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Dated 5 November 2019: Rifle Is Beautiful doesn't actually feature any rifles

Yukio, Erika, Izumi, and Hikari
I'm disappointed none of them shoot left-handed.

I'm being pedantic by arguing that rifles, by definition, have rifled barrels. The guns in Rifle Is Beautiful (officially known as Chidori RSC or Chidori High School Shooting Club, depending on who you ask) are light-based, don't shoot any sort of projectiles, and accordingly do not have rifled barrels. (I mean, I guess they technically could, but it would be pointless to add rifling to the barrel of a light-based gun except to shut up nitpicking anime bloggers.) As far as the show itself goes, this is yet another anime where high school girls get really into a thing. In the best-case scenario, you end up with something phenomenal like GIRLS und PANZER or Yuru Camp△. Below that, Bakuon!! and Sabagebu! set really high standards as well. Honestly, these sorts of shows should count themselves lucky just hitting the C3-bu, Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitensha-bu, or Two Car tiers.

Tsubasa and Mikaze
Tsubasa kicks Mikaze's ass.
P.S. Spoilers.

As far as Rifle Is Beautiful goes, the show is basically fine. Through the first four episodes, I don't find any of the characters particularly memorable, but I am impressed by the show's attention to detail. I'm reasonably familiar with guns, but I'm entirely ignorant about the sport featured in this anime. It seems to be real, though. Notably, the sport itself in Rifle Is Beautiful sounds much more difficult than how it's been depicted thus far. If you've done much shooting from a standing position, you'll appreciate that it can get rather fatiguing fairly quickly. Even assuming these light-beam rifles are significantly lighter than, say, an FAL, maintaining precise hits on a tiny target with a 1mm bull's-eye 10 meters away for the duration of a 45-minute match is no joke. Incidentally, Rifle Is Beautiful is also noteworthy in being one of the few shows I can name off the top of my head featuring a marksmanship competition of any sort involving guns. There was one in Stratos 4, many years ago, with characters using Howa Type 64 battle rifles, but Stratos 4 is also basically a perfect anime.

Dated 7 January 2020: Rifle Is Beautiful misses the mark

Maho
I wonder how well those sights hold zero.

Ordinarily, you would expect me to be pretty positive about Rifle Is Beautiful (Chidori RSC). I mean, I do have a Firearms category for this blog. Unfortunately, the show fails both as a niche anime about guns and more generally as a sports anime. Regarding the first part, well, the "beam rifle" thing is just a little too niche. There are brief references in the show to air rifles, but I guess getting into that sport in Japan is barely a step removed from getting into Sensha-do.

Hikari and Izumi
Have gun. Will travel.

Failing as a sports anime is the biggest flaw in Rifle Is Beautiful, though. Specifically, none of the competitions have any tension, and I never felt invested in the outcome. Part of this is the short length of the show hampering development, but there's also no clear distinction between the good shooters and the exceptional ones. You just sort of have to take the show's word for it. Ultimately, I don't have any idea how to fix Chidori RSC. The show is not actually over yet. It seems the final episode is delayed. Ergo, there's still a chance it can turn itself around with a big finish, but I get the feeling that's something of a, uh, long shot.