Impression:

We were all waiting for this. Sawamura gets his chance to pitch and the mysterious guy with pink hair finally gets his chance at the plate. Honestly, I felt like I was playing the “spot the main character” game that I see on Tumblr all the time when he was talking. They weren’t going to throw pink hair on some background character in this series. Heck, they only put it on this guy and his brother. Everyone else has normal hair.

I like this guy.

Haruichi is the guy that coached Sawamura from the bench during his single off of an error. The next two first-years struck out due to lack of confidence and skill. Luckily, Haruichi decided to call his own number and come out as a pinch hitter. He tried to mess with the pitcher by giving fake signs, but Sawamura was too much of an idiot to catch on. Haruichi had to make a declaration to bring him home and he did. The guy made a nice hit that straddled the foul line and Sawamura used his flexibility to get around the tag at home. Unfortunately, things did not go well from there. The coach was going to call the game before the actual end, but Sawamura had everyone so fired up that they wanted to continue the game. The first string players showed up and were disappointed with the score. They should be even more disappointed that the first-years took out the first three batters for the second string. Things were going well until Masuko got to the plate. He was on the first-string and he was not going to underestimate Sawamura. He was the only one to figure out the crazy pitch and he got a home run. That should have really demoralized Sawamura, but he got even more excited. The rest of the game will be decided in the next episode.

The first-string looks tough.

Current Opinion of the Show:

I really enjoy this series. You can feel the tension during the game and that is a good thing. That sort of feeling isn’t easily achieved. Heck, I prefer watching this over actual baseball and I live in an area that boasts two very competent professional baseball teams. That may be my love of anime coming out, but I do like most sports more than their anime counterparts. Oh well, it may just be the quality of Diamond no Ace. I should try One Outs eventually. I am pretty excited to see more of the first-string. Miyuki is clearly a great player and the guys that showed up to watch the rest of the game look pretty interesting. They actually have personalities, so you know that they are going to be important. I did have a problem with this game. I know that they had to be fired up, and Sawamura is fairly annoying at times, but the atmosphere that we got from the first-year bench was a little uncomfortable at times. That may have been used to emphasize the state of their morale, but it got to me at times.

Was this scene in the manga?

Honestly, differences between the anime and the manga are going to pop up. I am not sure whether or not they included this little scene when Sawamura rebounded from the home run in the manga, but it may reinforce something that I suspect about the anime. They may try to play the romance card a little more often than the manga is. They don’t have to add a date or anything like that, but more flustered reaction shots are enough. It rarely happens in the manga, but they are definitely hinting at some feelings in that as well. There are other things that I want to see aside from the romance. I would like to see the managers being a little more important. It seems like they are simply used as girls that support the team for five seconds at a time. Also, I always wondered why team managers were girls in anime and manga. Is it to give us more romance? Is it actually a thing in Japan? I would like to know. If anyone knows what’s up with that, then please help me out here.

I am learning how to baseball.