Category: Finished Series: Sports

Ah, it’s just as I hoped: the arrival of Akane brought the spark back to this series. It’s once again a delight to watch the slice of life in this series. This episode was stuffed with tons and tons of subtle jabs towards all of the different characters. Now this is what Cross Game is best at!

Now this is subtlety! No longer do we just see Kou and Aoba fighting, but now that Akane has joined the mix, the two of them also start acting completely different towards each other, and yet they haven’t forgotten to sneak subtle jabs at each other in the middle of their conversations. A bit weird were the parts in which Kou stopped that naked dude who terrorized Akane’s school and Aoba, who protected Akane from those very stupid (yet somewhat endearing) high school punks, but they were nevertheless a lot of fun.

I’d still be here tomorrow evening if I were to mention every clever bit about this episode, so let´s just say that I laughed a lot. There were so many fun details in it. I probably liked the part in which the father saw the image of his dead daughter. It´s like he said, he heard the rumours, but his face was nevertheless priceless. I even didn’t mind the scene in which Kou ran into Akane changing. It´s a staple of all teen-aged romance series, but the way that the creators carried this one out was just too adorable.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

What an amazing episode. It’s installments like this that really show why Cross Game is such an excellent slice of life series, it was constantly playing with the set-up of the arrival of Wakaba II (who turns out to be named Akane).

The entire episode was one big tease. To start with, you know how Kou said “Wakaba”? That sequence got repeated about three or four times? Well, it turns out that it was also imprinted on the bag she was carrying. A bit long to get to that punchline, but well worth it. For the rest of the episode, I was really looking forward to the next time she’d show up again, but the creators had other plans, and instead showed some very good slice of life scenes instead, preparing for the upcoming festival and the anniversary of Wakaba’s death (if I understood correctly).

Only in the final quarter of the episode, she appeared again, and the results were amazing. Everyone who ran into her had the same reaction: “what’s a ghost doing here!?” The look on everyone’s face… it was just priceless.

Oh, and as an extra bonus, my favourite minor side-character got some attention again: Momiji. Especially now that she has reached the same age as Wakaba did when she died, she’s hopefully also going to start playing a larger part in this series.

And that’s what I think is the biggest difference between Cross Game and Touch: Touch was far better with its baseball matches, while Cross Game’s baseball is the least interesting part of the series. However, Cross Game is far superior when it comes to slice of life, in which Touch was a bit too long-winded. With the exception of two notable episodes, of course. those who watched Touch will understand which ones I mean.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

This could very well be the best recap episode ever.

So basically, before the second half of this series starts, Aoba looks at Wakaba’s portrait and the episode then commences to recap pretty much the first episode. And oh my god, the nostalgia!

Because we now have gotten to know the characters, despite this being a near-exact copy of that first episode (if my memory doesn’t deceive me), it stands out as ten times better than what I remember it to be, and even then I already was impressed with that episode. It was so awesome to see Wakaba back, along with the younger versions of the cast. And of course, the point at which Wakaba eventually died hit even harder.

This episode was pretty much a filler, but I don’t care. It was awesome.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

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)

Yeah, this was by far the best baseball match of Cross Game, in which Kou and Azuma finally get a real threat posed to them. The matches still are nowhere as intense and exciting as in Touch, but it’s getting there. If the second half of the series can further develop the fact that Kou and Azuma aren’t perfect then we’re in for a great series.

For once, Kou didn’t give away a point because he was playing around, lazy or otherwise intentionally not focusing. The way that Keitaro just whacked a home-run out of Kou’s pitch caught him completely off-guard and Azuma too for once just hit a regular pitch, instead of a home-run. I also like that Senda, despite his portrayal as a seemingly useless character actually gets to bases at times. That’s more to say from Akaishi: there’s this theme with him, never being able to score any sort of solid hit: he either hits very hard, only for the ball to get caught, or he just completely fails to hit the ball in the first place.

Aoba again acted completely different from how she usually does, and turned into a bit of a fangirl for Kou, which of course clashed a bit with her tsundere-side. Yeah, at this point the arrival of Wakaba-lookalike seems about right to develop their relationship a bit more.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

And so, the time has finally come for Kou and Azuma to take on the most challenging team of the preliminaries, including the player whose name Azuma could remember. The question is of course going to be whether the next episode, which is going to focus on the real meat of the match, is going to be able to deliver. The build-up in this episode was very fine, but the baseball matches in this series have always left a strange bad taste after their end. Let’s hope that this time the creators can avert this.

By far the biggest surprise in this episode was Aoba. I guess that finally the team has to face a formidable opponent, and as the result she was fangirling like crazy in the audience. This episode showed a totally different side of her usual composed and calm personality.

Oh, and the creators have finally scrapped the cat drawing game at the beginning of each episode. Instead, we now have a quiz. Seriously, Momiji asks who the pitcher of the baseball team is and gives three options to choose from. I mean seriously, even kids aren’t that stupid. And seriously, what the heck is up with all that live action in anime this week? First we had that horror of Shugo Chara Party, then Yumeiro Patissiere pulled a few minutes of cheesy live-action at its end, and now Cross Game does it too. Why!?
OP: Some scenes were changed for the OP this time, most notably Wakaba having grown up. Gives a strange effect: what would this series look like if she were still alive?
ED: Hmm, I liked the first better. The vocalist seems to want to try too hard while he doesn’t have the voice for it. Again, grown-up Wakaba gives off a strange nostalgic feeling.
Rating: * (Good)

I do hope that the second half of this series is going to introduce some sort of challenge for Kou, because with this episode, it’s already getting boring to watch these matches in which Kou and Azuma dominate the entire game. I tried to like this series’ baseball matches, but in the end it’s really something that Touch did much, much better. Now that we’re at the halfway point, it’s about time for Kou and Aoba’s relationship to develop again. In this episode, they again dropped various hints that they’re into each other, including Aoba at last getting impressed by Kou’s pitching-work, but we’ve reached the point at which it’s beginning to get repetitive. We need some more conflict to spice things up. This episode finally gave us a good look at what may look like two promising rivals, but the creators still need to put a lot of time in them to flesh them out properly. At the moment they’re nothing really special yet. Rating: (Enjoyable)]]>