Fan reviews: Ace wo Nerae!

MonsterZero65 · 15 Aug 2010

Another drama that relied on Aya Ueto to carry it. She did well but the story was just not rich. It is a good drama to kill time and follows a typical script. Nothing revolutionary here.

mpm · 29 Dec 2007

I think it is a great drama! Any improbability things (if so), like some others are saying, didn't bother me AT ALL. Just look at the episodes and enjoy it... Don't think about it too much. If you NEED high probability, there might be few drama's for you to watch anyway. If you WANT high probability, this drama MIGHT not give you enough satisfaction. But as i said, it's not in a way that it bothers me. Not in the very least.

After starting to watch, i wanted to see all episodes ASAP. Never did i think i was wasting time or so. No, quite the opposite. I enjoyed the whole thing. Totally unlike some other reviewer said, i think the lead character (Aya Ueto = Oka Hiromi) is awesome. If it were for she alone, the drama is worth seeing. I have to be fair, i'm a little biased; i'm an Aya fan. But i think the rest is ok too. (Some details might have been better.)

Somebody wrote: "these girls had every right to despise and resent [Oka.]". I think that's a terrible thing to say. Such behaviour is in every respect despicable - it doesn't matter under what circumstances.

Somebody wrote: "...lesbianic undertones between Oka Hiromi and Ryuuzaki Reika". Lol... What?? I think i have to see the drama again! But i think you're mistaken.

Jhvx · 22 Apr 2007

If you really like sports you must watch it, it's one of the best dorama I've ever seen with a hooking plot and a nice ending

Wynter · 15 Jan 2007

After getting through the first episode I realized that it would take me a while to get into this drama. I was wrong. I didnft get into this drama AT ALL. Ifm not exactly sure why. It wasnft completely terrible, but it was completely void of any gwowh factor. I found myself forcing my eyes and mind to focus when watching, and if it werenft for my inability to quit a drama once Ifve started it, I would have stopped watching Ace no Nerae after the first episode.

I did, however, make it to the end and yes I survived. I donft regret wasting my time on it, and yes, by about the 6th episode I did feel like playing tennis and I did feel for some of the characters. The character development was satisfactory but the plot was really bland and, at times, boring. I found the story predictable and some scenes were a little too overdramatic. The last game with Reika and Hiromi really was exciting to watch, but it didnft make up for the dramafs faults. I was disappointed in the fact that Ueto Ayafs character failed to convince me. At the tournament it seems she only got ahead because all her opponents suffered mentally, physically, or emotionally at some point and therefore either dropped out of the tournament or performed out of par with their usual skill.

Even Ayafs natural charm could not save this drama in my eyes. I did enjoy Sakai Ayanafs character and I think I was rooting for Matsumoto Riofs character moreso than Uetofs. Ishigaki Yumafs hair entertained me to no end, but again, overall, this drama was just blah.

monta · 17 Nov 2006

a quite fun but cliche sport dorama, after dealing major obstacles she succeeds.
the outcome was predictable. Though i have to say this dorama looks a lot more realistic then the Prince of Tennis live action.
fun, makes you wanna play tennis

sesil · 5 Nov 2006

Watching Ace Wo Nerae was an experience. How somebody is not good at playing tennis but then after so much training becomes a professional tennis player within 1 year. I've watched all of the episodes and I found the ending was good as it catches the viewerfs eyes. I give this a 9/10 as I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

lordmanji · 9 Mar 2006

perhaps if i werent a tennis player, i could suspend my disbelief for this drama but i could not. it is very unrealistic how aya ueto's character could even hope to beat her school's ace much less anybody in the prefectural and then national "aim for the grand slam" tournament.

most pros start tennis before the age of 7. aya started when she was 15-16 and was able to beat the school pro who started at the age of 3. tennis is a sport where the age you start at can predict your skill in the game.

an obvious aim for the dorama is to promote tennis in japan by inspiring young girls with this fairy tale. but i couldnt help but think of all the girls on the tennis team who were BYPASSED by the self-absorbed coach. these girls had every right to despise and resent aya. they spent many more years than aya at the game only to be throw by the wayside by the coach. since japan is not a very strong tennis nation, it would have behooved the writer to inspire instead of alientating the core tennis playing crowd who have to work for years on end for their skills instead of ignoring their efforts in exchange for "one in a million talent."

reality check: if the coach really wanted to guide a tennis player to a grand slam, he would have chosen ochoufujin. think of how
much better she could have gotten since she was already at the same level it took aya the entire series to reach.

okay, so all those complaints aside, i did enjoy the series. i was tennis-starved since i dont have the tennis channel and there wasnt any on tv though i studiously followed the livescoreboard at tennis.com of the tnc open and dubai. but i thought that aya was very likable. whenever the story got a little mushy and incredulous, it was easy to just admire aya instead. i found the acting by the coach to be great since i had just seen him a week before in an older drama, love generation. (funny how small the drama world is that i could watch two dramas back to back, 9 years apart and itd have the same actor.) while the story fell into too simple of categorizations of bad and good - and then switching it midway (otowa teaching tennis to kids, anyone?) - and numerous other flaws, its a fun diversion and the cg tennis aint bad either.

akitsu · 6 Feb 2006

i was just bored from the start. I cant explain why I went on watching. Acting of Ueto was so poor that in some moments (she literally crawled sometimes and faked falling TT TT) I thought I may start crying...

Only reason why I didnt give it 1/10 is that ueto really is a cutie ^^;

Toshi83 · 19 Jan 2006

...absolutely pathetic drama series. Acting = P*SS POOR. The lead girl may be popular, but because of her extremely whiny nature displayed in this drama + her unattractive looks(like a mouse) make this series very unenjoyable. The script, though imported from the Manga, is unintriguing and mundane. I cringe as I watched every episode, because each Episode can be summarized as this: Main actress gets in a struggle about tennis; (INSERT WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WHINING HERE); End. No climax, pathetic story buildup, and nothing but some stupid, spineless, weak natured girl complaining about her situation. Oh, but somehow she manages to conquer all her problems one by one! Yet, in the subsequent episode, she finds more things to whine about!

Also, on a technical aspect, the camera work is un-intuitive and boring, the shots are boring, and the actors are obviously un-motivated in their roles. Unless of course, they naturally suck, which I am leaning towards to believe.

VERY POOR / PATHETIC / BORING / FRUSTRATING / FULL OF WHINING series. Avoid at all cost, unless you want to cringe and wished that you could stick your hand into the screen and slap the heck out of the actor/actresses (especially the main lead, she's so pathetic I didn't even bother to look at her name).

This is crap compared to "Orange Days" and "Koi ni Ochitara", etc.

carla-chan · 12 Sep 2005

I like this drama because is something diferent of the normal plot. Aya Ueto is soo good actress. Is one of my favourite and she plays his role soo well. For this and for the good efects in the drama I think that is a good drama for be seeing. Anyway, I think that there are some things that can better.

Hiro Toyo · 25 Jan 2005

I believe it has always been difficult to make a good drama or movie about sports, and tennis is one of the harder ones to make, so I was skeptical about this drama. However, to my surprise, they did a great job! I liked the pace of the drama, and I liked the action scenes during the tennis matches. Instead of focusing on just the point by point plays as one would usually do while watching a tennis match, the focus instead was turned to the player's emotions and the tension during the match. I was impressed that the drama took this direction and really succeeded as well. There were plenty of groundstroke, serve, and volley scenes to keep even tennis enthusiasts(like me) satisfied, and coupled with scenes where the focus was on the player's emotions during the match to make the drama well rounded and fun to watch. Then the off court story is of course, typical, but then this is a teenie bopper drama, so what did you expect?

Kirari Ililah · 3 Nov 2004

I felt that it was being a bit over dramatic, and I felt that Ueto Aya isn't entirely perfect for this part....She and Yoshizawa seemed like a perfect pair to play together in such roles, but for this dorama it didn't seem to fit....
The story was a little plain, not much on the imagination...not a very interesting concept for a dorama based on a manga....

mysticalgal84 · 28 Oct 2004

I wish that the relationship between Aya Ueto and Yoshizawa Yuu had been developed more. It was such ambiguous love triangle, she, him and the coach. Granted that maybe the focus was on tennis (yeah, the tennis shots got better as the drama progressed), but still the pure helplessness of Aya at the beginning really got to me. She fell down so many times that I think that they spent more time shooting her falling down and getting abused than actually making some progress, which kind of made her later progress a bit unbelievable, considering that she did not know tennis at all. In any case, my guess is that this show is being used to promote tennis, since Japan's best tennis player, Ai Sugiyama's best singles showing is in the quarter finals of the Australian open and current Japanese players have yet to achieve what she has.