In the world of underground golf, one girl reigns supreme, Eve Aleon, known as the Rainbow Bullet, is alone at the top of Nafrece’s illicit golf betting world.

Eve is a girl with one skill – she can hit a golf ball so hard, so far, so powerfully, that she’s able to support herself and her makeshift family of orphans by making dangerous bets in underground golf games. When Eve meets Awashima Aoi, a Japanese pro, the sparks fly between them and Eve finds a way to compete against Aoi in a professional tournament.

Birdie Wing -Golf Girls’ Story- is a magnificent mix of action, sports and fantasy anime that immediately recalled the Bee Train series of the early 2000’s. When the setting turns out to be Nafrece, the exact same city that appears in Madlax, the second of Bee Train’s “girls with guns on the run” trilogy, I knew I was going to love this anime. As I said in 2004, “Nafrece might be France or England or Japan, but it’s not. This gives the story a lot of leeway to adding fictive elements, like a arms-dealing conspiracy driven by magic…” Nafrece in Birdie Wing is less European and much more late 80’s New York City, with the kind of income inequality we have come to expect from that setting. There is a scene in which Eve is sulking in a series of 1980’s “NYC New Wave album cover industrial,” settings – a moment of absolute perfection.

So the point of this anime is to deconstruct the game of golf, apply non-Euclidian physics to it, give it Saki-like animated magical unrealism, and attach it to a world populated by criminal underground golf bosses, adorable orphans, and golfers shopping for personas straight out of a Spirit Halloween catalog.

And, AND, because this series is written by Kuroda Yousuke, the same man who did indeed give us Madlax, there is a hot cigarette-smoking crime boss lady sponsor, a shady suit-wearing lady sponsor for Eve and an incredibly intense, practically telepathic, rivalry between Eve and Aoi.

Honestly, Birdie Wing may be the best anime I have ever watched in my entire life.

I joke all the time about how much I want a sports anime – the intense competition, the blood, sweat and tears of sports and Yuri, but Birdie Wing has made me realize that I also need a criminal underground organization running it all, and near-magical golf swings. Who knew?

This won’t be a Yuri anime the way we expect one in 2022 – sadly, sexy smoking crime boss lady has already opted out. But for that old 00’s flavor of pairing up the women and letting our imaginations run, this is guaranteed to be a good time. I’m frankly shocked that there isn’t Eve x Aoi fanart already. This is the Yuri I grew up with; subtextual, but somehow in your face.

If you looked at the plot and thought, well, meh, golf, let me assure you this is not golf. There’s almost nothing actually golf about it, except occasionally, by accident. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – Outstanding
Story – Absurdist brilliance
Characters – Perfection
Service –  Low-key
Yuri – Overtly subtextual

Overall – 9

If this even has the smallest smidge of actual Yuri -give me a predatory lesbian golfer, or a couple in the background – it goes straight to 10.

For a review written with prose that matches the anime itself, I hope you will Steve Jones’ review of Episodes 1-3 on ANN. It was almost as much a ride as the episodes themselves.

Oh, one last thing of note – every single bet Eve makes seems like it’s really shady and involves sexual favors from these underage players, but always turn out to be something completely silly, like betting a rare Gunpla. It’s a total fanwank, but ends up being funny.