Star pitcher of the Mihoshi Academy middle school baseball team, Ren Mihashi, has just started high school.  He loves baseball, and he wants to continue playing as he heads into high school.  The problem is… he actually sucks.  Having been named starting ace pitcher because his grandfather owns the school, he led his team to a perfect losing record for 3 years.  When he enters Nishiura high school full of guilt and about to give up the game completely, he’s absconded to be the pitcher by Maria Momoe, passionate coach of the school’s fledgling baseball team. After immediately impressing the entire team by bursting into tears on the mound, Mihashi is taken under the wing of Takaya Abe, the team’s standout catcher.  Abe sees the potential to be a perfect pitcher in Mihashi, if only he could do something about his crippling insecurity.  Maybe, if Mihashi can really become an ace, winning the Koshien tournament isn’t such a distant dream after all.
 
 

Highlights
Based on an award-winning manga by Asa Higuchi, Big Windup (“Ookiku Furikabutte” or “Oofuri” for mercifully short) Part 1 contains 2 discs, featuring the first 13 episodes of the 25 episode series.  Disc One covers Mihashi’s beginning as Team Nishiura’s pitcher through their first practice game against Mihashi’s old middle school team. Disc Two explains more about Abe’s baseball history, introducing Haruna, the pitcher Abe caught for in middle school and now hates, and the team’s hardcore training sessions in preparation for their first match in the Saitama prefecture tournament against the previous year’s champions, Tousei high school.
 

Overall
Big Windup is an anime first and foremost about baseball.  In fact, I’m sure if you totaled up all of the time not spent practicing, talking, or thinking about baseball, you probably wouldn’t get much more than half of an episode. I can’t call myself a real baseball nut, but I really found myself pleasantly surprised with it.  The story is a straightforward sports tale about a loser team that gets serious and become underdog champions while learning about themselves and each other that’s been recycled a hundred times, but it doesn’t take on a Mighty Ducks-esque cutesy implausibility and it doesn’t watch like a baseball game.  Second, but of no less importance, are the relationships between the team members, specifically Abe and Mihashi.  I would wager that most normal high school baseball teams don’t engage in quite as much hand-holding, passionate exclamations of faith and devotion, and crying, crying and more crying (Mihashi cries nearly every episode) as they do in the series, but everyone comes across as so earnest that it’s hard not be touched.  

The cast is a large one, as besides the team, there’s the coach, their teacher, manager, various rivals, and eventually a cheer squad.  It gets a little difficult to remember names and faces, especially since the style is more realistic than other anime, despite the occasional (or frequent, in the case of Mihashi) weird chicken face the boys make when they’re shocked.  Characterization for the peripheral players is basically non-existent, but the core group of Abe, Mihashi, power hitter Tajima, and team captain Hanai is engaging enough.  Keeping with the realistic theme, there are no clear villains, as everyone has their own reasons and motivations for playing, and once an opposing team is off the field, they’re just regular guys. 

I enjoyed Big Windup Volume One, and I want to see how Team Nishiura matches up against Tousei, so I will definitely follow up with Volume Two.  The many explanations about various aspects of baseball got a little dry after a while, but it’s certainly educational.  The characters are many, but watching them is fun, and of course it made want to go out and hit a few balls.  I would recommend this series to anyone who loves baseball, and also those whose tastes run toward the more slice-of-life and not so much the fantastic.  You won’t be disappointed.

ComicsOnline gives Big Windup, 3.5 out of 5 runs, (add one if you really like baseball).