Oh, I must say that after watching the first season of Major, it’s so delightfully refreshing to watch another baseball match in which the lead pitcher isn’t god-moded beyond belief. This episode showed the very first baseball match of this season (a practice match between the good team and the bad team), and I must say that I’m very surprised.
I really was convinced that Kou was hiding some sort of superhuman abilities, but at this point he’s actually worse than Aoba. The thing with him is that he’s got a lot of uncontrolled power, and he lacks a lot of experience when compared to Aoba, who really knows every single detail about the sport (and also shows this in this episode, detailing exactly what the weaknesses are for every player in the opposing team. This power does make him a very good hitter, though, but even with that I may be wrong, since all he did was hitting a home-run off Senda. He has yet to prove himself in front of a real pitcher.
I also love how Senda actually proved to be useful in this episode. From the outside he looks a lot like your typical idiot, but unlike most series who just use characters like him for comedy, he does have his points where he’s useful, and is actually a pretty good short stop. In terms of tactics, this series really pays very detailed attention to every character’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s very ironic how this series looks so childish and simple, and yet it yet again establishes itself as the smartest series of the season.
One thing that I really hope now is to see Aoba in action again. She really showed her experience in this episode despite being so young, and it’d be a real shame if from now on she’d just watch behind the sidelines to see Kou pitch, improve himself and get his power under control. It’s in these cases a huge shame that there also isn’t a girl’s team at the high school.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
First match of the series, and it delivers.
Kou is too good in copying Aoba’s ‘moves’ – you can count that as a hidden superhuman ability.
As for seeing Aoba in action again – you will, but like in Touch, the story gets more focused on baseball team and tournaments lately. Still it was even hinted that nothing Aoba has learned will be wasted, because Kou copies it.
Of course that if the anime follows manga close enough (one can hope).
Well thats the shame about Aoba she’s female… And in soft ball the biggest difference just happens to be what Aoba is best at, namely pitching. So that would explain why she hasn’t really thought of playing soft ball 🙁
I wasn’t planning on watching this series since the animation looks a little outdated. Based on this blog, I took a chance and was really surprised at the quality of the writing. Those first two episodes were incredible. Very emotional. Does the relationship grow between Kou and Aoba? Assuming it follows the manga. Or is it just Kou learning to pitch & compete.
Irie: oh, don’t worry: this episode showed that Aoba is vital to the plot, and there’s actually much more slice of life than baseball right now.