Short Synopsis: Kou gets invited to substitute in a local baseball team.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Oh this show is SO good. It may be one of the dark horses of the season, but in three episodes it has already done what most series can’t even do in twice that amount. Don’t get fooled off by the simplistic character-designs, because as a series focusing on middle- and high-school kids it does so many things right. This episode again had such a wonderful combination between subtle humour and drama, slice of life, character-development. There are already so many different characters, and yet all of them feel different with their own personalities.
And even though the character-designs are simplistic and leave out a lot of details, they still feel realistic: the school is filled with all different kinds and shapes of people of which a surprising amount is obese (really: finally after Real Drive we finally have another show that realizes that not everyone has the perfect body). What I also like is the people like the captain of Aoba’s baseball team: usually in anime these guys are the evil punks, who do evil stuff because they’re evil, or they’re especially that exaggerated to make fun of these stereotypes, but this guy feels nothing like that: he’s just a regular middle schooler with a tough physique.
As for the main character, it was of course obvious that he was going to be very talented at baseball, but the writers gave him quite an interesting back-story for it. Like Touch, he never went to join the baseball club in middle school, but unlike Touch this was because of a fight that broke out when he attempted to join it three years before. Instead, he just kept practicing by himself because his parents were involved with baseball anyway. It makes sense: the past three episodes have really shown that he’s a carefree guy who doesn’t like to get into trouble, and yet at the same time you can see how he’s still affected by something that happened three years ago. I don’t recall having seen anyone cry about Wakaba’s death, but you can see its influence very subtly in all of the characters that she hung out with when she was still alive.
It’s a carbon copy of every Adachi series though.
Er, didn’t Kou, Akaishi and Aoba all cry for Wakaba at the end of the first episode? Nobody made a huge angst out of it, however, true. (I love that; Wakaba isn’t a great tragedy holding anyone back, but her existence is a shadow that hangs over everyone’s lives. And it gets more interesting. I just wish they’d do like Touch and pick it up again once the manga finished running. But oh well, the sign of the times?)
Nice to see you enjoying it and also blogging this show.
> It may be one of the dark horses of the season,..
For those of us who are fans of Mitsuru Adachi’s works, we know the source material is often stellar. If given decent production and respect to the source material, you can’t really go wrong in adapting his works to anime.
It’s downright refreshing to watch an anime show like this these days.
I was really afraid for this show as it is hard to properly animate Adachi’s work, but I think I can relax now and just enjoy this show, for I think the animators have done enough. It would be nice if they could get little better and, although it may be sacrilegious to many, slightly alter the character design so it will be easier to distinguish Aoba and Kou. After all, they should be in middle of growth spurt, thus we can reasonably expect some change in their physique.
One thing about the simplistic design. It’s not that it’s simplistic that it might not be good.
It’s just some characters have the same-look syndrome. It’s bad when the TWO main characters look exactly the same except for the thickness of their eyebrows and one is wearing a skirt. And they have the SAME hairstyle.. ugh
I am loving this series so far. It’s really charming and very down to earth. I know that won’t appeal to everyone but I love when anime can pull off the “every day” aspects of life. And this series does it so well and it just started.
I also love the character designs. They might be simple but they are also very endearing.
About the two main characters having the same physique, for the ones who read the manga, this is obvious, and, personally I think it should continue like this. In the manga is even worse, because there’s no voice acting to further differentiate the two of them.
About the captain of the Aoba’s team, Akaishi. He WAS a bully till he entered the baseball team for reasons that will likely be explained next episode.
Wakaba didn’t have enough screen time to be a big impact on us, but it is clear how much the lives of the characters changed in some way or another because of her.
So far, so good. They are managing to stay true to the Adachi style wich is a relieve. The guy is a myth.
@Sniperk > The guy is a myth.
Myth? Or were you looking for another word? ^_^;;
Myth, heh. More like legend but… Adachi’s only real fault is that 70% of his series are about baseball. Even though the ones that are not are the ones that stand out.