Art by Anashimi.

There comes a time in every man aniblogger’s life when he need to sit down and watch…sports anime. The adrenaline, the manliness, the call of the game! And thus, two bloggers have stepped forward to answer the call. mefloraine and TWWK, fighting crime blogging at the speed of light however many episodes they can manage to get through at a time.

And the call comes from…Ookiku Furikabutte.

(Italics – TWWK. Normal – mef)

Preview

I’m kind of excited about watching this series, because I’ve been on a baseball high lately, and I’m a fan of the sport.  I also just completed Cross Game, which became one of my all-time favorites. The first episode of that anime was, to me, the greatest first episode of any anime I’d ever seen, so no show, much less another baseball one, would compare favorably.

I am also excited about watching this series.  For me, however, it’s mostly because I haven’t watched a lot of sports anime.  I watched a large portion of Eyeshield 21, and…I am sure I have seen at least one other sports anime, but nothing comes to mind.  So for me, the chance to watch some sports for a change is nice.

Also the obvious BL pairings.

Not that I am a shipper.

Mmmhmm…

It’s true, I swear! A-anyway…

Art by Saitoropin

Episode One.

Ookiku Furikabutte’s first episode wasn’t too bad.  I liked seeing the strike zone (felt like watching Baseball on Fox), and Abe and the coach seem like they’ll be terrific characters. And besides his anemone hair, Mihashi wasn’t overbearingly annoying (not yet at least).

Thus far, I have also enjoyed Ookiku Furikabutte.  The coach is amusing.  I have not seen such a fun character in a little while.  What I like the most about her is that she’s obviously loud and confident, but when the bald kid challenged her, she became very quiet and proved her skill calmly.  She’s going to be fun to follow, I can tell.

Unlike TWWK though, I found Mihashi is be very irritating.  If he gets more so, I don’t know what I’ll do (probably nothing!), but it wouldn’t take a lot of improvement for him to become more bearable.

I just can’t stand that defeatist attitude in characters.  It’s along the same vein as shoujo protagonists who assume the boys they like can’t like them back.  It’s hard for me to watch without wanting to hit them.  And not only that, but Mihashi is a crybaby, with literal tears.

Well, I was kind of giving him the benefit of the doubt in the first episode, but when he cried again in the second…the annoying factor definitely stared spiking upward.

I didn’t expect anything different out of him in the second episode, and it didn’t deliver anything different to me, either.  Mihashi’s probably going to keep crying right up until the very end, but hopefully by then it’ll turn into something with meaning and impact, and not just his familiar weakness.

Art by Shisei.

Episode Two

With the second episode comes more of a look into Abe’s true character.  From the first episode, I expected him to be an important character in helping Mihashi grow as a pitcher, but now that the coach and Abe have differing opinions on whether Mihashi needs to be purely control-based or if he should work on speed as well…I am beginning to wonder if Abe is going to do anything more than hurt Mihashi and his playing.

Characters that go against coaches don’t tend to be positive influences, and since Abe has begun to hate Mihashi now that he has not gotten his way with the pitching advice, I can’t see him being a good effect on Mihashi at all.  I wonder what sort of warring this will cause within the team.  It already seems as though many of the players don’t have a lot of interest in being kind to Abe.  After all, what has he done besides insult them?

I didn’t see it quite that way. In fact…the way the episode went, it seems to me that Abe is being set up as the second protagonist.  He isn’t the perfect catcher – not yet – as Mihashi isn’t the perfect pitcher. They both must grow. And it seems as if Abe has to get over personal prejudices against pitchers caused by one in particular – hmm…wonder if their team will meet that pitcher’s. :P

He’s definitely the second protagonist. There was never any doubt about that, but it doesn’t change or excuse Abe’s weird behavior towards the coach. Or even Mihashi. I guess I just feel as though Mihashi, as a very weak protagonist, can’t afford to have negative influences around him, and I wonder why the show is throwing them so close to him so early.

I can’t help but think of him once again as a shoujo protagonist. You’re not supposed to toss the personal challenges at them until they’ve started trying to work towards their goals!

Art by korn.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t be too opposed if Abe gave Mihashi a good punch in the gut for me.

How about a hand-hold? (see episode 3)

A handhold would be lovely. (see: shipping)

But I think my favorite part of the episode was when the teacher adviser explained hormones to the boys. The three big hormones active in sports? It was really interesting to see anime explain the science behind something like this, because there is so much that goes into playing a sport, and you don’t tend to see that detailed very often. In any medium. In fact, I think many sports players don’t know anything about the science of sports, so it makes seeing it in this anime even more fun.

I gotta say…I kinda think that was just Asian man talk.  In my experience, older Asian men start talking about things as if they know all (even when they know nothing) and just expect others to fall in line because they’re older.  Buuuuut…I still liked the talk.  It was my favorite part, too.  I especially liked hearing about dopamine – I gave a speech on that back in high school!

Asian man talk or not, at least it’s educating the masses!

Art by Phil.

The other part of the episode that really stood out to me was the team itself – they were so…well, young. They acted young, if you know what I mean. What I’ve noticed in many anime is that characters often act much older than they are (this, I guess, is a criticism of Horo Musuko). Of course, characters will do silly little things to show their age, but, when one thinks about it, the juvenile actions that juvenile characters commit are often similar to those done by adult male characters who are immature. Their thoughts, actions in critical moments, and general behavior are often much older than they should be.

But this episode showed 15-year-olds (?) as they should be. They talked irresponsibly; they were joyful; they had a pillowfight; and…they slept on top of one another (ha!). Probably most surprising to me was that the most mature of the group, Abe, showed his immaturity as well by not respecting his elder and then practically melting when she held his hand. The serious-type-male is usually too cool, right?

They also had a few lines about both masturbation and hiding the fact that they were talking about masturbation from the coach, haha.

THAT reminded me of trying to tell a group of classmate the difference between sex (the act) and sex (gender) back in 7th grade.  My face shot blood red when my teacher made it known she was standing behind me the whole time. -_-’

Ha! That’s the sort of thing people would ask me to tease me, I think. It was better not to bother explaining.

Back on topic, I think that it’s true, the serious-type-male is usually cool…but I have come to expect some sort of melting or less than strong behavior from them, especially when they’re this young.

You see the same thing in anime that focuses on older men too. (Which is often just…older anime.) The girl will kiss them on the cheek, they’ll grin, they’ll blush, and everything will continue on its merry way.

Art by Maya.

Episode Three

Episode three brings on a lot of complaining and then the start of the big game against Mihashi’s old school. How such an important game is happening so early, I do not know, but I guess it’s interesting.

Well, there are only so many episodes, after all!  And games take multiple episodes, so they need to count!  Anyway, this episode had more of…Mihashi crying.  It’s getting to be a bit much.

Yeah, but I guess I would have expected a little more training camp before the game actually began. We have yet to really be introduced to half of the characters, so far!

You’re right…not enough training camp.  That’s the fun stuff!

Anyway, the episode certainly makes baseball seem fun.  After recently watching Cross Game, I was ready to play in an inter-agency softball game.  Unfortunately, the other team couldn’t field enough players, and the game was canceled.  Eh well, I guess I’ll just be a couch potato and live through the guys and gals of Ookiku Furikabutte for now.  Nothing has particularly set it apart for me yet, but the characters are (mostly) likeable, and I am looking forward to seeing how the game plays out.

I guess I feel the same way at this point. There’s nothing to make me feel like I shouldn’t be watching this, so…why not keep watching it? I wonder if it’ll start introducing/fleshing out more characters soon. I hope so.

(But even if it doesn’t, I’m still stuck answering the call of the game now that I have made a post, so I guess it doesn’t matter.)

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Anashimi - Saitoropin - Shisei

korn - Maya - Phil