Seidou’s falling fast, but can they catch themselves?
What They Say:
“Roles”
I want to pitch to that mitt again… A meeting with catcher Kazuya Miyuki changed the 15-year-old Eijun Sawamura’s life. He said goodbye to all his friends and knocked upon the door of Seidou, a prestigious baseball school, intent on testing his own strength. There, he met many proud baseball players who were betting everything on the sport! A classic tale, yet new and fresh. All the emotion and excitement of the popular baseball manga is at last coming to television in the form of an anime!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After Eijun’s perfect ball against Raichi that just happened to be powered out of the ball park, Seidou responds in course with a home run of their own. The captain hits a long ball to left field, putting Seidou up by two runs again. It gives Eijun a nice learning opportunity to see how the opposing pitcher deals with giving up the home run, even being down two runs. How Seidou’s pitchers deal with this will be key.
On the other side, we learn that their ace pitcher has an injury of his own. He uses a lot of power in his pitches at the sacrifice of his left calve. He injured it a while ago and it isn’t 100 percent yet, just like Tanba. Given how the eighth inning goes, Tanba could go in himself. We flash back to the coach saying he’s not going in, but who knows what could happen in a game situation.
It’s a signifier of Raichi’s power and the flow of the game that Raichi gets walked by Kawakami. In his eyes, the home run Eijun gave up could be him and that could change the flow of the game hugely. Thankfully, Kawakami’s coming back to form. The batter shows bunt, but moves back to hit. The ball moves and the batter misses, but Kazuya is just a little too slow getting the ball to second. Raichi just barely makes it—another sign of Yakushi’s luck.
Now we’re at the third batter, one out, and a runner on third. Seidou’s in a pinch here. Eijun’s normal enthusiasm is back after seeing Sanada give up the home run and he may be the force that brings the team back to life, one of the features Tanba, Kawakami, or Furuya could accomplish as an ace given their personalities. The first two pitches go foul and quickly the batter’s in a pinch. Kazuya calls a slider low, but the batter gets enough to get past the pitcher and second into shallow center field. Raichi goes in and Seidou’s only up one now with the cleanup hitter up to bat. Isashiki dives for the long ball and is just a little late to pick off the batter at first.
The five hole batter gets a ball past first base into shallow right field and the base runner advances to third and, again, Seidou’s in a pinch. But now their ace is in at the last moment. In the eighth, the ace comes on the mound even after the coach said he’s not coming into the game. With Furuya still back, they have a backup if need be.
In Summary:
This is an intense moment in baseball right now. Seidou’s pitching is falling apart after Eijun gave up the home run, but Seidou isn’t out just yet. They’re still one run up with, I believe, two innings left to bat. The situation couldn’t be worse for Seidou given how they started, but Yakushi is certainly a tenacious team. But this is sports anime at its finest when you can’t help but want to watch that next episode.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Roku 2 XD, 42” Vizio HDTV
