One Outs, for the most part, only caught my attention after I was looking for similar titles to the recent sports anime, Diamond no Ace. After taking a look at the synopsis I considered it and put it in plan-to-watch only to start and end it months later but in a rather very quick time.
The story sets off in the island of Okinawa, where the pinch-hitter of the struggling and fictional Lycaons team, Kojima Hiromichi, heads off to form a training camp in hopes of reclaiming the ultimate prize that is the Japanese Baseball Championship. When a minor league pitcher who trains with Kojima gets injured, him and Kojima's trainer are forced to look for a replacement, but this is when they run into a group of people who seem to play a shady game of gambling related to Baseball, named "One Outs". It's apparently a one-on-one between the batter and the pitcher but with money on the line. After completely losing out to a mysterious pitcher named Toua Tokuchi, Kojima arrives at the scene next day to avenge his teammates and find this mysterious pitcher and defeat him. Things don't go as planned for him though as even he is completely beaten by Tokuchi and is forced to conceal himself from the people for a week. After some days, though, Kojima finally returns and seeks a rematch with Tokuchi Toua once again. This time though, he urges Tokuchi that he'd retire from professional Baseball at once if he loses, but then tells Tokuchi that if he wins he'd take an arm off Tokuchi in order to make sure he never gambles on Baseball again. Tokuchi promptly agrees to the deal and faces off with Kojima once again. Circumstances make Tokuchi lose his first ever "One Outs" game and readily offers his arms to Kojima, but he tells that he never said he'd "break" his arm but simply "take it" as he grasps Tokuchi's right arm. Kojima urges Tokuchi, who has exceptional potential in Baseball, to join his team Lycaons and help them to win the Championship. Thus beginning his first step towards professional Baseball. Not long after he meets the Owner of the Lycaons, who refuses to give up any significant amount of salary to Tokuchi for his yet unknown abilities, Tokuchi then proposes an unusual ordeal, he tells that for every out he pitches, he'd get 5,000,000 yen but loses 50,000,000 yen for every run he gives up.
Regarding the artwork of the series as we move on, I have come across a few criticism's that it's pretty poor and not aesthetically pleasing. I, however, believe it's the opposite of that where the art actually stands out on top. I'm not an avid reader of Manga's and haven't read the One Outs manga either, but I can say that the art is top-notch throughout the series. It was indeed the striking poster of Tokuchi Toua that got me interested in it, and it isn't any different in the anime either, full marks for that. And I'm not comparing the two by any means but if you see the artwork of Death Note, a similar and much popular psychologically-hit anime and One Outs, you could say that it's Death Note that lacked a bit in art. This is just my opinion though, anyway.
Moving on to the Opening and Ending themes of One Outs as well as the soundtrack, which are pretty okay in comparison to the whole anime. They both practically just do the standard work of an opening and an ending theme, that's pretty much how I'd put it. The ending theme however was pretty good and made me search for the full version on Youtube and it was pretty nice.
The show is fully centered around our mastermind Tokuchi Toua, and the Owner being the antagonist. In terms of enjoyment, One Outs never disappoints and it kept me in the edge of my seat throughout the entire series. Game after game you are left astounded by the various shrewd and astute tactics by Tokuchi Toua.
It was only long after since I actually came across this anime for the first time that I started watching. And I managed to finish it off in a week but was left astounded as to what a great gem of a show this is. Compared to its various psychological thriller hits, its highly underrated and mostly overlooked just because it's based on the concept of Baseball and not many people are aware of the game. That being said I can guarantee you that you don't need to have a deep knowledge of the sport.
Diamond no Ace is the only other Baseball anime that I've watched so far and before that and I should say that STILL I have not a very complex idea on how Baseball works. Though I have learnt a fair amount of things. If you seek a mind-bending anime with a sharp-witted and easily likeable character with godly skills, One Outs is definitely worth checking out. If it turns out the way as it did for me, you'll love it for sure.
