Let me not bury the lead here – I’m extremely glad not to have to do this as a series review post.  Gurazeni is getting a second season this fall – which surely means it was a planned split cour, since there’s no way a decision to give this series a sequel would have happened for commercial reasons.  I’m not looking this gift horse in the mouth – whatever the reason behind it, more Gurazeni is great news.  Obviously this is a show aimed at the heart of baseball fans, but I think it’s proved its worth as a general interest series as well.

There is a second headline this week, which is that the girl from the ED finally appeared.  Her name is Yuki, she’s from Kansai and she’s played by Osaka native M.A.O. (anime rarely tries to fake that).  She’s a big Tempters fan, which will become important later, but her entry into the narrative comes through her work as a waitress at a local diner Natsunosuke enjoys frequenting after games.  He likes the food, it’s cheap (he likes that too) but most of all he likes Yuki – and who can blame him?  She’s adorable.  Also of note is that three of the patrons at this place are played by comedian Iwai Yuki, former NPB ballplayer Yamamoto Masahiro and director Kitano “Beat” Takeshi (one of the biggest names in Japanese cinema).  I’m pretty sure he’s the one doing the eyecatch.

I like this added element to both the story and to Bonda’s character, and Yuki seems like a perfect match for him in exactly the way he alludes to.  While his richer and more famous teammates marry TV news anchors and models – and if they’re not rich and famous enough, flight attendants – a cute and funny girl who works at a local dive is more his speed.    This is a side to Bonda we haven’t seen before, which expresses itself in multiple ways, but the most interesting to me is that this is the first time we’ve ever seen him show regret over the fact that he’s so anonymous.  Normally that suits him and the life he wants to lead, but here he plainly yearns to have Yuki (or someone at the place) recognize him from the Spiders.

This comes to a head when a trio of salarymen invite Yuki to join them in their company seats at a Spiders game – which she agrees to do if it’s the Tempters.  Naturally enough those seats end up being right next to the Spiders’ bullpen.  At first it seems as if she only has eyes for her Tempters (and yes, when you see the Tigers play the Swallows at Jingu, a ton of Tigers fans show up), but even when Bonda takes the mound and his picture is on the Jumbotron, Yuki doesn’t make the connection.  Bonda is just another faceless customer to her, it seems (though she does recognize him enough not to offer him a menu when he comes into the restaurant).

The sequence where Bonda systematically takes out three Tempters in a row with a collision at first base, a hit-by-pitch, and an argument with the umpire (that Japanese inside corner) is hilarious, especially when it turns Yuki against Bonda (along with the masses of Tempters fans at Jingu).  But Bonda pitches out of trouble – something he’s clearly very good at – and reckons that at the very least, he and Yuki now have something to talk about.  Except that the next time he goes to the restaurant, Yuki still doesn’t recognize him.  Poor Bonda – while he’s obsessed with fortune he’s never cared for fame, but that’s starting to change.

Somehow, that makes Bonda even more likeable.  He’s turned out to be an amazingly appealing protagonist, a true everyman in a job where he’s surrounded by the rich and famous.  For a series about baseball as a job you could hardly have designed a better lead – and credit clearly goes both to mangaka Moritaka Yuuji and seiyuu Ochiai Fukushi (who, as I noted once, looks exactly like Bonda).  Between that and Watanabe Ayumu’s masterful direction, Gurazeni has turned out to be a consistently stellar series, a perfect complement to Major 2nd and another pearl in what’s been among the strongest seasons for sports anime in several years.  It’s great to know we can look forward to more of it, and Natsunosuke Bonda, this fall.