No Side Manager is now streaming on Netflix. Should you watch it? Well, do you like TV serials? Can you digest the TV aesthetics? Every piece of information is repeated a hundred times. The reaction shot of every character is displayed on the screen. The scenes are slowed down to raise tension during the dramatic moments. The bad guys look like cartoons or wear a dour "evil face." No Side Manager is made for people who like to use their phones or do chores while watching movies or series. You can doze off and wake up after some time, and you will still be able to comprehend what's going on in front of your eyes, thanks to the constant recaps delivered by the characters on the screen. The story is narrated by Maki (Takako Matsu), Kimishima's (Yo Oizumi) wife, and she merely tells us what we can already see with our eyes.
The exposition during the opening scenes quickly informs us that Kimishima got demoted after standing up against Takigawa (Takaya Kamikawa), his archenemy. He is relegated to act as a General Manager for the Astros - an incompetent rugby team. Don't worry if you fail to grasp all this during the beginning. The information is repeated several times by either other characters or Maki. No Side Manager is made with a firm belief that no one will watch it attentively. So when Kimishima is seen noting the Astros' activities, a woman says that the GM, in his "nit-picking notebook," is writing down everything. A man observes the GPS data of a player and talks about him, and a character immediately mentions that the GPS is a good tool for analysis. During such moments, you feel the urge to scream, "Come on, we can see and understand everything!"
This 10-episode series knows it's uninteresting, so it clumsily adds suspense to the narrative by cutting scenes off in the middle and then returning to it later to reveal the whole picture to the audience. This trick gets old pretty quickly and becomes predictable after a while. No Side Manager is also filled with cheap red herrings, and it all feels lame and tiring. Sasa (Tamahei Hayashiya), one of the rugby players, is referred to as "bad luck" in one of the episodes, but we eventually learn that he wasn't responsible for order cancellation. Did we really need one whole episode involving Sasa experiencing guilt? I ask this question because No Side Manager is devoid of dramatic beats. Your senses become dull as long as you are exposed to this series.
Maki is mostly seen sitting on her laptop, but her professional life never comes under the spotlight. Can you blame No Side Manager for such eliminations when it's already jam-packed with elements like protests, AI, an oil spill incident, and professional and sports rivalry? It could have removed all this clutter to focus on the characters' personal lives. Perhaps No Side Manager was created solely to make rugby popular in Japan. This is what the characters aim for, and this is what the show seems a little competent at doing. The rugby matches are far from exciting, though they could have been better if the other scenes in No Side Manager didn't work so hard at putting us to sleep. Your senses are so numb that you stop wondering why the show is titled No Side Manager when the original title, No Side Game, is also fine. But then, I am just glad that I no longer have to think about this series.
Final Score- [3.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times