At times, it really looks like Aoba is the lead character of this series, rather than Kou. Especially when it comes to baseball, it’s her who keeps stealing the show, while Kou, who is supposed to be the main character, just keeps hiding, watching and staying in the background. Really if it wasn’t for the fact that he gets the most screentime you really wouldn’t suspect that he was supposed to be the central character in this show. He just feels so far away from your average male lead. The only thing he has in common with them is his huge talents.
And yet again, this episode rocked. In the current spring season, there are three shows against which I have yet to find a single significant complaint: Eden of the East, Basquash and this one (Phantom has its questionable portrayal of the mafia, Pandora Hearts has its cheese and Natsu no Arashi had its first episode; all excellent shows too, but these do have their flaws, in comparison to the three mentioned above). This episode shows how the coach of the high school team visits the middle school team, and notices how solid Aoba’s performance is, and so he invites her for a few practice pitches, though not with the best of intentions.
This episode really did an excellent job of making me feel sorry for Aoba. For one, she’s never going to get as good as Kou, she’s not going to have any chance of playing solid baseball as soon as she hits high school, and she was really made fun of this in this episode, even though you can see that she has passion for the sports in the way that she continued pitching despite being terribly exhausted.
Kou meanwhile continues to shine in a completely different way. I absolutely LOVE his sense of humour. This episode reveals that he has yet another talent of impersonating voices of other people, which he puts to great use in teasing the hell out of Senda.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Especially great episode for Aoba, but all of the characters still rock.
Yeah I definitely love how Koh is just very down to earth. He is very easy to like.
Anyways I definitely agree with you about Cross Game being one of the best series this season. I am not so sure about Eden though.
I think that till now I prefer Cross Game over Higashi No Eden; Eden’s plot is very intriguing and original, but as a result of the complex story it lacks on emotions.
Why doesn’t she join the girl’s team? She could shine and easily win many awards…
Well I wouldn’t say that Aoba isn’t talented in her own way, Koh just happens to be even more talented than her, but she’s definitely a talented pitcher. But as you noted what sucks about her position is that Aoba is a girl… no matter how good her pitching may be no matter how much she practices, as is evident, she’ll never be able to play in an official game.
“but as a result of the complex story it lacks on emotions.”
Or not.
“Basquash” [not disappointing this season]
Really? Seriously? For one it’s plot jumps around like a yoyo and doesn’t make much sense. And it’s over the top pointless fanservice is really damn annoying. As someone that can consider Phantom’s unrealistic portrayal of the mafia a ‘complaint’ don’t you think you’re being a bit of hypocrite here? Ristorante Paradiso, Hayate, heck even Hatsukoi Limited fits better.
“At times, it really looks like Aoba is the lead character of this series, rather than Kou.”
It won’t be long before you start being disappointed in Aoba’s lack of relevance to the plot, though she’ll still show up a lot. Koh stands out more later.
I really like the quality of this anime….they don’t have any drawing issues…unlike pandora hearts.
“I really like the quality of this anime….they don’t have any drawing issues…unlike pandora hearts.”
Well, Adachi’s drawing style is really easy to mimic, so it would be a real problem if they screwed up in that deppartment.
I was just wondering how many episodes this anime is going to be. I still don’t know how many were slated for it.
I have to say the this anime series adaptation is quite close to the manga. What differs is that the events that happen in the manga is used for flashbacks and dreams in the anime. But what many of you didn’t get from these 7 episodes is that Aoba is the one kou mimics and try to surpass as a pitcher but the catalyst for his goal was Wakaba because she wanted him to beat Aoba.
I love the subtley, many people don’t pick them up easily, but Kou is always looking at Aoba and is always observing her. .. So I still can’t tell what is on Kou’s mind. But I think there is more to him and Aoba’s relationship than just the connection with Wakaba.