Story
Well, the story itself isnt really anything special, Its about Tokuchi Toua who is a genius pitcher. He kinda gets forced to join the lowly ranked Lycaons baseball team. Of course his goal is to make their team start winning their matches. So the basic story is pretty ordinary as you can see, but there are two things that makes the whole thing a lot more interesting. The first is how the matches are played. The Lycaons opponents always have better players overall, or some kind of ace up their sleeve and one team is even cheating. Now its Tokuchis job to destroy these opponents using his brilliant mind. Thats right, One Outs is actually more about strategies and mind games than actuall baseball.
The second twist is that Tokuchi gets 5 000 000 yen for every out he pitches, but loses 50 000 000 yen for every point he gives up. And the Lycaons manager cares more about making money out of Tokuchi than winning the actuall games, so he tries to make his own team lose! So outsmarting the other teams is not enough for Tokuchi, he has to fight on two fronts also preventing the manager from ruining the games with his interference. This puts Tokuchi in all kinds of impossible situations, but he always succeeds in coming up with a counter-strategy, and watching this is a blast! The best part is that all of Tokuchis strategies makes perfect sense after they are explained! You never feel like the creators are cheating and leaving out unexplained or logically invalid bits and pieces.
Art
Not a particularly interesting point. Its good, it does the job, it doesnt bother you.
Sound
Not that this matters or affects the score in anyway, but Ill still say it: The OP was pretty good, I actually watched it which I often dont. But of course the important stuff is the bgm and the voices. And well, I have no complaints, they were both very good. The music fit in great with the intense and exciting atmosphere.
Character
Ok, Tokuchi himself is awesome. He is one of the most badass characters ever. Nothing ever fazes him. Even if the situation is looking extremely bad he still remains cold and calculating, soon to be delivering his new plan that will eliminate all his obstacles. The thing is that the other characters are not even half as interesting. They are either tools for him to use, or obstacles for him to completely destroy, using these tools. And thats pretty much it. Of course it doesnt really matter seeing how the point of the show is watching when Tokuchi kicks ass.
Enjoyment
This show never really gets boring. You know Tokuchi is always going to win, but it doesnt matter, because seeing him in action is just too freakin awesome. Also, finding out HOW he will to get out of all the imossible situations and what kind of strategies he comes up with, is another important part. The only complaint here is that it is a bit slow sometimes, but you get so caught up in it that it doesnt really matter at all.
So, One Outs is a show about mind games and tricks more than baseball, and if you like that kind of stuff you must try this one. And yeah, if you like badass characters owning everyone then thats another reason to watch this. Even if you dont give it a try, because its awesome!
