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| Just finished the anime and the outcome it's just bad for something that's finishing here. Would be a good spot to finish for a new season but since it's over i rate it a Dislike and 8/10 enjoyment |
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| what a great sports anime. i'm a bit biased with the score because i absolutely love sports genre and i think Baby Steps pulled it off quite nicely, it had a lot of refreshing aspects this series has so much potential to be several seasons, we still haven't even gotten to Eichirou's pro career yet. or the All Japan Junior tournament, for that matter. there's just so much they can add on without getting old but what i want to see the most is Aoi coach's past. i'm really starting to like his character more and more, and i love characters that are 20-30 years old. i think it would be a nice addition to explore his character a little more. i also want to see Eichirou's parents watch at least one of his intense matches and be really impressed with how far their son has come in a short time i think i enjoyed the first season just a little bit more because the matches weren't so drawn out so it felt like there was more happening. i'm still giving 8/10 for both, since the change in second season wasn't too drastic. it almost felt like it was one season that was 50 episodes long instead of 2 separate seasons. |
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| The two stand out pieces of advice I thought this episode held were as follows: "If changing nothing means I'll lose, I'll just have to do it! Make the vision of my victory a reality here and now!". This is such a straightforward and meaningful line. It doesn't matter if you have to take more risks, make more mistakes, go out of your comfort zone, if you are going to lose if you don't, you don't even need to think about it. Not for a second. All it means is things ought to be changed here and now. When I feel hesitant in the future, I'll try and recall this line. The other being Maruo's attempt to reverse the pressure of Nabae's in the last point of the game. It's something I've never thought of but it's genius. The opponent will want to close it out so bad, they'll be thinking about ending the game as soon as possible. You can go bold and attack them head on to overwhelm them and catch them off guard in times such as that. Even if Maruo's attempt ended up losing him the game, it's something I'll hold near to my heart. Maruo's attempts to not think about the zone and attack as strong and unpredictable as possible is what allowed him to get so close to victory. We could see how good it was for him mentally when it did a call back to him not returning an ace and telling himself "that happens sometimes, nothing to do about it", something he did when he was in the zone earlier. By watching Nabae and going against the data he had on Maruo, similar to how Alex did was great to see. This level of play stopped Nabae from controlling his spins and flats and got him so much leverage! But despite all these peak plays from Maruo he loses... to the same person he lost to at the end of season 1, in the same manner by hitting an out. This is what I mean when I speak about Baby Steps unpredictability. The protagonist has lost his final match of the season twice now! In the same manner. That's not something I expected to happen in a million years. Maruo may be good for a beginner to a degree some people don't want to accept, but to say it's unrealistic would be an insult to the anime. This is a tale of a prodigy who works himself as hard as possible to make it in the tennis world. Prodigies exist and to be frank, he's not even as good as Ike was in his come up! He's good, but not unbelievable or unrealistic in anyway and that's what is so amazing about him. Looks like the close encounter with Maruo put Nabae into a new thought process(as every close match or victory of Maruo's does). He was thinking about the future and decided to try and beat the king of offense Araya in a power match. This stare shows just how much respect Maruo's gathered from the legends themselves. _______________ To get to my review, I wont repeat what I said in my last since it all still pertains. However, my main and only significant problem with season 1 was the scope of the show. It focused too much on Maruo and his specific struggles of learning rather than the other characters or problems he doesn't necessarily entail. This season opened this up with far more development for Maruo and Natsu, backstories of the players as well as their perspective during matches(Ide, Takagi, Nabae, Miyagawa, Araya for some examples), we got more competitive problems in perspective like Miyagawa's slump, Aki's problem of playing not for fun but because it's all she's done, Ryou's acceptance of casual tennis- dropping from the pro life to focus on it for fun in university showing more paths these players can go down. It viewed all of these things and they were things I wished season 1 touched on far more, so it did this better. Another improvement that is expected is that the matches themselves were better and more in depth since it didn't, for the most part, focus purely on Maruo learning. He's already learned the basics now. It's about Maruo utilizing what he knows! This made the sets longer and more in depth. It's why I say season 1 was about learning the basics from the ground up, and season 2 was about taking steps to become a pro with that foundation already instilled. I however do wish we got more practice and learning sequences. Instead of showing us, we learned a few times that Aoi taught him something off screen. This isn't the worst as we saw Maruo training in America, we saw his muscle and serve training, we even saw him playing with the best of the best in practice matches. We did get to see why he had substantial growth in a satisfying way, I just wish we saw the more quirky things he learned, such as the in between legs return, on screen. It would give them much more impact and not feel so asspully for a lack of a better word. There was few, but some moments that broke the rules like that and it gave the anime an element of "cause hes the main character he can win". It's not a big issue but I think it would have been better without that off screen stuff. One of the best things this season was the Maruo and Natsu relationship growth! It focused on Natsu more which was one of my wishes for season 1, and it had some adorable and hilarious scenes involved. Not only is it good for funny scenes like Maruo fighting with his reason and instinct, or adorable ones such as the confession- but it's a sign, a stepping stone that Maruo understands himself more than ever! Tennis has allowed him to find out what he 'wants to do', something he struggled to do at the start of the series! He didn't know what he wanted(wouldn't even accept he liked Natsu), nor did he know what having fun even was! We've now not only seen the good effects of Maruo's training on his game mentally and physically, but also how it's impacted how he understands himself and makes him much happier. That's a fantastic relationship if you ask me, even if Natsu and Maruo aren't the most in depth characters themselves! The show did slow down from season 1 with less time skips and a slower pacing understandably so. Since every single set was insightful to me on a competitive level teaching me things I didn't know, or reaffirming stuff I knew, I didn't have a problem with the pacing at all. I do understand why it's a problem to some though. If they don't have an interest in that side then the matches did take longer than one may want, and even if they do enjoy that stuff some games still went on exceptionally long. I had come to the conclusion that although Baby Steps season 1 was nearly perfect it didn't do enough to be over an 8/10. This season accomplishes exactly what I wanted, as I've said, by broadening its scope. The trouble here is that it doesn't do it as much as I'd want. It touched on a lot of ideas but it didn't go any further with them. For that I'm in the same predicament again. I certainly think season 2 is better than season 1 and expands on it, but by enough to make season 2 a 9/10? I'm not sure. For now I'll give it a 9/10 but on further reflection it may drop down a score. I'm going to continue with the manga tomorrow most likely. I can't wait to see Maruo play against Takuma, Ike, and Nabae again. This time he may come back strong enough to make more than a dent. |
| Surprised Araya won the final, I guess that does prove how much of an influence Maruo's growth is having on Nabae. Overall, a really good sports show. It had a lot of passion and energy going for it and it was a lot of fun to watch. I do think that Maruo tends to overthink things a little bit and that when they try to showcase that within a match it tends to reduce the intensity of the game a little but it's still fine. I do however think that the matches themselves could definitely have stronger presentation. We don't really get to see a lot of continuous rallies with actual ball movement but still, it's a great show. It definitely is a shame that the show ended where it did, I really wanted to see the All Japan Junior tournament and I do hope we get a season 3 to show it. 8/10 |
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| It was an ok anime. Not enough harem and fanservice. Time for Mario to quit tennis. Tylerr said: Good point therehe doesn't win unless he needs to do it to keep playing tennis. |
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| 5.5/10 for this series overall. My previous ratings haven't changed, unfortunately. While the spirit and drive are there along with the steady progression and decent character work. it just didn't capture me personally at any level whatsoever. It really did come down to how standard level the animation was, although the OST was a fairly nice selection. I understand the whole gig with the "realism" part of things, but it was still so underwhelming and gratingly predictable in delivery and presentation, though not entirely bad and not without its genuinely good moments. Natsu is probably the best character out of the show unironically, though more so on perhaps the underlooked notion that she was able to pick up on what Naruo tries to say or express, something that most female characters don't do. Not saying she's one of the best female anime characters out there, that's too big a scope, ofc. If only a studio like IG, TMS, or even MAPPA picked this up instead of Pierrot, the presentation would've felt and looked so much better. |
RyuseishunNov 28, 2020 7:08 PM
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| Good ending to the match between Nabae and Maruo, and a really good match overall although I preferred the Miyagawa and Ide matches personally this season for the entertainment/spectacle of those and how they turned out to be. Maruo brought it really close but Nabae was just too good for him this time. Maruo still should be proud of his performance; he made the top 4 of the Kanto qualifiers as an unseeded player while beating 2 of the top 5 seeds in the process, and having a really close 3 set game with the first seed while only playing tennis for a couple years. Pretty phenomenal effort from him overall, but he still has rooms to improve to not just compete, but actually defeat Nabae and Araya. They're both evolving too along with Maruo. Also, congratulations to Natsu as well for winning the Kanto Junior tournament for the females demographic. She was already such a talented player but ever since going out with Maruo, she really did get that mental boost to succeed even more to confidently win against everyone else. The power of love worked for her at least lol. In terms of an ending, I will say for how fantastic the writing was this season, it felt like a weak ending. Can't blame the writers since the manga goes way beyond this and there wasn't a great way to end the anime without a 3rd season to follow through, which sadly hasn't happened in many years now and I can't see it happening soon either. Despite the lack of a 3rd season and a real satisfying ending to tie the bow on this season, I have to say that this was an exceptional season nonetheless. A definite improvement on the first season which I loved, and took a huge step in its overall writing and characterization, especially on the development side of Maruo as well as the romantic side of his relationship with Natsu. Great games, great moments and great memories were provided by this show. Visually still not great, and the CG crowds stuck out a lot during games, but the meat of the show was still fantastic to watch and oozed so much heart and passion throughout the entire time. After finishing this season, I'm in a good mood so I feel like giving it a 10/10 on MAL. Despite minor complaints, I had a blast watching this season and Maruo is just such a great main character, one of the best written and developed sports protagonists I've seen in anime easily. One of the best sports anime of all time too for me. Rewatch increased my overall opinion of Baby Steps' anime from a top 50 anime to a top 20. |
| ahhh damn, i was low-key hoping Maruo would win but it is what it isss was defo a good match though, can't wait to see what's next in store! overall, good season, highlight was defo the match w Ike, loved that one! |
If you don't like me, acquire some taste |
| Same complains as the first season for me. Very average anime overall with a nice MC. Giving it 6/10 like the 1st season. I expected more from an anime with 8+ score. |
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| I WANT BABY STEPS TO RECEIVE A THIRD SEASON SO BAD!!! 8/10 - Same score as S1. Such a wonderful spokon. |
| Mauro lost but that's all g. 8/10, felt the same atmosphere as the first season with just greater animation quality. |
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| idk why but watching this on 2022 seems awfully boring. |
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animejas said: Good ending to the match between Nabae and Maruo, and a really good match overall although I preferred the Miyagawa and Ide matches personally this season for the entertainment/spectacle of those and how they turned out to be. Maruo brought it really close but Nabae was just too good for him this time. Maruo still should be proud of his performance; he made the top 4 of the Kanto qualifiers as an unseeded player while beating 2 of the top 5 seeds in the process, and having a really close 3 set game with the first seed while only playing tennis for a couple years. Pretty phenomenal effort from him overall, but he still has rooms to improve to not just compete, but actually defeat Nabae and Araya. They're both evolving too along with Maruo. Also, congratulations to Natsu as well for winning the Kanto Junior tournament for the females demographic. She was already such a talented player but ever since going out with Maruo, she really did get that mental boost to succeed even more to confidently win against everyone else. The power of love worked for her at least lol. In terms of an ending, I will say for how fantastic the writing was this season, it felt like a weak ending. Can't blame the writers since the manga goes way beyond this and there wasn't a great way to end the anime without a 3rd season to follow through, which sadly hasn't happened in many years now and I can't see it happening soon either. Despite the lack of a 3rd season and a real satisfying ending to tie the bow on this season, I have to say that this was an exceptional season nonetheless. A definite improvement on the first season which I loved, and took a huge step in its overall writing and characterization, especially on the development side of Maruo as well as the romantic side of his relationship with Natsu. Great games, great moments and great memories were provided by this show. Visually still not great, and the CG crowds stuck out a lot during games, but the meat of the show was still fantastic to watch and oozed so much heart and passion throughout the entire time. After finishing this season, I'm in a good mood so I feel like giving it a 10/10 on MAL. Despite minor complaints, I had a blast watching this season and Maruo is just such a great main character, one of the best written and developed sports protagonists I've seen in anime easily. One of the best sports anime of all time too for me. Rewatch increased my overall opinion of Baby Steps' anime from a top 50 anime to a top 20. Rewatched it once again a few years later and opinion still stands, did enjoy it somewhat a bit more than the rewatch a few years back so more comfortable with the high rating I would say. Maruo and Takasaki still rule, still wish there was a season 3 to adapt the All-Japan Junior but I know it's never happening so I can just live with that. |
| It has the same pros and cons as the last season, a bit hilarious that he can compete with top 500 ranked players after only 2.5 years of playing tennis lol, kind of clashes with the realism of the sport shown and the meticulous analytical side of things, to the point where it is a little too nonsensical for me, even as a sports shounen. A bit too much introspection and inner monologue during the matches at times, I wish he would calm down the step by step, play by play analysis for every point he plays lol. Feeding the viewer with so much information, nonstop. The actual visual tennis on the court was trash once again though, and it seems that the author doesn't know what a forced error is either, don't remember seeing even one of them. I say all this as an avid tennis fan and player for the past 20 years though, so I do probably view this in a different light than others. Still, a solid 7/10 show. |
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