PuraOre! Pride of Orange – Review

First impressions matter, and the one given off by Pride of Orange isn’t the most charitable one. Let-downs for sports anime, particularly ones centered on girls, are disappointingly common these days (anyone remember Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls?), and it seemed the hypothetical hockey-based heights of this show might be another victim of that after its first episode. An all-too-brief game showcase giving way to an inexplicable tacked-on idol performance, before segueing into an absurdly leisurely amount of time spent with these prospective hockey girls barely beginning to check out the sport is not a great introduction to a series like this. And it’s hardly improved in the second episode, with that same languid pacing that almost seems to position this less as a sports show and more like a hobby show with barely any focus on the supposed hobby. But then the folks behind PuraOre…