Review of Baby Steps

I loved this show. I am not usually a big sports anime fan because most sports anime is shounen, and the typical shounen treatment is so over the top. I did sit through many episodes of "Prince of Tennis" but I blame a friend who said "it gets better" (it didn't, not really). She shipped various guys, which might explain that. ;) Compared to PoT this is a whole different world, and it's a lot closer to reality. No sports anime can ever be truly realistic because it would be too boring, but Baby Steps tries its best. There are nohyper-talented people who rarely need to practice here, no magic swings and power-ups to make the action pop off the screen, no artificially pumped up rivalries to add drama.

Oh, and lets get this out of the way, because the anime is miscategorized on MAL: there's no romance either. Not as anything worth mentioning. Our hero Eiichiro doesn't even become conscious of having actual feelings for Natsu, the cute tennis player everyone adores; most we get is innuendo from his pal Kageyama who's playing the role of the usual nudge-nudge-wink-wink guy, which goes mostly over Ei-chan's head. This anime is about tennis.

Story: Eiichiro is a regular guy, for whom nothing comes easy, and so he studies hard, and takes meticulous notes because that helps him learn. But it's come to his attention that he doesn't get enough exercise, and since he saw a flyer for a local tennis club offering a free trial, he checks it out. It becomes clear to him right away that he's in real sorry shape physically, a much younger and smaller kid laps him during warmup and he ends up passing out from the exertion. But Natsu, much admired, cheerful tennis player, who once borrowed his notes and promptly spilled food all over them, encourages him to try again, and the offer for a free trial is still good since he never actually even got to hold a racket. And so he works out for a week to not be quite as wimpy and then he tries again. And somehow, he has fun.

I really like the story line. Eiichiro isn't super talented or even athletic, he's just a hardworking guy whose entire life basically consists of studying to be an A-student, who has no real passions. One can easily see him become a salaryman, just another drone, without ever really enjoying himself. Which would be too bad, since he's a really decent guy without a big ego. But tennis changes all that for him. And still, he remains who he was -- things don't come easy, and he keeps taking painstaking notes, analyzing every detail. I can really empathize with him because that's the kind of person I am (less single-mindedly hardworking, but just as analytical). Eiichiro has parents (!!!) who give a damn. His coaches are not abusive but actually teach. Nothing is magical here, but one can't but root for Eiichiro because he really works at it, and his successes never go to his head.

Art: My least favourite thing about this anime. What the heck is it with Eiichiro's hair? It makes him look like a chickenboy, and it remained distracting for all 25 episodes. Also, while I appreciate the effort to not have only beautiful people in this anime, the way that was handled failed IMO; it looked like there were people from two different anime mixed together. I later had a look at the manga, and it's not so bad there because we get more detail, but it's still not entirely successful, not a cohesive art style. The animation is fine, nothing horrible, nothing special.

Sound: Peppy OP, decent ED, BGM a little repetitive but not annoying. Nothing really stands out. The voice talent is competent, and I was happy to hear Sakurai Takahiro (Nabae), Namikawa Daisuke (Takuma) and Toriumi Kousuke (Coach Aoi). I hadn't heard Murata Taishi (Eiichiro) consciously before, but will watch for him now; he had a lot to do here, and it never became boring during the internal monologues.

Character: Eiichiro is extremely well handled, we get to see every bit of his development because we hear much of his internal monologue. On the other hand, everybody else falls a little short, including Natsu, and that's a shame. She's basically treated like just a cheerful prop. We find out more about the people Eiichiro's plays matches against than about her. There are a couple annoying sidekick characters; Eiichiro's friend Kageyama who starts out as the one who teases him about romantic feelings he doesn't even have yet, and totally useless, meek Sasaki who has a crush on Eiichiro, but can barely get herself to say good morning. Every time she got screen time with her squeaky, shrill voice (sorry, Japan, I don't find that kawaii, but irritating), I couldn't wait for her to be gone. The whole anime is a little sexist, because Natsu is a top seeded player and we get to see almost nothing of her, while we waste time on random male side characters who don't matter, and get too much Sasaki. But that's Japan for you.

I still enjoyed every minute of this, watching Eiichiro figure things out, and grow. There's a second season to watch, and a much longer manga to read, yay. If only more sports anime were like this.