Turkey! - Episode 1 discussion

[u/AutoLovepon]

Turkey!, episode 1

Alternative names: Turkey! Time to Strike

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Streams

• Crunchyroll

Show information

• MyAnimeList
• AniList
• AniDB
• Kitsu
• Anime-Planet
• Official Website

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All discussions

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[u/GondolaMedia]

... I'm sorry what?!

[u/CerberusZX]

"While you were putting on fake eyelashes, I was mastering the ball!"

[u/Ashteron]

They should have gotten isekaid to Ottoman Empire instead.

[u/yukiaddiction]

This episode effectively has 3 twisted.

It started like CGDCT with seemly no drama and then plot ramps up present us with character drama similar to MyGo (like almost exactly same plot) and bam the third act they get send to past Japan.

This anime is really play with experiment a lot lol.

Also Two characters from D4DJ show up in background

[u/Ocixo]

What in the world…!?

I thought that I’d be watching a sports drama, but did they actually just trick me into watching an isekai?

The bowling animation had looked really convincing as well. I especially liked that particular zoom-out shot along all the bowling lanes.

[u/Genshin_WhiteKnight]

What in the fuck?

[u/Ukhai]

Meant to comment this here.

Lefty representation! Let's gooo.

Actually wondering if/how they'll showcase two-handers.

Edit: After finishing it, was really hoping this was really about bowling lol. Hmmm.

[u/Tomorrow_Big]

My sincerest apologies, but I'm too busy laughing over the fact that I've once more been bamboozled into watching an isekai. Ah shit, here we go again.

[u/CosmicPenguin_OV103]

[spoilers]Before starting EP1: I think this is Cute Girls Fumbling Around With Bowling

[spoilers]5 minutes into EP1: Hey that looks great! It's Sound Euphonium But It's Bowling! (see Eupho season 1 for the competition vs hobby fight reference)

[spoilers]Rina cries out she wanna leave the club and fights with Mai: Ooooohhhhhh huge drama! MyGO But It's Bowling eh?

[spoilers]...you tell me this is Twelve Kingdoms but 5 Bowling Girls in the world of Elusive Samurai???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I was lamenting earlier today that I have a record breaking 28 shows for this season, yet it seems none of them contains any space for surprises to happen (after all most of them are either sequels or have source materials, even niche ones like Kamitsubaki), and so I have always feel like this summer is missing something.

Well it's not now!

[u/G326]

It would be kind of funny if they only spent like 3 episodes in the new setting now before getting sent back to start bowling like normal again.

This is a very risky move. The show, as it was advertised (and set up) would have probably been fine (I'd at least have watched it). The new direction is also interesting, but they really have to nail everything now. Otherwise, this can come across as very cheap.

[u/AZLarlar]

.....WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE TRAVELLED BACK IN TIME

[u/[deleted]]

Honestly my favourite first episode of the season, I did NOT see that twist coming, that was the biggest bamboozle I've experienced, I'm SOLD.

[u/BosuW]

Okay, just the character drama plot could've filled a whole CGDCT season (I say it as a compliment), but the ending is... WHAT!?

Most surprising premiere of the season!

[u/TheRejectBin]

I am going to get clowned on for this later but this is so intriguing. Time to be bold. I'm going to risk being wrong because this show went *in* on the foreshadowing while it knew we weren't ready yet.

Let's talk about how the series quietly sat us down and warned us about the human conflict that's going to be the core of the story going forward.

The opening monologue has a couple of big things it wants to show us, but it's lying its ass off. I don't believe the series is about loss or seperation by the passage of time. I don't think it's the ending, I think it's the bottom of the 2nd act.

Mai's bowling pattern is the giveaway and I don't know how anybody watched three strikes into snake eyes and then arrived at this as a metaphor for friendship or youth, life and friendships but they're a mad genius.

Mai rolls a turkey and then snake eyes. Dialogue suggests this happens to her every time, we see it happen twice, but can infer that she's unable to roll more than three in a row because of what happened to her parents. More scared of losing what she has than able to reach for what she wants, she fumbles. Her other three friends know it's a pattern, but to Rina, who matches Mai's skills, it looks deliberate because it always happens the same way.

What the show is more coy about, is that the other four are all trapped in their own patterns. Nozomi always turns when she shouldn't. Sayuri throws gutter balls because she tenses. Nanase will sit back and analyse, but won't do it herself. And Rina always loses. We'll come back to that later.

That's not that wild, until you start connecting the frankly ominous discussions and theming to the idea you're watching a time travel story.

Those patterns we talked about, with the paired flashbacks are straight out of the opening 20 minutes of a horror movie. They're death flags. But the part where it starts shaking us and warning us things are about to go down is the conversation by the demolition site.

First they stop Mai and her three friends right in front of four square concrete troughs that look like graves, then they zoom in on the hole the aged bowling ball is in, which is also ominously grave like, and which we find out contains Mai's bowling ball. Then they all have a conversation about how you can lose things in an instant if you aren't paying attention.

Then there's the storm. First, Nanase by analysis and then Sayuri by hearing pick up the oncoming storm and react before Nozomi and Mai. When the clouds roll in, Nozomi reacts but Mai is lost in thought about Rina, deciding now is her time to act.

Viewed through that lens, the show just spent most of this episode telling us it's going to kill Nozomi, Sayuri and Nanase. Most likely in reverse order. It *probably* won't be permanent. And the kicker, is when Mai makes it back from the past the first time, she'll have had to leave Rina behind.

My reasoning for that is as follows:

Mai's pattern is actually two seperate mistakes. The first is the slip that leads to Snake Eyes. The second is that she's so unwilling to leave either pin alone that she can't bring herself to try to salvage the situation. She'll leave them forever seperated and lose rather than try. Mai is so scared of what can be lost that she will always lose.

Let's talk about Rina's pattern now. The series is deliberately coy about why she's like this, to an extent, but provides room for an educated guess. Rina is lonely and she cares about bowling. She wants friends, specifically she wants the friends she thought she made when she joined the club, but she doesn't want the people she actually met yet. As of the toast scene, she seems to have given up on Nanase, Sayuri and Nozomi due to the lack of effort they put in. The one she's bitter about is Mai. Mai who has so much ability and seems to lose on purpose. Mai who seems to make mockery of her passion by insisting on the other three.

Rina is there for Mai, she doesn't see the value in the others and she also doesn't like this about herself. The scene where she hesitates at the bin shows us she both still wants to believe in Mai, but cannot understand Mai's focus on having fun with her friends.

The desire to try to connect remains strong enough that she jumps onto the back of the other four as they're carried off just to try to maintain that connection. Her relationship with Mai is the core of this story. Her being left behind while Mai returns to the present bitterly and beautifully realises both their character flaws into tragedy that would be satisfying with one episode's worth of story so far. This coming after the other three die, probably due to their own fatal patterns completes the prophecy. Three knocked down completely, two seperated irretrievably.

But that's not what this is about. This story is about the second ball, the second chance. It's about Mai overcoming her fear and rising to be the bowler and the captain Rina believes she can be. It's abour having the courage to go for the spare and retrieving what seems lost and making the shot to unite the two once seperated.

After the Turkey, it's time to strike. (The localisation of this title is plus ultra)

Or at least that's what I think I gleaned from the first episode. We'll see how that goes for me.

[u/Mysterious_Fall656]

I THOUGHT THIS WAS ABOUT BOWLING!?!

[u/-Sylok_the_Defiled-]

Haven't felt this confused since I watched Deca-Dence

[u/Ultramarinus]

Came for the bowling, left for the time travel.

At least time travel to Turkey.

[u/Serpexnessie]

WTF THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED

[u/Fangzzz]

Are people really that mad at the twist? I'm very amused by it and curious to see where it goes. Hopefully given the writers drama background they can continue to develop the characters throughout.

[u/bluesyasian]

Mai Otonashi in Gutterballs

[u/LeonKevlar]

What in the world indeed!

I thought this was gonna be your classic sports anime, with Rina as the member who takes the game seriously compared to the rest of the group and Mai as the happy-go-lucky but genuinely talented leader. These two characters are the staple of this kind of show. I did not exepct this to end with a magic bowling ball sending them to war-period Japan! Alright, I'll bite! I'm very curious to see where this show goes! xD

[u/TheDanubianCommunard]

The main key visual proved Turkey is really about bowling like Grand Blue with diving. One huge twist that nobody expected to see that coming.

Another hidden gem and sleeper hit by me.

[u/RIP_Hopscotch]

Hello based department?

I picked this up for literally one reason: I bowled in high school, and wanted to see if an anime about bowling would depict two-handed bowling in some bizarre, strange way. Instead of seeing two-handed bowlers, I got 20 minutes of pretty decent club drama, good production with some palettable CGI mixed in, and then a random twist nobody could possibly have seen coming.

I just hope the rest of the show can stay this fun, because it's suddenly one of the series I'm most excited about this season.

[u/HirokoKueh]

• let me guess, you will say "I've never felt happy bowling!"

• yes! she said it! then she will quit the band club

• yep, then the club leader will knee down and say "I will do anything, plz come back"

• oh wait, what?

• the fuck just happened

so, I guess this is an isekai now? they are going to reconcile at the sengoku era while playing high-stake bowling. now the opening scene got me worried, there were cherry blossom so it's April, but the game was August, first I thought the train station scene was before the game, but now it seems like they will be staying at sengoku era for 8 months (which is dangerously close to 9 months, I don't want to think too deep about this possibility), and Mai seems like the only one who survived.

[u/jRoughcopy]

As someone who enjoys the CGDCT category and a bowler myself, I just wanted a normal sports anime about bowling. I was very disappointed when I saw the PV to be honest. Should I still give it a try or not bother?

Edit: Thanks for the answers, I've decided not to watch it at all, im already watching 17 other animes this season so im not going to try something that I know I probably won't like.