As I’ve noted, I consider Hoozuki no Reitetsu to be almost a “bespoke” anime.  It’s not perfect but it’s perfect for me – I totally get what it’s selling and I want to buy it, a wavelength kind of thing.  Well, Major 2nd is almost the same scenario where sports anime are concerned.  For someone who loves the genre, someone who loves baseball, coming-of-age series – Major 2nd covers all the bases.  I think this is a series that can be enjoyed by everyone (as witness the manga’s popularity), but it does have a certain intensive appeal to real aficionados like myself.

The glove is the key metaphor for this story, in so many ways.  In baseball the glove means a lot – it tells the world where you play.  Its condition reveals how well you take care of it, how often you practice.  And for Daigo, it’s the ultimate symbol of frustration.  Not only did he want to throw away the glove his father gave him because he wasn’t good at baseball, his arm was so weak he couldn’t even properly throw it away.  Its very existence is a taunting reminder of his own self-perceived deficiencies.

Yes, being Daigo is hard – and while I appreciate that there’s a wearisome quality to kids who think the world revolves around them feeling sorry for themselves, I feel for him.  And for somebody like Daigo, somebody like Hikaru – a cheery, naturally gifted boy who seems to flow through life effortlessly – is a particular annoyance.  There’s a very revealing moment when Daigo recoils at the idea of a pickup game with the Dolphins’ incumbent battery of Urabe (Ichikawa Taichi) and Andy (Oohata Shintarou) that I think says so much about both Daigo and Hikaru: Daigo worries about the two of them being embarrassed.  “You need to stop worrying about being embarrassed.” Hikaru replies, with the closest we’ve seen to annoyance from him.  “There’s nothing wrong with a little embarrassment.  But it’s definitely wrong to let potential embarrassment get in the way of curiosity.”

That, in a nutshell, is one of the world’s great divides.  Some people (hand raised) live in perpetual concern over embarrassment – it colors every decision.  Some don’t seem to give a flip, even to relish the idea.  Call it introvert/extrovert, whatever you like – this quality in Hikaru is one I’ve often envied when I see it in others, because I know that I’ll never have it myself.  Veterans of the original series will see the irony here – Goro Shigeno was the brash and fearless baseball boy, while Satou Toshiya was the sensitive and cautious (with reason – he carried genuine wounds) quiet one.

While his manipulation of Daigo back onto the field is probably at least partly premeditated, Hikaru’s naïveté about baseball clearly is not.  He thinks he can walk in and become the ace, while Daigo refuses to suggest a preferred position because he’s “done with that idealistic crap” (no boy in sixth grade should ever feel that way).  Hikaru obviously has the arm to be a pitcher, but his control is atrocious – and the coach rightfully tells him to cool his jets on that for a while.  But because pitcher is the center of attention and looks like the “funnest” position, Hikaru is not going to be placated – only to strategically retreat.

Hikaru’s ignorance about baseball is really made obvious when he comes to visit (enlisting Sakura as a guide) Daigo (who if nothing else, at least got his mom to honor her word about his game console).  He badgers Daigo into catching for him, and Daigo immediately shows that’s actually a better baseball coach than either of the Dolphins’ adult coaches.  Hikaru doesn’t even know how to grip a baseball – and naturally enough, as soon as Daigo fixes his grip his control is miraculously improved.  But his cavalier full-strength pitch to the unprotected Daigo shows Hikaru truly doesn’t understand baseball – even with a hard rubber ball, you could literally kill someone that way.  Daigo knows baseball and respects it (and values his own face) – and he immediately punts on this arrangement.

The wheels are truly in motion now.  With Daigo’s help there’s really nothing stopping Hikaru – 6th-graders who can throw 120 kmh don’t exactly grow on trees.  And he’s found a new way to rope Daigo into baseball that against his judgment, even Daigo is intrigued by – catching.  Daigo has a great baseball mind, and catchers are the most important players on little league teams (and in many ways, even adult baseball teams).  As a catcher Daigo can control the game in a way that allows the skills he currently possesses to shine through, even as he develops the ones he’ll need if he wants to move up the ladder.  It’s another generational role-reversal, in a sense – but baseball has a lot of the Hogwarts’ sorting hat to it.  It will tend to find your proper place whether you know what that is or not…