Review of Baby Steps

- This is a joint review of seasons 1 & 2 of Baby Steps. There will be mild spoilers. - Of all the sports anime I’ve seen so far (which is not actually a whole lot), Baby Steps is my first foray into tennis. Overall, I am pleasantly surprised at how good it is. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been watching team sports all this time and tennis is a single player sport, but it does feel like it did something different. First, let me just say that the main character Eiichiro (or Ei-chan) is not your typical sports protagonist. I mean sure, he’s another "complete newbie"-type whogets into a sport for the first time in high school, but unlike many other sports protagonists, he’s also an excellent student. Almost always, a sports protagonist is book dumb or at best average at school. On top of that, he is a meticulous note taker who is incredibly organized. These traits help him when it comes to playing tennis, and in a rather clever way, make it possible for the audience to get educated on the intricacies of tennis game play in a way that feels relatively natural. Watching him analyze his opponents and himself play tennis is easy to follow because of that. Oh, and his notes and handwriting are absolutely beautiful; a real joy to look at (if you care at all about typography and aesthetics like I do). It's really interesting seeing Eiichiro's methodical play style against opponents with wildly different styles and strengths, and in one case, someone who's very similar to him that proves to be his biggest challenge.

All of the rivals and opponents are great characters too in their own right for the amount of screen time they get. Instead of being exaggerated, over-the-top archetypes like they are in most other sports animanga, they feel very down-to-earth and likable. There are no massive jerks or characters who are made intentionally hateable because the author wanted an easy way to get people to root for the protagonist/main team. There are just young adults who are skilled at tennis (and possibly looking to become a professional athlete) but are otherwise pretty normal. Sure, even if some of them are a little aggressive, prickly, or rude, none of them are genuinely bad people. I think that’s a challenge in the sports because it’s not as easy to craft interesting, likable rivals as it is to make douchebags who happen to be skilled at a sport. When all the rivals are likable too, it makes for more compelling matches.

Moving on from the characters, the other good thing is that because tennis is not a team sport and Eiichiro is not part of his school’s team, it also allows for a bit of freedom. Usually, time-wise, a sports animanga moves incredibly slowly because the author (and their fanbase) don’t want their favorite third years to move on before winning. A few might take that chance, but most do not, and those that do (like Diamond no Ace) take a while to get there. That means first years are first years for a long time, and it never gets to a point where playing in college or playing professionally is even considered by them. That’s obviously not the case here and the anime skips through time a lot faster than I’m used to. The pacing of the matches is also spot on. I've seen sports anime where the matches often get way too long and drag the pace to screeching halt, but the matches here never exceed three episodes. That means important matches get as much time as they need without ever feeling too long.

So, the main character’s somewhat unique personality, his rivals, and the actual tennis are praiseworthy, but that doesn’t mean Baby Steps has no flaws. The most noticeable thing is that the character design is pretty mediocre. Either it’s totally generic (all the girls, some of the supporting male characters) or it’s totally gonk (some of the other supporting male characters), and I just wish there was a more consistent style because it’s kind of distracting. In this case, I would’ve prefer that everyone looked more generic because the gonk is just plain ugly. In a sports anime, character designs are fairly important because characters in general are very important, so seeing it fail in this aspect is definitely disappointing. Oh, and Eiichiro’s little dinosaur-like hair spike? Yeah, that looks dumb. He would’ve looked fine enough without it, if a tad plain. To be fair though, the gonk designs happen less and less over time and it becomes more generic looking, which is fine cause it's still an improvement.

The other rather huge criticism I have is Natsuki Takasaki, Eiichiro’s love interest. Perhaps it’s asking a lot for a male dominated sports anime to have good female characters, but since Baby Steps has a romance tag and does at least try to have a slow burn romance subplot, I would expect the main female character to be at least a little well written. Hm... nope. She’s such a generic ~cute girl~ that it’s eye-roll worthy, and OF COURSE she just happens to be most beautiful girl in the grade. It’s way too power fantasy like in a genre and an anime that’s about an underdog. What’s worse is that she literally has no personality outside being the perfect, cute waifu who’s unconditionally supportive of the main character. Sure, she’s a tennis player who plans on going pro, but let’s just say that her entire motivation revolves around a boy. There’s no time spent with her outside of her supporting Eiichiro, not even her tennis playing. You would think that because Natsuki was kind of the one who pulled Eiichiro into tennis in the first place, that would at least discuss tennis...? Well, that doesn’t really happen (again, aside from her providing unconditional support for him).

It is even said again and again that Natsuki’s an ace tennis player and is at the top of the girl’s division, but we barely get to see it aside from her occasionally winning at the tail end of her matches. Does “show, not tell” ring a bell? She’s not a rival, so its not like it’d be revealing too much too early and ruining the tension of future games. There’s really no excuse. Narratively, she’s treated almost like a trophy for the main character. It’s not that the other (non-rival) supporting characters are written a whole lot better, just that, y’know, as the LOVE INTEREST, Natsuki needed way more depth and complexity than she got. It’s not until well into season two that we get even get the slightest glimpse into Natsuki’s character, and even that is pretty bare bones.

This nicely leads to the biggest disappointment of all - the romance. When one half of the pairing is written so one dimensionally, and when the relationship in general is so halfheartedly developed, that will naturally result in a weak romance. The question really is, did Baby Steps even need a romance? The answer is obviously no. Frankly, Natsuki’s so shallowly written that if you remove her entirely, it would baaarely make a difference. You could cut her out, her teeny tiny subplot, the romance, and all of her and Eiichiro’s interactions and lose maybe three episodes worth of meaningful content across both seasons. Then that time could’ve been spent on the more interesting rival characters.

As the love interest, something that would’ve really helped give Natsuki more depth is if she provided some insightful commentary on Eiichiro’s while he's in matches, being a tennis player since childhood, but all she does is say “do your best!” and other vaguely supportive things. If she was NOT a love interest in the first place and was just another supporting character like Eiichiro’s best friend and the megane girl who has a crush on him, then that would've been acceptable. Speaking of those two, they provide better commentary than Natsuki ever does, despite not knowing anything about tennis at all. Hell, even their subtle romance is better developed than Eiichiro and Natsuki's. It's kind of sad when the "pair the spares" ship gets more attention than the main romance. To be fair though, it does get a little better in season two when Eiichiro and Natsuki finally start going out. I can only hope that in future seasons, it gets more proper development. Coming from someone who hates romance in general, it is always weird when I say I want more focus on the romance, but that just means that I hate bad romances even more. Either have it or don't have it - just don't half ass it. The lost potential is a little upsetting... we could've seen Eiichiro and Natsuki advance as a badass young couple getting into professional sports together, but it is exceedingly one-sided. Considering that tennis is a single player sports and there's no need to develop a whole team of 6-8+ guys, I don't see why Natsuki couldn't have gotten more screen time and better writing.

One final rather nitpicky complaint I have is that the anime relies on flashbacks too much. Thankfully, this is tone downed a lot by season two, but still, it's really irritating getting flashbacks to something that happened literally two minutes ago. Also, the first twenty seconds to three minutes of an episode get lost to recapping the very end of the previous episode. It would be a much more efficient use of time to scrap that in future seasons and either skip having a pre-opening scene at all or have a new scene before the OP.

Other than that, I have to say there’s nothing in particular that stands out either way. The voice acting is fine, the music is adequate although it sounds very much like every other sports anime I've seen, and the animation is nothing bad (aside from the creepy CGI puppets of random audience members) but nothing spectacular either. Overall, the production values are about as good as they need to be but do not stand out in any meaningful way, but like a few other things, they do get a little nicer in season two. It’s kind of a shame because aside from great characters/gameplay, the only place a sports anime can really shine is in its production values.

Finally, Baby Steps' highly realistic depiction of tennis is refreshing. There are no flashy superpowers or dumb gimmicks, and the progression of Eiichiro’s skill feels natural and goes at the right pace. The groundedness of the tennis, in my opinion, gives it an edge over a lot of other sports anime. Even if there are unrealistic aspects, it’s disguised well and is not noticeable to people who are not very familiar with sports. Not that it isn’t fun to have super powers or gimmicks, but the realism combined with the superb exposition of the ins-and-outs of tennis adds an extra layer. It makes it easier to compare to and appreciate real life athletes (more for people who don't care for sports irl).

Season two ended on a hook for a very important tournament, and I am really looking forward to the season three. Overall, Baby Steps is a solid 8/10.