Not all friendships start so easily.
What They Say:
Takumi Harada is a talented baseball player. Takumi meets Go Nagakura, a catcher who can catch Takumi’s fastest pitches. They join the school baseball team and grow together as a battery unit.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
If you’ve ever watched a baseball anime before, you probably understand the concept of the “battery,” the combination of pitcher and catcher. Batteries are prime storytelling material because of how intimately they need to understand each other to function properly; it requires a certain level of trust, after all, for you to toss your incredibly fast ball into the catcher’s hands, or for you to trust that your pitcher will always give you accurate throws for you to catch. The character drama practically writes itself.
The premiere of the appropriately named Battery the Animation grabs hold of this idea and instantly promises to cultivate something natural and compelling from it, but not by taking the easy way out. The first protagonist we are introduced to is Takumi Harada, a very young but talented pitcher. So talented, in fact, that he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about how his skills are just too much for anyone else to keep up with. The second is the first and so far only person in Takumi’s new town that he’s managed to make any connection with – the large catcher Go Nagakura. Unlike the constantly sulking Takumi, Go’s passion for baseball is a positive, hopeful one, as he spends his time fantasizing about playing at Koshien Stadium and constantly nudges Takumi toward practicing with him.
They are common archetypes, but the writing in Battery the Animation already proves to be capable of the sort of nuanced character writing that a show like this needs to excel. Takumi can easily excuse his own attitude with just being too talented for his own good, but his adversarial nature extends to every other aspect of his life, too. When he’s being grilled by his parents over staying out late, shots of him clutching his chopsticks in barely restrained anger express his lack of a healthy emotional outlet in only a few frames. Despite having just made a potential real friend in Go, Takumi’s insecurities become painfully clear as he lashes out to his new partner whenever he is even mildly frustrated. A friendly jab from Go about his “warm-up” pitches illicits an immediate, rather cruel remark from Takumi about Go’s family’s wealth. The only things that seem to be keeping Takumi grounded are his passion for baseball and his wonderfully understanding brother, Seiha, and one can’t help but feel like there is more to Takumi’s bad attitude than his baseball prospects.
Go isn’t given quite as much personal time, but even he is already starting to be a fully fleshed-out person. Unlike Takumi, his talents don’t seem to be natural ones, so the pain he feels when Takumi refuses to reciprocate his positivity comes through in both his body language and the actual framing. Of course, his stubborn insistence on getting Takumi to come around clearly comes from a similar place of insecurity, whether that be because of the few opportunities he has in his small town, his lack of access to true talent like Takumi, or all that and more. This comes out in particular through their angered exchanges while practicing; both characters are clearly frustrated, but neither one seems to be honest about why they are so on edge. Go’s development has only barely begun yet it’s already incredibly promising.
The writing isn’t the only element doing the work to make Battery the Animation a properly effective character drama. The characters move with purpose, their bodies constantly expressing more of their feelings than they are willing to say out loud. Colors are muted and brown, allowing us to feel the melancholy of winter along with our new favorite frenemies. Even the voice acting manages to complement the drama, especially on the part of Kouki Uchiyama who tends to really bring out the complexities of angsty kids like Takumi.
In Summary:
Battery the Animation is off to a fantastic start, bringing us a grounded and honest character-focused story with real subtlety and grace. Despite only about two days passing in the course of this episode, the work done here to establish these characters as full people with deep-set problems and compelling motivations is already solid. I’m looking forward to seeing how the relationship between the complex Takumi and Go evolves throughout the rest of the season.
Episode Grade: A
Streamed by: Amazon
