Nov 8, 2009
HATE FUN 2003! Kaleido Star
It’s that man Junichi Sato again! At this point he may just have been making shows for Junichi Sato otaku, as the ratings for it seem quite poor, but it spawned multiple sequels on OAV (once moved to a Saturday morning slot it did better though). And as he had been ploughing a personal furrow through the shojo genre since Sailor Moon (or maybe even Goldfish Warning), I can see that he would have built an audience for his work by this point that the DVD sales would be enough to keep this project buoyant.
Storywise, once you remove the individual trappings of the show, this is very much a back to basics girls comic story, one that not only would you have seen in Japanese girls comics, but also in British girls comics during their peak. Namely that of a young girl striving to fulfil her dreams in her sporting or performance activity of choice.