Alternative title(s): Ooi! Tonbo, Hey Tonbo
Manga Adaptation by OLM
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Premise

On the rural island of Hinoshima, pro golfer Igarashi arrives to find the island’s only middle schooler has a talent for golf, and she’s a girl!

Peter’s verdict: Double bogey

A brief disclaimer: I will be doing my best to not mention Birdie Wing.

Anyway, Tonbo! is about a girl called Tonbo who is a girl. They need to make it very clear that she’s a girl, okay? She even wears a skirt for a bit for the sole reason of the show letting you know this. Now, I appreciate that it seems one of the main threads of this episode is Igarashi (aka Igaiga) underestimating the rural islanders and other preconceptions of the people there, particularly with their golfing skills, but they went a bit too far with treating the audience like this too. Like, we get it, just show Igaiga reacting as he does and move on.

One of the weird things this show does is doing all the golf club close ups in 3D CG. It looks really out of place, but it does mean you get really detailed models of the golf clubs. The show spends a bit more time on golf clubs than it perhaps needs to, with Igaiga commenting on them. Indeed, there’s a lot of detailed golf monologue here and there, and when you look into the history of this franchise, things start to click as to who the audience is.

The manga of Tonbo! is serialised in a golfing magazine called “Weekly Golf Digest” (no relation to the American “Golf Digest” magazine), not a manga magazine. This is made for people who are really into golf, which means people who are perhaps much more critical of women in golf, and those who are sticklers for the details. It does also mean that it probably hasn’t made it out of your usual manga and anime circles until now, and there’s no English translation either. As of writing, the Tonbo! manga has gone on for nearly 50 volumes, since launching in 2014, and looking through the covers, it seems like this anime shouldn’t spend too long with Tonbo as a child, but considering the lack of adult Tonbo in the opening and a second cour already confirmed, maybe they’ll stretch the few volumes of child Tonbo for an entire cour.

Anyway, the plot of the show is pretty much nonexistent in episode 1. The summary is:
– Tonbo is a girl who can do golf well despite only having a single club and is the last middle schooler on the island
– Igarashi (named Igaiga by everyone) is a golf pro who is escaping to a super rural island for reasons unknown

And that’s it. Can’t say it’s making me want to watch any more, but they also haven’t really indicated what’s next for this show. It’s no Birdie Wing that’s for sure DAMNIT I mentioned it.

On the topic of Birdie Wing, it is actually relevent. According to some rumours, one of the reasons the second half of Birdie Wing was so tame compared to the first was that various golf companies started to pay attention and wanted more actual, real golf rather than the absurdities of the first half. As mentioned, Tonbo! is made by golfers for golfers so I don’t expect this show to be doing anything quite as ridiculous as Birdie Wing, instead going for realism. If you’re into golf, especially if you thought Birdie Wing was too silly, this might be the anime for you.

One final thing about Tonbo! is that it opens with a quick sponsor bit by “GOLFIN”. Not to be confused with “Golfin Simulators” in the states, “GOLFIN” (in all caps) is some NFT play-to-earn crypto scam that you should not waste your time with. Unlike Birdie Wing, you can’t just hit a ball with a stick to make money.