Thank goodness for sports anime, really. The cupboard this season would be awfully bare without them – and that’s allowing for the fact that the one which I had the highest expectations of all for didn’t even make the cut. Gurazeni continues to churn out compelling human stories using the sport of baseball every week – revolving around Bonda of course, but not at all limited to him. No anime that I know of has depicted the colorful types of characters involved with professional baseball in quite the way this one has, and rather than slowing down it only seems to be getting better.
Last week’s preview was a bit of a misdirection, but that’s fine – honestly I’d rather have that than spoiling what’s coming up. With the Japan Series underway minus the Spiders, the offseason has already started – talk about no breaks. Some of the promising youngsters have been sent off to Shikoku for an annual camp – one which Natsunosuke has never been invited to. He’s not quite sure how to take the company line that he established himself so strongly in the Climax Series that he doesn’t need to go – in theory it’s an acknowledgement that he’s fully accepted as a core piece, but Bonda isn’t a confident enough fellow to take it that way without overanalyzing the situation.
Instead, he’s assigned to be part of a 4-pitcher workout group in Tokyo – and in short order, two of those pitchers are released. Natsunosuke and five-year veteran Karekawa-san are the last two standing, and Karekawa is convinced he’s going to get the call soon, too. Eventually that call does come, but it’s not a DFA – it’s a trade to Kobe Oxen (a thinly disguised Orix Buffaloes), in Karekawa’s hometown. Trades are a part of baseball, and it’s certainly better than a release – but for Bonda, saying goodbye to a peer is not an easy thing.
All this builds up to what was teased in the preview, a trip to Yuki-chan’s shokudo in Ebisu. Bonda hasn’t been back in two months (damn, you really are shy, Dude), and he’s anxious to see Yuki – who’s fully engaged in the climactic game of the Japan Series, involving the Tempters. Karekawa, being from Kobe, reveals that he was a Tempters fan – and his encyclopedic knowledge of Hanshin Koushien Stadium backs him up on this. As a lifelong partisan of Wrigley Field, I tend to agree with him here – in some ways the stadium may be a better place after modernization and remodels to remove inconvenient pillars and such, but you really do miss the quirks, the “chaos”. It’s the quirks that made those classic stadiums feel so unique in the first place.
It’s pretty clear Kaarekawa-san is doing this in part to win over Yuki – and it’s kind of creepy the way all the regulars obsess over her. But in the end Karekawa insists he was only doing it to mess with Bonda, who really needs to man up and make a move before it’s too late. Karekawa’s tears outside the restaurant reveal the truth – it’s the Spiders, the team that signed him, that he’s come to truly love. Trades are indeed a part of baseball, but they can be a cruel part. As for Natsunosuke, losing a friend is going to hurt almost as much as leaving hurts Karekawa, but if all this nudges him a few inches forward in the path to finally letting Yuki know how he feels it will all have been worth it.
