Changes are in store for several characters here as the lights are starting to come on about how they feel about certain people and their places in life.
What They Say:
Ko masters the breaking ball that Aoba taught him, and he tells her that she can pitch vicariously through him. Café Clover decides to hire a part-timer, and Akane is the first to apply.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Cross Game has gone through a lot of little changes in the last several episodes but one of the ones I like the most is that because we’re into the spring season, baseball has returned. The winter period was certainly interesting as it focused a bit more on the characters themselves and worked with Akane, but mixing it all up with baseball again brings a new level of excitement and tension as everyone is working hard to achieve their goals. It still plays well with the emotional side though, as even the opening segment with Akaishi and Azuma is spot on as Akaishi talks about Ko’s loss only to have Azuma rightly put out that Akaishi went through the exact same loss and he should stop discounting that after all that’s happened.
While that baseball tension piece is there in the background for a lot of it, it’s the characters that continue to shine the most. Azuma is in his own way getting closer to Aoba as she’s back on campus with her crutches and getting along as best as she can. She’s a tough cookie and doesn’t take anything from anyone. There is an amusing nod to how their circumstances may change if their respective siblings marry each other as it would make them related in the technical sense, which has the amusing part about how siblings can and can’t marry as a certain cousin pokes his head in to make his own intentions clear in a way that certainly doesn’t leave any room for misinterpretation. Unless you’re a high school girl who doesn’t want to really think about it. I really find the relationship between Azuma and Aoba charming, especially as the series would initially get you to believe that it’s going to be about Ko and Aoba finding each other in the long run.
Where the series gets a bit creepy in a way is when the Aoba family café, Clover, puts out its part time wanted sign and Akane comes to apply for the position. Now, with her knowing what they’ve all been through and some of the uncomfortable nature it may bring into things, it’s hard to believe that it’s the only job she could take. There is the understanding that she feels really close to a lot of them and a lot of that is accented by the way they view her, but it’s almost creepy in that she’s taking the place of Wakaba after all this time yet not. The likeness is certainly uncanny as are other aspects of her and I can’t imagine it truly being an easy situation, especially for Aoba’s father and Aoba herself, though she is doing better at handling her interactions with Akane. It’s just an area where it’s hard to really find that everyone is as comfortable with it as they’re making it seem.
In Summary:
Cross Game brings us closer to things settling out where they’re likely to go with relationships and interests, but it needs that critical moment to really make things cemented so they can move forward. The pairings seem obvious at this point, though there’s always room for a surprise or two, but I really want to see the show return to the changes that it can do as we’ve seen in the past by advancing things. With the baseball side, there are a few good things going on here as we see Ko getting better at what he has to do and Aoba gets a very special surprise right at the last couple of seconds of the episode that really entices me to see what she can do with this new opportunity offered her. The wildcard for me continues to be Akane as I can’t help but feel like the show is going to turn psycho on a dime because of her, even though I know it won’t, simply because of how she interacts with everyone and has inserted herself into their lives. I really want to see how this is all going to unfold, but I also want to see it start hitting some significant moments.
Graode: B
Originally Streamed By: Hulu
