As the school year goes on, Aoba starts to struggle with her role in the scheme of things.
What They Say:
Midori asks Aoba to play on an all girls’ school baseball team in an upcoming game. But Aoba feels like she should stay true to Seishu Gakuen’s team and decline.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While we’ve seen the struggles Ko is going through with his game play over time, up to the present where he’s getting instructed by Aoba on how to throw a proper slider, we haven’t seen too much from her side about what’s been going on. Aoba has become a fantastic ball player and excels at it better than most guys her age and above, but she’s continually being hamstrung by the social issues of it all. She wants to play, she’s great at playing but the formal national rules won’t allow it in the slightest. And while her teammates at Seishu are all supportive of her, they do find they can be dismissive of her at times as well which only leads to hurt feelings.
So when she gets an offer from Midori of the all girls team from another school to come play in a crucial scrimmage game, she’s sorely tempted but finds that she can’t. It’s a difficult position for her since there’s so much she wants to do, but she wants to do it with Seishu and probably subconsciously she wants to be there with Ko to do it all. But because of the issues with school policies and the like, she has to refuse Midori, though it weighs on her mind with all the other problems she’s facing. When she goes to watch the scrimmage, at the recommendation of her coach, it’s not a surprise to see Midori trying to nudge her into playing for them so they can go against another ace or two.
The problems that Aoba faces like this are tough ones all around. There’s plenty of reason to work through the idea of gender based leagues and allow them to shine along the way. There’s a rich history of baseball that goes back far enough where you don’t want to change certain traditions that will ruin it in the minds of others. If the mainstream high school sports pushed more that it would be mixed gender, there are many who would feel it would take away from opportunities that some young men rely on to be able to progress forward. Yet at the same time, the young women are denied the same thing because of it. With the opportunities never even presented, as there are many schools that don’t even offer a girls form of most sports, they never get the chance and you can make the argument that people are missing out from there. And with as little coverage as women’s sports get of this nature, it’s a vicious cycle. One that makes you feel heavily for Aoba as she struggles to find her place where she can shine.
In Summary:
The focus on Aoba is very welcome, especially as it avoids any sort of actual relationship material relating to the couple of young men in her life. What we get here are the basic struggles of a first year who wants to play baseball, is exceptionally good at baseball but is ultimately limited in how far she can go simply because she’s a girl. Aoba is definitely a favorite in this series and in slice of life shows in general as she’s just so genuinely written and without any serious defects or over the top antics. Her struggles are a bit more interesting than what Ko and the other guys go through, and if you’re empathetic with her you can envision a world where high school sports are more gender mixed, which in turn could bring a lot more excitement to it though it would turn away a lot of people as well. And that problem is what makes her situation so much more real as you can grasp it easily and sympathize heavily.
Grade: B
Originally Streamed By: Hulu
