This is marked spoiler as a technicality. Personally I believe I spoiled nothing as the plot point addressed is so heavily hinted at anyone could figure it out but it is revealed on the last episode so I figured better safe than sorry. If you're worried about major story elements being revealed in this review don't be. My friend asked me to review this series because he was upset he couldn’t find a review of it by anyone who had any prior experience with the franchise and he knew I liked the original series. I watched the series for me, but this review isfor him and hopefully someone else might find it helpful.

Right off the bat I’m going to state this will have spoilers for the original Battle Athletes Victory, it’s basically unavoidable since ReSTART is a sequel and has many references, call backs, and easter eggs to the original baked into it. So if that’s something you’d rather not have to deal with then I recommend you stop reading and go watch the series. The original Battle Athletes Victory is a very special show to me and is one of my top 20 anime. It’s a show I feel so passionately about I own it on both DVD and Blu-ray and would get it on laserdisc even though I don’t own a player. Needless to say ReSTART had some pretty big shoes to fill, but I tried to go in with an open mind and not let the shadow of its predecessor loom too large.

The primary cast consist of Kanata Akihoshi, Shelley Wong, Yana Christopher, Lydia Gurtland, Eva Gallenstien, and Paliga Resphigi. Fans of the original will note several familiar surnames, that and the fact this is set in 5100 roughly 101 years after the original series, would imply that these girls are descendants of those from the 90’s show. Also, and I don’t even consider this a spoiler because of how obvious the show makes it, Kanata is Akari Kanzaki’s granddaughter. She looks exactly like her, minus the signature hair antennae, lives in the country like Akari did, constantly talks about her grandmother who taught her how to compete, and when she gets really intense about the competition will grow her own mini hair antennae. You might wonder how this could be since human beings typically don’t live to 116 and to that I say GRANT OLDMAN WAS OVER 2000 YEARS OLD. Long before the show officially reveals Kanata’s ancestry anyone who saw the original will have figured this out. The other girls have varying degrees of relatability with their older counterparts. From Yana, who aside from her brief tryst with terrorism (a plot point I shall address soon), might very well serve as Kris’ temperamental clone, and Lydia who shares the same arrogance and determination as Jessie, to Shelly and Paglia who have so little in common with Ling Pha and Anna that the surnames seem like they might be coincidental(Not sure you could coincidentally name someone Rasphigi though). While the girls evoke their ancestors with their names and sometimes even their looks, they are very much their own characters with their own struggles and personalities. ReSTART is not a rehash of the original. It very much wants to be it’s own thing, for better or for worse.

ReSTART takes a much more serious tone than the original Victory did. While the series plenty moments of levity, overall the tone is much more serious than its predecessor. The original Battle Athletes Victory was a fairly light hearted comedic show that was more focused on the girls and their relationships than it was with a focused plot with a firm destination. The entire plot about needing to save the world from alien invasion was explained in about half an episode four episodes before the series ended. There had been hints beforehand but nothing major, and the series had mostly been about competition and friendship. ReSTART on the other hand introduces the endgame at the start. The first scene is Kanata being begged by an injured girl who just crash landed in her farm to become the Cosmo Beauty so she can save them, then immediately after that you are introduced to the Solar System Control Committee, the shadow organization who controls all the politics behind the scenes. The show also features a lunar civil war that is happening among the Beginners and with weapons provided by the Gurtland group. I instantly was confused by this. The Beginners are a religious group of technology shunning pacifists. For them to just turn toward using advanced weaponry to kill each other threw me and I never fully recovered. If I were to tell you Indiana had erupted into urban warfare amongst the Amish, while not 100% out of the realm of possibility, you would feel pretty weird about it. Ending this war is Yana’s chief motivator as just like Kris she too is a Beginner, as well as Lydia who wants to end the carnage caused by her family. This causes tension between the two as at first Yanna blames Lydia for the violence in her homeland and Lydia is too arrogant to just admit how she feels about it. Paglia is a doctor from Pluto and has come to seek the power of the Cosmo Beauty to help her finance hospitals on her impoverished home world to cure them of a terrible epidemic. Shelley is missing an arm and a leg, having both replaced by cybernetic prosthetics, and wants to prove that she’s still as strong as she used to be. Finally Eva is a genetically modified super athlete who is being manipulated by the Solar System Control Committee so that they shall always be in control of the Cosmo Beauty. This is a good time to point out that in ReSTART the Cosmo Beauty isn’t just the winner of a sporting event but is also a grand political figurehead. That’s not at all how it worked in the original series but apparently things changed between the two. There’s also a detective, Jeff, who is investigating a series of bombings around university satellite. This is way more plot threads than the original had, with less than half the run time. In my opinion the focus on a much more serious storyline actually hurts the audience investment at some points. While Kanata’s promise to Eva has much higher stakes, it lacks the emotional connection of the dying wish of Tomoe for her daughter to attend University Satellite. Kanata has the more important reason to go, but Akari’s feels more real. ReSTART spends so much time setting up plot threads and developing lore that it sacrifices the character interactions that made Battle Athletes Battle Athletes. Not to say that there’s nothing there, Kanata and Shelley have genuinely sweet and heartwarming moments together, but at other times the relationships between the girls seemed rushed or even neglected. Because no one knows that Kanata’s grandmother is the famous Akari Kanzaki the show sidesteps making her feel like poor copy of Akari as there’s no famous example she has to live up to. The flip side is that she feels a lot more akin to a Mary Sue than Akari ever did. While Kanata isn’t the singular greatest athlete in the batch right off the bat or anything she doesn’t struggle like Akari did which unfortunately makes her feel slightly unremarkable. Problems between the girls are often resolved quickly after a brief period of struggle. This sadly takes away from the impact. Yana and Lydia have a much more fraught relationship on paper than a pair like Akari and Ichino, but nothing in their history had the same impact as Ichino’s jealousy over her friend’s talent leading her to injure herself trying to surpass Akari. Then both blaming themselves while being too ashamed to apologize to the other. For a grander world ReSTART sacrifices smaller personal details the original excelled at and I don’t think this works out in it’s favor.

This isn’t to say that it’s all bad and has nothing in common with the original Battle Athletes Victory. It keeps at least one major element of the original series, lesbians. Following in the footsteps of her grandmother Kanata allows you your choice of ships. You can either pick Shelley or Eva. Both have their share of heartwarming moments and awkward flirting. The moments between Shelley and Kanata where the two bond both as friends and romantic interests are where I think the show truly shines. It’s not afraid to be even bolder at times than the original was, with Kanata refusing to run from her emotions the way Akari did. Yana and Lydia also have the sprit of romantic rivalry within them much like Lahrri and Mylandah. Though Yana and Lydia are given more time to develop so they have their moments of tenderness as well. There are also some pretty funny gags whether intentional or not. To imply rural yokel Kanata sounds like she's from the upper midwest. This is such a 1997 way of dubbing anime it’s honestly charming to see it in something released in 2021. Some people might find it irritating but I found it endearing. In addition to this Jeff, the detective, is black and every time he shows up they play a song that sounds almost exactly like Axel F, it’s funny every time. While it may not hit the mark all the time I respect it for not trying to just be the original again and build on that even if what they built ruins my head canon ships.

If I had one major gripe with the show it would be the implementation of “The Divine Light of God”. It didn’t need to be there and if it had to be there then it didn’t need to be there the way it was. In both the original OVAs and television series “The Divine Light of God” was mostly flavor text about an almost zen like state achieved by athletes when they surpassed all worldly interference and were truly focused on the competition, and it basically only happened when running. In ReSTART it seems almost like going Super Saiyan, this comparison is not helped by the fact that Kanata’s hair sticks up every time she does it. It also was something neigh spiritual that could only be achieved by an athlete striving for a goal for themselves. This is why it happened to Akari but not the mind controlled Tomoe Midou in the original despite the fact that Tomoe Midou had been the first to experience it. In ReSTART the emotionless Eva is able to pull it off multiple times. It was a confusing addition that didn’t need to be there to remind us of the original in a show where half the characters share last names with original characters.

All in all I couldn’t really recommend Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART to anyone other than fans of the original. Not just because the original is the better show but because ReSTART doesn’t offer too much to those unfamiliar with the original series. While you could technically follow the plot just fine without having seen the original there’s a good deal of stuff that would go over your head. Also since they never specifically say that Kanata’s grandmother is Akari, even when they officially reveal it, an unfamiliar viewer would just be confused. The plot itself also isn’t all that strong as to stand on its own that well. Especially since they wrap things up in a fairly rushed manner. Similar to Record of Lodoss War it wants to do too much in too little time and would have benefitted from cutting a plot thread or two. But if you are a fan I’d say go ahead and try it out. Is it as good as the original Battle Athletes Victory? No. Does Akari finally get married to and live happily with Kris Christopher? Also No. Will I write a fanfic later rectifying this? Maybe. But even though it’s not its predecessor it’s still worth a watch, if for no other reason than it’s nice to see the series get some more love these many years later. It’s trying to follow in the footsteps of a giant while also being its own individual thing. It stumbles and it doesn’t always succeed, sometimes it just flat out fails, but in a way that is the most Battle Athletes Victory thing of all.
7/10