Minato wakes at the hospital, vaguely remembering a ball floating over water and surrounded by light. A girl, his younger sister, is telling him of his day. She is going to go, so he greets her. She screams. As it turns out, he has been comatose for more than six months after a car accident. The family congregates around him. Some old teammates come to visit, too, but… the problem is, he doesn’t know them. He has amnesia, thinks like a 12-year-old and doesn’t remember anything about the last three years, in which he became a water polo prodigy in high school and member of the famous Elite Four, even winning at the nationals. In fact, his own newfound achievements seem so great and intimidating that he resolves not to take up the sport again at his new high school, even if the captain and a devoted first-year fan are determined to have him in the team. As he escapes, he finds a place he seems to know. There he meets a beautiful girl he has seen in a water polo magazine, Kawakubo Chinu, who greets him, comes near, and, to his amazement, kisses him on the cheek. What else may have happened in these lost years?

Okay, this one was amazing. Agile, clever, artsy, funny, human, unpredictable. It went swiftly back and forth from the comedy of the fish-out-of-the-water situations of the younger mind in the older body, to the believable, kind and loving family which is still traumatized by the accident, to the mystery of the lost three years. The scene of the accident, with classical music which muted the screams, gave me goosebumps. What kind of person was Minato, and what does that mean for his present self? What about the bonds he has lost, the jokes that came from forgotten experiences, the things he knew about the sport? Can he really become what he once was? Should he? The rest of the Elite Four, now the Three Musketeers, seem to be in a different, nearby high school, the same in which Kawabuko Chinu is a student, so they are potential rivals. We’ll see, but this could be awesome. I cannot wait to find what happens next.

R86 adds: I am always game to give pretty much any sportsboys anime a try, even though I pull no punches when I find something I dislike. However, Re-Main is attempting something new, at least in my experience. Like Gaheret, I am waiting with bated breath for the next episode.

Re-Main is airing on Funimation. Read our thoughts on all the new summer anime series, in addition to comments from our other writers, on our Summer 2021 Anime First Impression master post.