Well, for a moment it might have seemed that the excessive hinting from the creators would ruin the surprise. I’ve said this many times before, but the baseball matches of Cross Game just don’t match up to those of Touch, in which you hardly ever knew how a match was going to end. Cross-Game instead just kept hinting at how this match was going to end throughout the first half of this episode, but nevertheless the eventual result hit hard.
So yes, Kou eventually suffered in his left arm, causing him to miss the crucial pitch that gave away the game. With this, he finally became a mortal again. Granted, that new pitcher was entirely fresh, and had only been playing for two rounds, but it’s nevertheless a mistake that could have happened with any other batter. And there’s the strength of the team they had to face: they didn’t just have good batter and pitcher, they had two of each. Individually, these people don’t match up to either Kou or Azuma, but when their strength is divided over half a game, they become a very formidable opponent to beat.
The aftermath was well delivered. You can see that the creators really took some time to let this sink in, and show Kou’s disappointment in his loss, even though nobody really blames him for it (after all, he did nearly win from the top-rated team in the area). It was also hilarious to see Senda, having been abandoned by the bus. ^^;
And at the end of this episode, we finally see Wakaba 2.0, and with that we move to the second half of this series, if I’m not mistaken. The characters really have been fleshed out enough by now. It’s time to develop them!
Rating: ** (Excellent)
“It was also hilarious to see Senda, having been abandoned by the bus. ^^”
I lol’d too x°°°D
Now that the match is over there’ll be more time for slice of life/comedy/character development; I think Wakaba the revenge will be the exact opposite of Aoba: kind, caring, polite etc
If the preview is any indication, next episode will be more of a flashback/review about Wakaba. There may not be any new character development (or any new insight on Akane) until the week after.
And it’s a “run,” not a “point.” And there is no “round” in baseball, only “inning.” 😉
Baseball matches in this series are just plain bad.
One of the reasons I dislike most of the sports based anime series is that they portrait one or two characters like awesome players (unbelievingly good, actually) and the rest of the team as utter nullities: just the approach that Cross Game uses.
Thankfully Cross Game is quite good when there is not a baseball game going on and at least the games don´t drag for episode after episode.
Not sure at what point of this episode but remembering the death of Wakaba continues to be such a tragic & sad moment. It was such a well done and emotional event.
@N.: I’m going to have to respectfully disagree. Baseball teams usually have that 1 or 2 players that teams often walk or that can pitch 130-160+km/hr. (Ken Griffey Jr., Hideki Matsui, etc.) So it’s not really all that unbelievable. I would say it’s more realistically depicted than not, and I consider it a strong point of the show. Just my 2 cents.