Newly-minted high schooler Tsubasa has a plan: she wants to start a girls’ baseball team at Rigahama High. Unfortunately for her, instead of going through proper channels, Tsubasa lets her enthusiasm (and maybe her friend Tomoe’s words) carry her away, and she charges onstage during the club presentation assembly to make her call for members. Although her homeroom teacher supports her efforts, and despite getting two potential members in the form of super-shy Ukita and slightly-leery Nozaki, the student council remains opposed to the team. That’s not going to keep Tsubasa down, though – the girl’s nothing if not enthusiastic and devoted to her dream. – ANN
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Episodes: TBA
Source: Smartphone Game
Episode Summary: Baseball is an uncommon school sport for girls, but Tsubasa aims to change that by forming a team at her high school. She commandeers the entrance ceremony to advertise this venture, drawing all of the wrong kinds of attention. She does, however, catch the eye of Ukita, a shy girl with an interest in baseball, and Nozaki, a girl with an uncomfortable past in team sports. Though both girls are apprehensive, the circumstances align and they join Tsubasa and her friend Tomoe for an informal practice session and pickup game near the river.
Truth be told, neither girl has the skills of a practiced baseball player, but they both show potential. Once Nozaki learns that she can play left-handed, her throws start to impress. And though Ukita definitely needs to work on her confidence, she has a lot of heart. When they play a game against a group of younger kids, all the girls start to get a sense of how fun baseball can be. The camaraderie, the cheer of the audience, and the sound of the ball hitting the sweet spot of the bat is addictive. Perhaps this club might have a chance at success.
Impressions: It appears to be a fruitful season for baseball-related anime; in addition to Mix: Meisei Story and Ace of the Diamond, we also have this smartphone-game-based adaptation. I tend to think of sports anime as fitting into one of two different philosophies – one very sports-focused, and the other more concerned with character growth and emotions. While on the one hand it feels wrong to assume that the series with the female cast is likely to be less technical and more character-based, the first episode does focus less on skills-based training (though we do get a short lesson on proper pitching techniques) and more on the characters confronting and addressing some of their feelings toward team sports. While I think most sports are interesting on their own, it’s the human stories in sports anime that interest me the most.
I personally have a complicated relationship with team sports, much like some of the characters. While I never formally played sports in school, they were part of the curriculum in most of my gym classes and thus I have some experience with the common ones. One very vivid memory I have is being in 9th grade gym class with a bunch of other classmates who didn’t like me very much (of course) and who seemed to enjoy doing what they could to make my life difficult. One boy in particular would make sure to pick on me when we were playing softball, gesturing for his team to come in close when I was at bat, and throwing the ball so that it would hit me on the top of my head. Definitely not that high up on the “bullying” scale, but enough to leave an impression on me until now. While these memories haven’t caused me constant suffering, they have affected how I feel toward the prospect of playing games in groups.
Nozaki’s story, while not quite as negative as mine, rings very true to me. Anxiety and apprehension, whatever the source, can help mold and define your feelings toward something you might otherwise enjoy. I sort of wonder what life would be like if I’d had a different experience – if maybe one person had chosen to be encouraging and welcoming rather than a jerk. The only difference might be that I might not be sitting inside on a beautiful weekend day watching anime and trying to write about it, but instead might be chasing after a soccer ball or swinging a tennis racket. Whatever else this series has to offer, at the very least it’s given me the opportunity to examine some very deep-seated feelings from my own life.
Beyond that, this episode is fairly formulaic in the way it cobbles together its first team members and presents them with some challenges to overcome. One interesting thing that I hadn’t considered is the fact that girls’ baseball isn’t common in Japan. I think the same must true in the United States; from what I can recall, I heard plenty about girls’ softball when I was in school, but never anything about girls’ baseball. If you asked me what the difference was, I’m not sure that I could define it aside from the larger softball and under-handed pitching style. In any case, this presents an interesting angle that the series could take if it really wanted to – confronting the weirdly-sexist divide between the types of sports offered to boys and girls.
Even if the show isn’t up to tackling those kinds of hard issues, it still seems like it could be a pretty fun, big-hearted series about team-building and sports competition. Though it’s based on a game, perhaps one of the best compliments I can give it is that the opening episode manages to avoid feeling too much like one, which is more than can be said about many other adaptations. I can’t speak to the game’s content and perhaps it’s simply the type of property that’s not so focused on character collecting and other things that seem to define a lot of mobile gaming content. But, simply put, if I didn’t already know its origins I probably wouldn’t have guessed them, which speaks to a decent adaptation.
My biggest impression of this episode is that it’s pleasant, which isn’t lofty praise by any means, but which I think speaks fairly well to its purpose. It’s not groundbreaking or super-exciting, but it’s also not gross or pandering. It seems like a light-hearted distraction with a Summery vibe, and with the weather outside getting sunnier and warmer every day, that’s pretty good by me.
Pros: Pleasant and fun in its character-focused scenario. Reflects some personal experiences some of us might have with team sports.
Cons: It may not be as directly baseball-focused as some viewers might prefer.
Grade: B-