English Dub Season Review: Salaryman’s Club Season One

The world of corporate badminton is not as easy as it seems. Although considered a former child prodigy, Mikoto Shiratori has not been living up to his potential as a badminton player for Mitsuhoshi Bank. Due to a past incident, Mikoto tries to transition from playing doubles to singles; nevertheless, he fails to produce positive results, much to his employer’s dismay.

After being fired from the bank, Mikoto is recruited by the Sunlight Beverage corporate badminton team. Surprisingly, not only do practices start in the evening, but he also has to work in the sales department of the company by day. While this is not a novel arrangement, Mikoto had thought he was invited solely to play sports. To make matters worse, he is forced to compete in doubles despite his reluctance. Struggling to adjust to his new professional life, Mikoto begins to doubt his decision to join the company. However, as he learns more about his latest teammates, he might just find the strength necessary to advance his badminton career.

The anime itself was done by Liden Films, directed by Aimi Yamauchi, and written by Yamauchi and Teruko Utsumi. Original character designs are provided by Suzuhito Yasuda, while Majiro adapts the designs for animation. The music is composed by fox capture plan. The opening theme song is “The Warrior” by Novelbright, while the ending theme song is “Nisen Gohyaku Man no Ichi” by Mafumafu.

The show itself Salaryman’s Club (Or “Ryman’s Club” in Japan) feels like an earnest attempt to set itself apart from most sports anime. Since we already have “Prince of Tennis” I guess badminton is the next logical step to make an Anime out of anything these days. To further do this, the lead characters are also supposedly grown adults instead of high-schoolers despite the art-making most of the male leads appear youthful and effeminate though I think it’s clearly done to appeal to a female audience at most with the age brackets between characters being in their 20s-30s.

Other than badminton, the guys also have to do their part in sales, because that’s part of the job as well. And this is further exemplified when certain parts of the story focus solely on the business/sales aspect outside of sports, or in certain character moments where you learn one character is revealed to have never been drunk before while in the process learning that the drinking laws are different in Japan compared to America, as the legal age to drink is 20 years old which was something even I didn’t know about…

While I’m not much of a sports person in general (unless you count martial arts) I felt the badminton scenes were at least well animated, and the characters had interesting backstories. It’s unique in a way because it doesn’t take the stereotypical sports route. As a grown working adult, I sometimes often felt disconnected whenever I watch sports anime or certain high school stories which are I think is partially why I gravitated towards certain characters as some of their personal struggles, hardships, and performance anxieties seemed more relatable in terms of pathos through subtle hints that slowly unravel in each episode which seems to be one of its major strong points. Even if a Season 2 doesn’t happen, the self-contained ending works while leaving things quite open.