A kid who can't ride a bike becomes Japan's Tour de France champion. That premise should be ridiculous, but Over Drive commits to it completely, playing it straight while the absurdity does all the heavy lifting. You watch someone discover they're built for something impossible, one training montage at a time, and the show never winks at the camera about how crazy that is. The romance subplot exists only to get him on the bike in the first place. After that, it's just him versus the distance, the competitors, and the guy he was before he started pedaling.

Mikoto Shinozaki is an untidy, socially awkward high school student with low self-esteem who is often picked on by bullies. When Yuki Fukuzawa, the most popular girl in his class, invites him to join the school bicycle club, his feelings for her make him want to say yes. The problem: he can't ride a bike. He starts sneaking onto the school grounds at night to practice, and once he learns, pedaling stirs up something that has been simmering inside him for fifteen years. Through failures shared with friends and rivals, he rides toward becoming a top racer, a path that points all the way to the Tour de France. The series is a sports story about cycling.