Okay, so now that this series has also delved into baseball for all-female teams, I just can’t help but hijack a part of this post for some comparisons on that other baseball show that’s airing this season: Taishou Yakyuu Musume, because this episode pretty blew all of its focus on baseball away.
In a way, Taishou Yakyuu Musume and Cross Game are quite similar: both are slice of life series at heart, with a bunch of characters who just happen to play baseball. TYM plays in the 1920s, while Cross Game takes place in what I guess are the 1980s (due to the lack of PCs anywhere…), and both are feminist in their own ways, without shoving “women rock” down the viewer’s throats.
TYM has one advantage over Cross Game: none of the characters are naturally born talents, destined to be among the nation’s best baseball players. Instead, what keeps the team together is the passion of the central characters to make the team they compiled together, and show that girls can just as easily do sports that were meant for guys.
But yeah, Cross Game pretty much owns it in every single way in terms of development. I’m still not sure how the girls of TYM became this good at baseball within only one year of training, considering how they started with absolutely nothing. Cross Game meanwhile first establishes its characters as people with extraordinary talents and then develops them utterly flawlessly.
This episode really had the best baseball match of the series for me so far: we know that Aoba is extraordinary talented, and she worked hard to hone her talents all through her childhood. And yet this episode showed that she’s not alone, and even though she’s able to bring an entire team together and significantly improve its performance, this episode really showed that there are many other different kinds of talented players out there.
I remember how Major also tried to do this, but instead of creating formidable foes, it instead came with a bunch of shounen-esque villains: a bunch of one-trick ponies who only had one thing they were good at and that’s it. And in that way, Taishou Yakyuu Musume does shine: even though it has lots of characters, it does care for its characterization and uses its limited time to move its characters away from their stereotypes, instead of the overblown melodrama that turned me off at Major, where I really didn’t like the overly cheesy drama.
Anyway, long story short: this episode rocked. TYM pales in comparison, but still is pretty nice slice of life.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Cross Game – 23
Imho it is much closer to present than 1980, in Ep17 Kou is playing on some portable console which in anime looks like some generic noname, but in manga he is using Sony PSP (it isn’t named but that look is far too alike)
If you all haven’t noticed something yet, Cross Game is really an anachronistic anomaly if it is really depicting current day or even current modern life in Japan of 3-4 years back (when the manga first started serialisation) – the teens here do not use handphones. It’s rare to see any Japanese city school teens without handphones.
I have to gush about how awesome this episode is. I mean I knew Aoba was good and that she even play just as good as the guys but for her to go against other girls it just tells me that there are other girls just as talented as she is. But you know, I wanted her to win because she IS Kou’s teacher but what I find funny was that she mirrored Kou when he went up against Yuuhei, Both fourth batters who were capable of hitting their pitches and did it with ease. So I guess, that girl who is fourth batter can/may be just as strong as Yuuhei. And not only that both fourth players admire them. I just find this episode awesome.
I wonder if Aoba saw Kou leaving. It is just the way she glance up that way. .. I felt like she notice him. Both of them have something going on even if they aren’t admitting it. I mean nothing escape their attention when it comes to each other.
I have to gush about how awesome this episode is. I mean I knew Aoba was good and that she even play just as good as the guys but for her to go against other girls it just tells me that there are other girls just as talented as she is. But you know, I wanted her to win because she IS Kou’s teacher but what I find funny was that she mirrored Kou when he went up against Yuuhei, Both fourth batters who were capable of hitting their pitches and did it with ease. So I guess, that girl who is fourth batter can/may be just as strong as Yuuhei. And not only that both fourth players admire them. I just find this episode awesome.
I wonder if Aoba saw Kou leaving. It is just the way she glance up that way. .. I felt like she notice him. Both of them have something going on even if they aren’t admitting it. I mean nothing escape their attention when it comes to each other.
While I’m a big fan of Cross Game, I can’t help but feel that the anime is playing up the Kou x Aoba a bit early and a bit too much, probably due to the need to compress the story to get it to fit (anyone know how many episodes this is slotted for?).
This is not to say that in the manga they just kept dragging on and on in the manga, it was just more gradual and subtle, while in the anime it almost seems like they’re trying to hard to hint at something between Kou and Aoba
From memory, there was no such game in the manga. It may just be me being filler-wary, but i felt the pacing/storytelling of this ep were kinda off.
Taishou Yakyuu Musume has a strong feminist focus.
OTOH, I actually see Cross Game as the opposite, despite Aoba’s extraordinary abilities (which she doesn’t capitalize on). At heart, there’s a very traditional portrayal of a woman’s calling.
i would rather see the first episode over and over again then watching the first nine episodes of TYM. That might be a little harsh but no one makes a sport manga/anime like Adachi >_>..
Actually, I think Adachi is a master of baseball-centric slice-of-life/romance series. In terms of actual sport, Ookiku Furikabutte is a baseball series that portrays it much better, in my opinion.
@Theowne: don’t get me wrong, i really liked Oofuri but as a sport story it’s too.. unrealistic? sure it has some really good moments and the matches are really good even though it gets a little dragged in the middle but like i said it’s to unrealistic. think about it, a bunch of first years beat last years champions. the only characters that i liked was Hanai, Tajima and Abe. and the don’t get me on the anime. They gave us 2 matches, that really makes my blood boil. But Adachi just makes better sport manga, we get a great cast of characters, great development and most matches rivals the matches on Oofuri. Also I’m surprised no one beat up Mihashi, sometimes people need a god smack in the face. Like i said, i liked Oofuri but it long way to rival Adachi(btw the manga’s pretty good, check it out!).