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one outs

One Outs

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Alternate Titles: ONE OUTS – Nobody wins, but I!

Original Japanese Release Date: October 7th, 2008

Episode Length/Run-time: 25

Summary:
A show that combines gambling with baseball. Hiromichi Kojima, a star player for the Lycaons, meets a pitcher who is known as the undisputed king of gambling.  This man, Toua Tokuchi, is the owner if a very difficult to hit 83 mile per hour fastball.  Kojima gets Toua to join to Lycaons but only under certain special conditions made with the owner of the team.  Toua gets 5,000,000 yen for every out he pitches, but loses 50,000,000 yen for every run he gives up.

Review:

Here is an interesting show.  A sports anime that really isn’t about the sports at all!  There is the action aspect to the show, true, but unlike many other testosterone packed action sports shows like Major and Hajime no Ippo (not that theres anything wrong with it because those are two of the greatest sports anime out there), this show is a chess match between the owner of the Lycoans and the pitcher Toua.  During the course of this show, the owner does all sorts of things to sabotage Toua’s RBI of 0.  It’s truly a sight to see the efforts that the two go through to deceive each other.

Part of me feels like this anime is very cultural.  There are several reasons for this but one of the primary reasons is the gambling itself.  As you may or not know, gambling is illegal in Japan.  As such, the show focuses on a taboo cultural aspect of Japan’s society.  For this reason, some might consider this a social commentary.
Finally, the art and animation of the show is wonderful.  There is even a bit of bishounen fan service in there for all of the ladies.  The characters are brightly drawn and have very unique designs, something I find to be fairly routine for sports anime.  The music I was a little less enthused about.  As I write this, I cannot remember what the theme songs sounds like.

All in all, this is a show I recommend to many people.  Certainly all men will enjoy this anime and even a select handful of women as well.  I know Chiaki enjoyed this anime just as much as I did and so I would likely widely recommend it, especially for its unique delivery.

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Basquash

Basquach

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Episode Reviewed In: Episode 13

Alternate Titles: None

Original Japanese Release Date: 2009

Episode Length/Run-time: 26 episodes

Summary:

Dan JD is an average boy on the planet of Earthdash.  He looks up at the moon with the planets other inhabitants in awe at the thriving civilization up there.  He gets caught up in Big Foot Basketball, a traditional basketball game made faster paced and played with giant robots and dreams of someday going to the moon.

Review:

It’s really sad when you hear the director is scrapped halfway through and you’re happy because it means it will end!

The anime seemed kind of new and fresh, mecha playing basketball?  But it doesn’t really deliver on any originality. It has no plot, all they really do is run around and play basketball and don’t seem to really get anywhere the whole show.

It’s like one big Nike ad, all the mechs are wearing shoes with the large Nike swoosh and it’s put throughout.  It’s even listed in the beginning during the opening so it’s clear it’s basically one big ad campaign.  It’s hard for anime because it ruins the feel of the show by destroying the world.

While it is something that’s fresh it’s really bad and falls into a lot of bad cliches (giant tits because she’s from the moon?).  But it’s not worth a hentai rating because you don’t even want to see the characters naked.  They’re unlovable at best and jail-bait that’s not worth it.

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major ball of friendship

Major: Ball of Friendship

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Alternate Titles: メジャー 友情の一球

Original Japanese Release Date: December 13th, 2008

Episode Length/Run-time: 104 Minutes

Summary:

Goro Shigeno returns home after his first season of playing baseball in Japan and he reminisces about a baseball tournament that he participated in when he was a child.
Review:

This movie is set late in the Major series.  Goro is reminiscing about how he played in a baseball tournament which was the site of a critical point in Goro’s life, where he pushes himself to the point of sustaining a critical baseball injury.  Just like most of the Major series, this one is filled with sports action that is totally engrossing.  There is just something about how Major presents its action that makes it a great watch.

The movie is fairly simple. It’s simply the course of a baseball game but because the viewer knows that Goro is going to push himself to injury, and because he’s pushing himself, it creates a lot of dramatic tension.  Therefore, for viewers who have been following the series especially, this one is going to be a tense ride.  Even if you haven’t been following the series however, it still ought to be a pretty good movie.

As is usually the case with Major, the music, animation and character art are all quite good.  It was interesting to see the more modern animation applied to the younger character designs in the series.　　People who like the more shounen style of art will probably appreciate the art that there is to be seen in the Major movie and the series in general.

I suppose I marked this movie so far down from the series because the movie doesn’t do a good job of standing on its own.  You really need to see the series to get the full effect of the movie.  It’s a good movie that I enjoyed but from a critical point of view, I need to make note of that.  There just isn’t much to it but the movie does a good job of highlighting what is probably the more trialsome period  of Goro’s life as well as one of the more memorable scenes in the Major universe.

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