How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? – Worth Watching?

Other names: Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?

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This is a full length, 25 minute anime. It airs on Wednesdays at 2:30 PM.

A comedy and ecchi anime, How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? (from now on referred to as Dumbbell) is surprisingly funny. I really liked the early scene of the gym, which I found very well done (and accurate).

Dumbbell is based around a girl, Sakura Hibiki, who eats around six times a day. Noting her expanding waistline, she decides to partake in going to the newly opened gym, and finds a classmate – Souryuuin Akemi, who is a health freak – there too. The anime then goes on with the pair doing various exercises, and Hibiki develops a crush on her gym coach. Whilst I did find the anime funny, the storyline started to get tedious even in the first episode – just Hibiki doing exercises, and struggling with them. This makes me wonder where the anime is going to go – it’s going to be hard to keep the anime entertaining if every episode is based around the same premise as this one. I hope that more ‘slice of life’-ness is introduced into the anime, as I think that it could go a long way if this was to happen.

The characters are fun, and I like them. Hibiki is unique, as despite wanting to lose weight, she still eats and snacks a lot. Her classmate, Akemi, is obsessed with health and also has a muscle fetish. The contrast between the two characters works quite well, and I did like the characters.

Animation is somewhat well done – being an ecchi, it does focus on various parts to a certain extent. However, I would hesitate before giving this the ecchi brand – there is very little in it, so don’t let that put you off. As aforementioned, I really like one of the earlier scenes.

Dumbbells is a funny anime, but I do wonder where it is going. With a somewhat weak storyline, it’s a decent watch – it does get a bit tedious towards the end, which makes me wonder where it’s going.