Shohei who?  Time for anime fans to meet the original Japanese two-way superstar.

OP: “Koete Ike” (Go Beyond It) by Kyūso Nekokami

It’s hard for folks who aren’t die-hard fans of sports manga and anime, I think, to appreciate the anticipation that goes along with the premiere of Major 2nd.  Mitsuda Takuya’s manga series is one of the all-time sports classics, of course – a monstrous seller over 70+ volumes in its original incarnation, and almost as strong in the sequel.  But anime is a big part of this equation, too, because it’s been very kind to Major – six seasons, OVAs, theatrical movies.  Adachi Mitsuru’s baseball series are undeniably seminal works, but as a pure sports baseball series Major probably rests atop the heap – the closest thing to a Captain Tsubasa Japan’s other most-popular sport can claim as its own.

To this day, I rank the first season of Major as perhaps my favorite sports anime ever (depending on how you classify Cross Game).  The rest of them were mostly great, but that first one, directed by the superb Kasai Kenichi (who stuck around for a couple more seasons), stands above all of them.  It has pathos, drama, heartbreak and rousing inspiration – all while telling a tremendous personal story that would lay the foundation for five more seasons to come.  When that first-season OP (one of my favorite anime openings ever) started rolling here, well – the heart got pumping pretty good, I don’t mind telling you.

What Major 2nd has in common with the first season of Major is an elite director at the helm – in this case Watanabe Ayumu, who’s so versatile that he can excel in pretty much any genre.  That’s obviously very important – I don’t in any way discount Kasai’s role in making the early episodes of Major as great as they were.  But Mitsuda-sensei has laid the groundwork with a classic baseball manga again.  While still recongnizably Major, Major 2nd is a very different sort of series – and its central figure a very different sort of protagonist.

Major was, at heart, a portrait – of Shigeno (Honda) Goro, for my money one of the greatest heroes of any sports series.  Make no mistake, Goro was (and is) no angel – he’s a man of many faults, and far from perfect (including as a father, if you ask me).  But that just makes him more interesting, and at his core he’s most essentially an incredible competitor – someone maniacally driven to try and be great (one can theorize on why that is, given the events of S1).  Goro is the template for one type of sports anime hero (at the opposite end of the spectrum the perfect example of a great one is Oota Shou from Ginga e Kickoff) – the phenom, the boy blessed with incredible talent and the sheer force of will to dominate a sport.  He could be arrogant, brash, thoughtless – but he’s a force of nature.

It should already be clear from this premiere that Shigeno Daigo (Fujiwara Natsumi) is a very different sort of boy – and protagonist – than his father was.  He, too, counts the days till he can become a fourth-grader and join the Mifune Dolphins.  He, too, loves baseball – he watches recordings of his Dad (who, as he has been for most of Daigo’s life, is playing overseas) incessantly.  But when he finally gets his chance – sporting the glove his father gave him before his latest departure (to play in Taiwan) – Daigo gets a very rude awakening.  Frankly, he’s not very good – especially when he comes to throwing the baseball, which was Goro’s calling card until he blew out both shoulders in turn and had to extend his career purely as a hitter.

Not only is Daigo not the kind of protagonist Goro was – a natural, brimming with confidence – he’s not a relentlessly hard-working grinder like Oota Shou, either.  He’s a kid who’s crushed under the weight of expectations and his own limitations.  And not only does he have to carry the burden of his last name and the connection to his father that it elicits, his older sister Izumi (Noda Junko) is the apple who didn’t fall too far from the tree – she’s great at baseball too (including for the Dolphins, in the age group where boys and girls can still be teammates).

This is a very different sort of sports series than Major, or most any other than I can remember – the story of a kid who hates being mediocre and just wants to be left in peace so he doesn’t have to be humiliated for it.  It wouldn’t be much of a story if he was left to it, of course, and that in part is where Satou Hikaru (Nishimiya Koutarou) comes into the picture.  There’s a lot more to Major 2nd, of course, but this is a good way to get things started – to tie in the new with the familiar, and to highlight the way the world of Major has changed.  The first episode under Watanabe delivered exactly what I was expecting, and Major 2nd should go on to be one of the best shows of the year – though I suspect it’s only going to be hard-core fans of sports anime who feel that way.  It’s phenomenal to have Major back – it’s going to be a great ride.

ED: “Pride” by Yuu Takahashi