REVIEW: Big Windup! 2 (anime TV series)

Big Windup! 2 is the second season of Big Windup!, a baseball anime. Although the first season was licensed by Funimation, it apparently didn’t sell well enough for them to license the second season. Instead, Right Stuf licensed the second season and released it only a couple months ago.

Review:

This second season picks up right where the first one left off - the game between Tosei and Nishiura ended only a few hours prior. Nishiura plays against Sakitama in the first half of the season, and against Bijou in the second half. There are also a few prominent themes and storylines: Bijou’s assistant coach, an ex-Tosei player who wants to win so badly that he encourages a Bijou player to cheat and to injure other players; Abe and his efforts to properly communicate with Mihashi; and Mihashi’s blind obedience to Abe.

I’ve now seen this season twice, and while I definitely enjoyed it, I didn’t think it was as good as the first. A large part of the problem was that I didn’t like Roka, Bijou’s assistant coach, and was mostly uninterested in the storyline dealing with him. A lot of time and effort was put into making Roka this big and menacing figure, and yet nothing ever really came of that. It was clear that he’d used a Bijou player to cheat in the past, but, in terms of what viewers got to see, it was all just talk - Bijou didn’t cheat against Nishiura, and the entire cheating scheme petered out into nothing.

The stuff about life after high school baseball was somewhat interesting, but this didn’t feel like the right time to be showing it. I mean, yes, Kawai (Tosei’s captain) had to do some hard thinking about his future, and there had been vaguely bittersweet mentions, in the first season, of how quickly the three years of high school baseball would go by, but the Nishiura team was the series’ main focus, and they were just getting started.

One thing that Roka did highlight for me was how much I generally loved the adults in this series, because he was the exception to the rule. For the most part, the adults in both the first and second season were wonderful, supportive, and excited to see high school baseball players improving and enjoying themselves. Bijou’s head coach actually enjoyed his job, unlike Roka, and while Momoe wanted Nishiura to win, she also wanted them to grow. For example, she purposely put Hanai in a position that she knew would put pressure on him because it was what he needed to improve as a player, but she also kept an eye on him in case she was pushing him too hard.

Then there were the parents, who clearly loved helping their kids out. I liked that this season finally introduced us to Mihashi and Abe’s dads. Mihashi’s dad was adorable, and Abe’s dad seemed gruff and scary at first but turned out to be extremely perceptive and kind. After meeting Mihashi only once, he immediately figured out a large part of what was going on between Abe and Mihashi and tried to make Abe aware of it, while also taking care not to trample on Abe’s feelings too much.

Now on to the games themselves, which were just as riveting as the ones in the first season.

The outcome of the Sakitama game was fairly easy to predict, since even the team’s captain didn’t expect them to be able to beat Nishiura. Still, it was fun seeing how Nishiura would deal with Sakitama’s incredible cleanup hitter. Also, I enjoyed watching Sakitama’s terrible and inexperienced battery stumble along - Abe and Mihashi’s mental commentary about them amused me.

Bijou’s team switched between multiple pitchers, and only one of them really got a chance to show off his personality a bit. It was kind of nice, seeing the catcher gradually figure out how to properly work with him, but mostly the Bijou game was about Nishiura dealing with something like the Tosei game, only with the tables turned - Bijou using data they’d collected about Nishiura against them. Despite the annoying interruptions for quick peeks at Roka, the Bijou game was nerve-wracking and exciting. It was well worth watching, if only for Mihashi’s epiphany about his reliance on Abe’s signs.

That said, I wish the season had continued for at least one more game past the Bijou match. I needed the series to end on a higher note than it did. I appreciated Mihashi and Tajima’s conversation when they biked home together, and Mihashi and Abe’s conversation at Abe’s house, I really did. I just wanted more.

Despite my dissatisfaction with the Roka storyline and the end of this season, I’d still recommend it to fans of the first season. The games were a lot of fun, Abe's efforts to have proper conversations with Mihashi and to listen to him more patiently were hilarious, and overall it was just nice to see all the Nishiura players again.

Additional Comments:

Whereas Funimation used white subtitles for both foreground and background dialogue, Right Stuf used yellow subtitles for foreground dialogue and white subtitles for background. This made busier scenes a lot easier to follow. On the minus side, I think I noticed slightly more typos in Right Stuf’s subtitling than in Funimation’s, mostly near the end of the season. I can’t comment on the accuracy of either company’s subtitles.

Extras:

A cleaning opening, clean closing, and this season's trailer - just like Funimation, bare bones stuff. Since I'm not much of a real-life baseball fan, I would have loved extras that explained, in greater depth, some of the things that happened in the two games in this season. Also, profiles of a few real-life pitchers and catchers might have been nice.

REVIEW: Big Windup! (anime TV series)

I’ve already reviewed Big Windup! twice, but I figured a third time wouldn’t hurt.

Anyway, I’ve watched this twice in the past month. The first time was intended to be a refresher before watching Big Windup! 2, while the second time was a bit of presidential inauguration self-care.

This first season of Big Windup! introduces viewers to the Nishiura High School baseball team. The team barely has enough members, and they’re all freshmen. Mihashi, in particular, stands out. He says he doesn’t want to be on the team, but it’s obvious he desperately wants to be a pitcher. He pitched all throughout middle school, and his experience on that team was so bad that it emotionally scarred him. He’s now convinced that he’s a terrible pitcher and that no one could possibly want him on a team. However, Abe, the catcher, recognizes his determination and skill and wants him to stay on the team.

The first half of the season shows the whole team training and learning to work together, after which they play against Mihoshi, the team Mihashi would have been on if he hadn’t purposely transferred to another high school. In the second half of the season, Nishiura plays against Tousei, the winner of last year’s National Koshien Tournament.

I rewatched the entire series during my end-of-2016 rewatch and was surprised at how many details I had forgotten: Tajima’s habit of loudly announcing how often he was able to masturbate, much to everyone’s discomfort and horror (oh Tajima, dude, stop); how much of those early episodes featured mental training, such as meditation; and all kinds of details about how the various games went. Although I’d seen the series before, the games against Mihoshi and Tousei still had me at the edge of my seat. I remembered how the one against Mihoshi ended up, but I couldn’t recall if Nishiura had won against Tousei or not.

During my next rewatch, I skipped all of the mental training stuff and went straight to the things in the show that I loved most: Mihashi becoming part of the team, Abe trying to bond with Mihashi, and every moment of the games against Mihoshi and Tousei.

Abe was a bit of a jerk to Mihashi at the beginning of the series - he planned to use Mihashi like a puppet in order to get the results he wanted, and Mihashi was too timid and easily manipulated to resist. Thankfully Coach Momoe put a stop to that pretty quickly, but the damage had already been done: Mihashi had no intention of ever going against Abe, even on the rare occasion when his instincts said he should. I don’t think I noticed how much of a problem this was, or how potentially damaging it could be, when I first saw the series - it was Yuri on Ice that got me to thinking about it. At any rate, this season doesn’t really delve into any of those issues, but I can now say that Big Windup! 2 does. But more on that when I review that DVD set.

While I loved watching the games (the first point scored against Tousei was just as hilarious and exciting the third time around as it was the first), my absolute favorite thing about this series remains the relationships between the various pitchers and catchers. The big one was Abe and Mihashi, of course. In this first season, Abe learned to genuinely care about Mihashi, even though he couldn’t always understand him or properly communicate with him. He respected Mihashi’s dedication to pitching and wanted Mihashi to enjoy playing baseball and being on Nishiura’s team. The next season went even deeper but, again, more on that when I get around to reviewing it.

Kanou (Mihoshi’s pitcher) and Hatake (Mihoshi’s catcher) had their own issues to work out - with more experience, they’d probably have worked really well together, but they weren’t quite there yet. Also, their differing opinions about Mihashi’s pitching put a bit of wedge between them. I loved Tousei’s battery. Kawai (the catcher) was usually pretty steady but not always sure about how to handle Junta (the pitcher - Junta is his given name, so calling him Takase would be more consistent, but “Junta” is how I think of him). Junta tended to be quiet to the point of seeming withdrawn, so Kawai had to guess how he was feeling and how to bolster his mood. It wasn’t until a bit later in the game that he started to relax and really pitch his best.

I like to think of Junta and Kawai’s relationship as a glimpse at what Mihashi and Abe’s relationship might be like in the future. The characters had some similarities, but unlike Mihashi and Abe, Junta and Kawai’s communication efforts went both ways - Kawai would notice that something was off with Junta’s mood and try to help, and vice versa. Abe would do that with Mihashi, but all Mihashi ever did was look for signs that Abe was mad at him or feel stunned excitement when Abe praised him.

Other characters I enjoyed: Tajima and Sakaeguchi. Both of them took special care to watch out for Mihashi, something that became even more obvious in the next season (again, more on that when I review that DVD set). Tajima was the confident and relaxed big brother who cheerfully translated for Mihashi when Mihashi was too stiff and awkward to communicate clearly, and Sakaeguchi watched Mihashi carefully and tried to smooth things over between him and Abe whenever necessary.

All in all, I highly recommend this series, and this season in particular. I sincerely wish that there were English-language editions of the manga that I could buy, or that the anime had a third season.

Currently rewatching: Big Windup!

Yuri on Ice left me with a craving for more sports anime, so I snagged a copy of the newly released (in the U.S., at least) Big Windup! 2. Since I figured it might pick up where Big Windup! left off, I've been rewatching that. I've somehow managed to get through 2/3 of it in only 24 hours, despite having also gone on a "big city" used book shopping trip.

Some things:

• I had forgotten that Tajima likes to loudly talk about his masturbation habits. The dude has no shame.
• I had also forgotten that Abe was kind of a jerk at the beginning of the series. I'm glad that Coach Momoe put a stop to his "use Mihashi like a puppet" mindset, although one thing that Yuri on Ice got me to thinking about was the healthiness of Abe and Mihashi's relationship. Is it okay that, even 17 episodes in, Mihashi is still convinced the only reason he's doing well as a pitcher is because he has Abe giving him signs? And Abe telling Mihashi not to worry, that he'd make sure never to get sick or injured so that he could catch for him the whole three years, had me fretting a little. I don't recall anything happening to Abe in Big Windup, but I wonder if Big Windup 2 will shake things up a bit and force Mihashi to have to work with another catcher, even if only for a little bit.
• Yuri on Ice is a series about men's figure skating, and it still manages to have a larger and more varied female cast than this series. So far we have the mothers, Coach Momoe, the cute team manager whose name I can never remember, and Ruri, Mihashi's cousin. The mothers are all varying degrees of excited and motherly. Ruri only just appeared on the scene. The team manager kind of depresses me - she apparently became the team manager because she used to really love softball, but the series never even shows her getting involved in the team's mental training exercises. By comparison, Mihashi's one friend, who became head of the team's cheering squad, was immediately asked to join the team's meditation practice. Then there's Coach Momoe. She seems awesome, but I have all kinds of questions about her that I doubt the series will ever answer. For example, if she's pouring all her part-time job money into the team, how does she pay her own bills? What inspired her decision to start Nishiura's baseball team? Will we ever see flashbacks to her days playing baseball? 
• I can't remember how any of the games turned out! The game with Tosei is freaking me out. Does Nishiura win? I can't remember! So much tension.
• I still love it when the catchers try to analyze their pitchers' emotional states and mentally debate how to handle them.
• I had thought that Yuri's anxiety and Viktor trying to deal with it was something new to me in anime, but actually it's here in Big Windup too. Mihashi is painfully anxious and prone to self-doubt. Unfortunately, like I noted earlier, his way of dealing with it maybe isn't healthy - Abe becomes his security blanket. Crossing my fingers that there's a sign, later in the series, that he can still function without Abe, the way Yuri showed that he could function without Viktor.