across still images and close ups on the players faces.  They do a good job of creating the illusion of action though.
 
They use a lot of 3D computer animation that just doesn't mesh well with the rest of the show.  When the ball is in someone's hands, it's regular 2D animation, but as soon as the ball is shot or passed, they substitute a CGI animated ball.  This one has more texture and movement than the cell animated basketball and the transition is a little jarring.  They do the same thing with the net and the floor of the court.  When they cut between the two animation styles it's really noticeable and takes your mind off of the story.

This disc contains the next five episodes and comes in a black keepcase with no insert.

Audio:

This DVD offers viewer the choice between surround sound stereo tracks in both Japanese and English.  I alternated between tracks while watching this show and enjoyed them both.  They both make good use of the front soundstage especially during the games.  The sounds of the shoes squeaking against the court and the ball bouncing against the floor are clear and strong giving the show a nice aural quality.  A 5.1 track would have been nice, but this is a good sounding disc.

Video:

The full screen image is pretty good, though there are a couple of minor problems.  The colors are bright and the lines are pretty sharp.  There is some aliasing especially around the fine lines on the court and people's uniforms.  The red colors tend to bleed a little bit too, running into the surrounding areas.  The latter is a minor problem while the aliasing is a little more troublesome.  Even with these defects, the show looks nice.

Extras:

There are no extras on this disc besides a series of trailers.

Final Thoughts:

Though I'm not into sports very much, I have to admit that I enjoy sport based anime.  Hoop Days is a good show, with a lot of excitement and action, as well as some interesting characters.  This volume slowed down a little from the first, which is pretty common.  The main reason is that the sub-plot of the girl's basketball tournament took center stage at the cost of the main story.  Still, this is a fun volume which is Recommended.