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)
After getting some good progress in the show in the last few episodes with what Eiichiro was facing in the tournament, we took the natural episode to provide a little down time before things would move forward again. The series has certainly been enjoyable in that it’s balanced this out well, making it so that Eiichiro was focused more on the sports side of things without the personal drama side really taking up a huge amount of time. So when we do get the small pushes towards him getting to know Natsu better, it felt more real and honest. It also helped the last time around that Kageyama nudged things for the two of them to try and get them to go out on a date. Which is where we find ourselves at the start here as they meet at the station and he’s just totally taken in by how beautiful she is to him. It’s a fairly standard outfit, but that’s not what he sees. He sees her and is just totally smitten in a great teenage way.
Date material in normal-world anime series usually do hit some familiar tones and we get there here, including some cute karaoke time with Eiichiro singing the opening song to the series. Though he’s not good and obviously nervous, there’s a really relaxed nature about Natsu that’s welcome to see since she’s just enjoying it. His seeing her enjoying herself, being so relaxed, just ramps up his nervousness even more, especially with what he hears in the back of his mind from Kageyama in trying to get him to reveal his feelings to her. There’s a good history that these two have since he started playing tennis that has a good friendship aspect about it in a respectful and proper distance kind of way, but Eiichiro makes a move at last as he asks her how she feels about him. That gets her to tell him he’s cheating, which confuses him, but you can see how she wants him to reveal how he feels first and puts in a delaying move so they go and enjoy more of their day together. A rare thing for both of them since they’re continually practicing day after day.
While this takes a good bit of time, we also get some tennis time here as Eiichiro’s new coach goes over a lot of promising things for him in how to approach his practices and what to do, which is different from the normal routine. It’s a little more free form, which is unusual for these players, but it adds some good variety to things and helps to get Eiichiro back on track after some time away. One of the things that’s discussed in order to get him to the next level is a two week trip during winter break to America where he can get in some serious practice and change of scenery that will help elevate him even more. It’s a natural part of the process that many do, though it’s a huge step for players on the pro circuit that really tests them. The exploration of the Florida Tennis Academy and what it offers, who has gone there and what’s involved is done well here and seeing Eiichiro’s enthusiasm grow is definitely great to see.
It all moves quickly in that regard, though of course the fact that he’s leaving before Christmas kind of makes for a difficult holiday in regards to Natsu, but she’s at a tournament herself then so it doesn’t impact it much. There’s a lot of fun things going on as everyone starts to find out about what he’s doing and that works to nicely reinforce the simple friendships he has, something he didn’t really have before all of this start – in class or out of class. But in the back of his mind, eating away at him, is what he thinks he has to do with Natsu before they both go off for the break doing different things. So seeing him getting that chance, awkward timing as it may be, is great to see – especially since it’s done in front of her friends and others at the tournament. Of course, he does it in his own very simple way, but she knows exactly what it means, something that makes their relationship all the more adorable to watch and understand when you really get down to it.
In Summary:
I really enjoyed Baby Steps. I mean, really enjoyed it. Sports shows can be done in so many different ways that getting one like this that finds a very good balance between the game, the training and the character side is actually hard to get. And that it kept to a very realistic approach made it even more so. While it has an utterly goofy name, it’s one that makes sense and does fit with the concept behind it. Eiichiro’s baby steps into growing up, finding his passion, reaching out and grabbing it and his growth into a relationship with Natsu is just beautifully done. The show also made sure that there were real challenges to his games, keeping him from just being a prodigy and always winning with all his hard work, forcing him to cope with the feelings of loss and how to get past it. The finale does a lot of really strong character work and sets the stage for where they’re going from here in a very positive way. It serves as a great closer to the series, giving you some finality, but also leaving it wide open for a whole lot more that can be done. Thankfully, a second season is coming!
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
