The Binge – Prince of Stride: Alternative
One of the more complete series to come out recently was “Prince of Stride: Alternative”. In a pretty basic “slice of life – sports” anime, the series has a very male-centric cast, with only one central female protagonist. Nana Sakurai, stride fan and team manager joins the stride club with Jock-Of-All-Trades Riku in their first year at Honan Academy. Stride is a combo relay-race parkour game which includes the use of a “relationer” (Nana’s role) to help the team members pass their baton successfully.
In episode one, the stride club has seen better days – dwindling to three members and taking on the secondary mantle of “chess club” to keep it going.
The plot of the anime is actually pretty tame: it has the traditional hot springs episode, but there’s not a lot of really inappropriate clips for introducing new watchers to the genre. In the meantime, Prince of Stride: Alternative features a really, really strong focus on being team players, taking on challenges, and overcoming obsticles (all of the puns intended).
Watching this just before Yuri on Ice really makes the latter pop, and is a great follow-up without getting too invested in something heavy.
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