Seidou enters the fall tournament with a new ace and a new lineup.
What They Say:
“September Sky”
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)
Kazuya and Kataoka have similar mentalities when it comes to the team. Kazuya, the captain, won’t sacrifice the team for the sake of Eijun’s recovery. Kataoka, the coach, won’t sacrifice the team for the sake of Furuya’s growth. For someone on the outside of the team now, Ochiai and Chris, they can think that way. It’s terrifying to think of a Seidou team with Ochiai as the coach, but it’s seemingly moving in that direction.
Kazuya, as the catcher, partially blames himself for Eijun’s struggle in the Yakushi game. He was mentally not prepared for standing on the mound, not because of his control or yips, but because of every other situation that surrounded him. Kazuya was pushing control in the summer leading up to that game and Furuya put out a major showing in the innings prior. He lost the mental game before he was on the mound because of everything he was thinking about.
Now, as a pitcher, Eijun is about as far away as you can get from, say, Mihashi of Big Windup. Eijun is a pitcher that has, at this point, two pitches in his arsenal: his four-seam moving fastball and the as-of-yet unreliable cutter. Both are moving pitches and, I’d say in most cases, a breaking ball simply because of the unpredictable nature of his moving fastball from the eyes of the batter. Mihashi on the other hand has four pitches in his arsenal, if I recall: a slow fastball, a slider, a curveball, and a changeup. Put some speed on the pitches and Mihashi is Narumiya of Inashiro with way more control. Mihashi strikes out batters, but wisely and with the accompaniment of Abe. Eijun jams batters and makes them hit easy ground or fly balls. Notice how Eijun turns around and says he’s depending on the seven guys behind him. That’s because his pitches are meant to be hit, just not hit that far. Remember, even a deep fly ball can mean a run in if the second base runner is fast and smart enough. An MLB equivalent of Eijun would be someone like Mariano Rivera, if Eijun ever perfects that cutter.
Furuya is a third kind of pitcher. He pitches for power to overwhelm the batters, a bit like Rivera’s earlier career. But he doesn’t really have an equivalent in the MLB because variety of pitches is going to be way more important than how fast you can throw. His closest equivalent would perhaps be Roger Clemens or Randy Johnson, but only based on their power. Furuya needs to be able to throw more pitches before he’s truly deserving of that ace number. There are far more parallels in anime pitchers than in MLB pitchers, with easy comparisons to Kazuya and Tatsuya of Touch, Ko Kitamura of Cross Game, and Ryo Hayakawa of Princess Nine. The former three were also their cleanup hitters, which is where Ochiai wants to put him.
As they are now, Seidou has no true ace like Tanba once was (all too late to flourish like she should have), but Furuya stands on the mound for the first game of the fall tournament wearing the number one on his back (Haruichi has number four!). Seidou isn’t allowing any runs, but they aren’t scoring many either. The defense will be key for the team they are now. Eijun, relegated to running and then the outfield, jumped two numbers to 18, is still on the roster. He’s cheering on, but he’s not in the bullpen. They won the game 6-0, which is a fair margin in baseball, but it’s not what they were hoping for against that team.
In Summary:
Ochiai is going to be the most interesting guy to watch in Ace of Diamond. There’s going to be some standout players who are sitting on the bench currently and that’ll be great to see and Eijun is bound to bounce back with a pitch Chris wants him to perfect. But Ochiai is a guy who just wants to win games at any cost. He’ll put Furuya through hell and let the team lose if it means victory in the future. A team without Kataoka will not be the same team and a team with Ochiai will be a far cry from the scrappy Seidou team that fought valiantly against an Inashiro team that was just a little better.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: PS3, LG 47LB5800 47” 1080p LED TV, LG NB3530A Sound Bar
