Inu230

“Hello brand new days.”

Goro is a five year old with a baseball player for a father. He spends his days enthralled with the sport, cheering his father from the stands, making friends by spreading the love for the game, and training to follow his father into the big leagues.

“Welcome hard days.”

A tragedy early in the anime is downplayed and the pain is pushed aside. Viewed from the mind of a young child this can be a sensitive subject and the anime is supposed to be about a sport, not the loss of life, so in a way it may be the right course. Yet the inattention to the impact of losing a parent and a spouse and the almost immediate precuring of another {spoiler}-figure may be hard to watch for some viewers. There is no mention of how this new person may or may not simply be a replacement or any solid proof that this person would make a good match for the widow. They could be a person of significance to Goro as a parent-figure without marrying the widow.

Another tragedy strikes soon after and rather than showing the day to day pain of this viewers get a time skip. Goro is now a fourth grader looking to join Little League.

After even more time has passed the pain of Goro’s past hits full force but it isn’t long before he overcomes his sadness and moves forward.

The presence of an overbearing parent bent on fulfilling their unattainable dream through abusing their child into thinking they want something they don’t brings the entertainment value of this anime further down. The high relevance for helicopter parenting when it comes to competition - especially sports - is something pretty much everyone can connect and hopefully disagree with. Excessive strain is never a positive. When it comes from a parent a child just wants to please but never seems able to it is so much worse. The expectations simply cannot be met or exceeded and the child-parent relationship is one that makes viewers gringe. If you’re a viewer who’s had first hand experience with this it’ll likely bring up memories you’d rather you didn’t have.

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With that being said in regards to a story about baseball it had some value and there was some entertainment. From lame puns delivered by comic relief characters to physical comedy, and team building from rocky relationships.

There are battle matches for procuring a practice field, ones for testing each teams abilities, and games to move up in the ranks. In between those are several practices and training off the field (playing catch, going to the batting cages, studying other players, and even a trip overseas to watch the pros).

The looming threat of physical injuries from sprains to breaks to concussions and death are all present and dealt with semi-realistically.

The difficulties with being physically frail and playing a sport are also a running element though it’s treatment is more believable.

Viewers less than versed in baseball terms can learn quite a few from watching this as more than one character acts as the newb. As they’re instructed the viewer also learns.

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Goro takes center stage as the pitcher and is the powerhouse of the team  he has to learn to rely on others to make his dream come true and he struggles with being mocked for his size/age for the first part of the anime. Like a number of other animes and main characters what Goro most needs to learn is how to play well with others, he can’t always be the spotlight.

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If you’re looking for a semi-realistic take on Japanese baseball (with some American influence), time skips that may upset you, some English with occasional Japanese subtitles ;} and a main character who may just be a magnet for tragedy then give this a watch.