Ballpark de Tsukamaete! – 01
For the record, WRC+ is “weighted runs created plus” ((((wRAA per PA + league runs per PA) + (league runs per PA – ballpark factor x league runs per PA) / league wRC per plate appearance, not including pitchers)) x 100. It’s considered one of the most accurate advanced stats for measuring a hitter’s true effectiveness. The more you know.
It’s kind of odd that the second episode of Ballpark de Tsukaamaete featured no interaction at all between Ruriko and Koutarou. Or surprising at least – that seems as if it would be the first among equals were the plot threads were concerned. But not even a sniff this time. The episode was still pretty solid, on the whole. We got a baseball wife, whose husband is an aging (35) outfielder. She’s sensitive the fans ragging on him, which is understandable. But she moved to the cheap seats from the VIP section because she didn’t like facing the other player families when he didn’t produce.
After that, an amusing bit about Ruriko’s cluelessness with tech and the problem of guys hitting on the beer girls (which, you know, is hardly surprising given the way they’re ordered to act). The whole “triple-three” thing didn’t really make sense to me – why are three guys “triple three”? In any event Ruriko winds up getting their help to set up her Instagram, the de facto way to avoid giving out any personal info. Finally, the saga of a college student named Yamada who dreamed of being a beer girl and wound up working at the concession stand. And who gets a raise and promotion because she can’t help but be a model employee.
I am quite enjoying this show, and as I said last week it’s really the only thing resembling a sports series I might watch this season. But – while it’s still tentative – it’s starting to look like it could be a pretty busy season. As such anything on the fringe is going to have a harder time making the cut for coverage. We’ll see.
Kijin Gentoushou (Sword of the Demon Hunter) – 02
I wasn’t too impressed by that second (or third, depending on how you count the premiere) episode of Kijin Gentoushou. For a novel adaptation the writing comes off surprisingly simplistic and clunky. And Natsu was seriously annoying, like fast-forward button levels of annoying. Not that the premiere was all that, either.
After last week I was expecting the story to just pick up in the present day, but we only jumped ahead a few years, to 1850. Basically Jinya winds up going back to his father’s residence, where the daughter he’s adopted is being stalked by a demon saying “Give me back my daughter!”. Jinya’s explanation for how it came into existence – and how demons do, generally – was interesting. But the actual events were kind of a snooze. I don’t see a whole lot to suggest this series has legs, to be honest – nothing about the first three-ish eps really stands out. I’ll watch one more episode but in a season with so many candidates for coverage, this show seems like a long-shot.
