It was in the early 90s, when TV stations in Germany realized that there was a market for Anime in the west, before that time we only had shows like He-Man or Saber Riders, they were fun to watch but their main focus was on fast paced action and a paper thin story. That's probably one of the reasons why I was fascinated by the tale of the courageous Mila(that was the protagonist Kozue's name in German), a fragile girl on a journey to overcome her health issues to become the best volleyball player there is. The theme was rather dark at times, so tome it was a completely different experience compared to the action packed American animation shows. That said, there was enough action to be found, I remember being quite surprised as to how interesting watching something like volleyball could be and my younger self got quite invested in the sometimes episode length volleyball matches.

I never was a sports guy and watching sports events on TV felt boring and dull to me, especially if it wasn't something like car-racing for example, where at any minute there could be a fabulous crash, I didn't really think about the consequences of human life's ruined or lost by such accidents as a kid. However in Attack No.1 there were also accidents but they were much more intimate and it had a lot of "put your life on the line" scenes, like most Anime after and probably before it. I don't want to spoil too much about the story though, not that I really could as I was watching this anime almost 3 decades ago and am planning on re-watching it in the near future.

So what's it all about? Kozue is a transfer student at the start of the Anime and quickly finds her way into the schools volleyball team, impressing the coach with her innate talent, that naturally brings about some rivalry with the current top dog in the team. Kozue finds herself challenged by balancing school, social life and sports from the get go. Trying to make friends at a new school and also training to make her mark as a top volleyball player, while not failing in school is no easy task after all. In the later episodes, when Kozue grows up, we also see romance unfold but I can't go into much detail here, from what I remember it was a love triangle story of sorts, nothing special but still enjoyable I guess. So, yeah, besides Kozue's injuries and her fight to be accepted by her peers, there was more than enough drama to be found.

I wouldn't consider Attack No.1 to be the perfect Anime but you will probably not regret finding the time to watch a 100+ action and drama packed episodes of Kozue's way to the top. She's truly a great main character but by no means perfect which makes her struggles all the more relatable in my opinion.