What They Say:
Baby Steps centers on a honor student named Eiichiro Maruo who becomes frustrated with his life and decides to join the tennis club. Despite lacking experience and physical strength, he utilizes his studious nature to develop a strategic approach to playing tennis. Taking notes of his opponents’ habits and tendencies, he is able to predict their next move before they even react. He also meets Natsu Takasaki, a beautiful girl with a passion for tennis. With her help, he aims to become a professional tennis player.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Baby Steps put us on the good path in the first episode after teasing us with the present a bit by going back and showing how Eiichiro ended up getting drawn into tennis. We got a good handle on the character quickly with his studious ways and the reason he’s that way, not so much that he’s really smart but rather that he knows he has to put the effort it for it. He’s also now been drawn into tennis a bit after meeting Natsu and ending up at the courts where he realizes there’s far more to it than he thought there was. But there’s also simply the draw of Natsu herself, something that obviously does inspire many young men and women to participate in and do things that they may not otherwise. It’s done in an obvious way but it’s at least not heavy-handed and had a nice bit of light humor to it as well that felt surprisingly natural.
And sometimes, once you have that first taste of something, you can’t help but to explore it more. Eiichiro does have tennis on the mind and he’s interested in it, but he also can’t get Natsu out of his mind either and is regularly thinking of her as he goes through his days of school, study and cram school. This gets him starting to do a bit more exercise since he wants to spend time there with Natsu and he begins to investigate the practice place itself, with how the kids go there and while the older students participate since they help so many go pro by the methods they use. It’s fun to see Eiichiro get into it all and do the heavy lifting while not being fantastic at it but rather pretty normal. Every little victory is big for him, even when they shouldn’t be, but it has that air of realism about it as he goes through the trial practice that was offered to him. That helps to flesh it out for the viewers as well as we get to know things like court assignments and the like and how that factors into things.
Eiichiro gets some of the basics here from the instructor, but he also gets to spend some time with a very friendly and engaging Natsuo, who is just glad to share her passion with him in a positive way. Others are not so pleased, but it’s done in such a natural and realistic way that you have to like it. Well, unless your Takuma and you can get a bit ruffled by the whole thing with how Natsu is acting. That leads to an amusing moment or two, but in the end we get Eiichiro finally getting some real practice and finding that he really enjoys it. That shows us more of his personality from there, with a signup to participate more, spending his own money for equipment and looking forward to the game itself, using his study habits to learn and understand it. When someone discovers a passion like this, it’s definitely fun to watch because it hits so many little notes that builds to the larger picture of a turning point in their life.
In Summary:
The opening episode of Baby Steps definitely won me over and this episode just cements it all the more. The thing that keeps coming back to me is the natural and realistic aspect of how the characters are acting at this stage because it reminds me of my own teenage days when it came to getting involved in things, study habits, watching others that you have an interest in and so forth. We get a lot more of the basics rolled out here with how the sport works, practices and a few of the characters involved and it definitely works well. But it also gives us a lot of time with Eiichiro and seeing the world through his eyes as that helps to paint a distinctive enough view to work with. And while he’s not the most interesting guy in the world – how many teenagers truly are? – we see the path he’s on and it’s one that is definitely worth following.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
