Eiichiro’s training continues on and he makes a surprising misstep when it comes to Takuma.
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)
It proved to be a lot of fun following Eiichiro in the previous episode wit hthe way he started doing a bit more to get familiar with tennis, applying some of his studious nature towards the sport to grow himself. He put himself into it pretty well, though obviously he had some conflicts along the way in dealing with some of those that were teaching him, but it was fun to get the understanding of how the training works and seeing the way he worked with Natsu. His desire to just get better physically was nicely done as well since it’s trying to get him to be a bit more well rounded and he is, as a whole, a pretty likable character with just some minor quirks. But we also got him falling for Natsu a bit more in his shy and restrained way, something that Takuma’s able to see and does his controlled best to try and nudge him away from it.
Eiichiro is still struggling with his feelings towards Natsu as we see it play out in a couple of ways early on here, first with him accidentally seeing Takuma and Natsu together in what he thinks is a romantic way but really isn’t, and then with some time at home where he feels caught by his mother over the way he’s acting. But for the most part, Eiichiro is still focusing on learning tennis and doing well enough at it that when we see him on the courts, he’s doing well and Natsu is impressed by his dedication to it and what he’s doing to learn the game. Since it’s a passion of hers with a big goal, seeing someone take a shine to it like he is definitely makes an impression. Not a romantic impression, but it kind of gets Eiichiro into her mindspace and that helps. What really does and up impressing her though is the way that he seems to really be going all in with it with a kind of focus and dedication that she never expected as he learns the training and skill set of it all.
Amusingly, Eiichiro’s interest in training and understanding how to play tennis has him becoming a bit obsessive about it in a way that makes sense for him and it’s bleeding over into his everyday life as well. While he’s been practicing on his own mostly for now, he’s now being set in a game with the kid from the previous episodes in order to gauge Eiichiro’s skill. With strong players coming in all ages, it definitely works even if some people would be offended by the notion. What Eiichiro gets from this is a lot of education about how to play which he then uses to study and work off of to get better. But it takes an odd turn later when Takuma starts talking to him and Takuma gets angry with him over the way Eiichiro talks about pros and he actually gets a bit violent with him. It’s interesting to see how that unfolds and plays out, especially with the coach there, since you can see how Takuma doesn’t like how Eiichiro was also watching him in order to learn more for his own betterment. Which makes sense on both sides of the equation and leads to an awkward battle-apology between the two.
In Summary:
With a pretty fun end act here that puts Eiichiro and Takuma against each other with the start of an impromptu battle that gets a lot of people watching, the tensions are rising nicely and we get something out of Takuma that wasn’t quite expected with his rough nature. There’s obviously going to be issues between the two considering Natsu is obliviously in the middle and having some of it play out like this is intriguing to see. The show as a whole this time around really focuses on Eiichiro getting his training going and doing it in a big way that really has him working hard. And that makes an impression on Natsu in a pretty good way that has you watching her more and more to see how she reacts and to wait and see if and when she does realize she’s taking more of an interest in him.
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.