Major 2nd

Daigo, the son of renowned baseball player Gorou Shigeno, believes he has to live up to his father's name by becoming an all-star player himself. With great dreams, as soon as he reaches fourth-grade, he promptly joins the same little league baseball team his dad played on, the Mifune Dolphins. However, things don't go as planned. After only the first couple of practices, Daigo's lack of talent and inherent baseball sense shows, and his confidence is crushed. Unable to bear the pressure of living up to his father, a baseball prodigy, he quits the team in less than a year.

Two years later, now in sixth-grade, a transfer student joins Daigo's class. This student turns out to be Hikaru, the son of Gorou's lifelong friend and fellow baseball star, Toshiya Satou. One day, Daigo's mother receives a call from the Dolphins requesting players for a game, so she forces Daigo to attend. To Daigo's surprise, he finds Hikaru there. Even more shocking is that despite his father's occupation, Hikaru has never played baseball before!

Unlike Daigo, though, Hikaru immediately picks up the game demonstrating excellent performance. Needless to say, Daigo and Hikaru are polar opposites of each other. But this friction will inevitably thrust both of these inexperienced children into the world their fathers cherish—the world of baseball.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shigeno, Daigo Main

Fujiwara, Natsumi Japanese

Satou, Hikaru Main

Nishiyama, Koutarou Japanese

Honda, Gorou Supporting

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Satou, Toshiya Supporting

Morita, Masakazu Japanese

Shimizu, Kaoru Supporting

Sasamoto, Yuuko Japanese

Sakura, Mutsuko Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Hoshino, Momoko Supporting

Noda, Junko Japanese

Komori, Daisuke Supporting

Miyata, Kouki Japanese

Shigeno, Hideki Supporting

Sakuya, Shunsuke Japanese

Mayumura, Michiru Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Kojima, Hiroaki Producer

Satou, Emi Producer

Watanabe, Ayumu Director

Kameyama, Toshiki Sound Director

Reviews

Jan 17, 2022

UnoneTV

Recommended

I've typed it as a total, but, assuming I've expressed plenty of my internal beliefs and feelings, I'll just paste it to the beginning, so that you'll be able to just read the total and make a fast decision.
This is what I think 2nd lacks, just the harmony with itself, the high IQ baseball it made intended, with highly detailed RPG, like Hajime no Ippo had. Instead, they've nearly dropped detailes overall WHILE pruning character power levels, at the same time making characters show their big feelings, making it hard to use empathy there, because not much happened, can only say "omg just play normally ... already 4Head ", when in the 1st this was the fans work, they yelled from stands and made you feel for players, trying their best. But here, it feels like Major making a step to Dia no Ace, with random no setup events having a chance to make u just roll eyes and say "whatever happens already". Not nesessarily the improvement, ehm.
But if you've watched the first one, you're nearly obligated to watch the 2nd, a mere connection between them is already enjoyable, the bitter side is that it may be mosly this element that will carry.
Honestly, it lost a lot of qualities first anime had, it gained some details thing, but lost so many other elements, it feels like some pocket budget 1st. As I said, it does have that Dia no Ace dreadful scent, which had completely random outcomes every time, for, I guess, "realism", but it backfired as hard as possible, printing that indifference to the outcome feeling I honestly DONT want to feel. I mean, finding flaws mode is fun to use when the info can be used, but when the project is already up to gold, there's nothing to use from those unfounits you've generated gathering smaller infounits with organse of senses... It's an artificial story, don't need it to be random, how can one be exited if it's literally "whatever happens, all Random Number Generator", now generate a nickname for me as well pls coz whatever my name will be, let's all be indifferent. It should teach some meaningful stuff + it should be cool at the same time. And "meaningful stuff" is usually some "improved from training, that's why it happened this way"(did pitch out some really strong batter who every1 thought is gna get the homerun or big hit, etc.), or whatever else plot, but this RPG factor or some interesting plot factors are abscent so much. Sure anime had some good old Bats "no motivation, whatevah, I will kill u guys if I will miss the date with Jenny" lazy molding skill of baseball vibes, but in a new key of just girls bumping that boy puberty muscle mass increase wall, but way too many random moments in between them. Hope we got why random moments are bad already, why reality thing is not good because there are actual MLB matches, can watch those and it will even be more detailed, with every pitch speed and course, can even sit and write down all pitcher/batter habits strengths weaknesses etc if able to see em, but this is not a freggin MLB, this is an artificially made piece of content which should entertain right here right now, with limited time. Real matches last 1-2hrs and its exhausting to wait for anything dramatic to happen, but in anime there should be those moments. That's why I gave only 7 for Enjoyment, honestly ok Art is 9, good new effects and stuff, drawing is whatever to me, I can see shadows and stuff done well enough, Story 7 as well, I mean, Hikaru bumping into the chest is way too dragged by ears, some other moments as well, they an author cannot make something happen with crossing all events logically and just drags it by ears, I personally instantly see it, like, set it up, man, don't just throw it in randomly. Reminds some Sasukeh moments where he just forcefully survives 100500 Deidara explosions zero scratches recieved, like that Tao girl that were smug about not getting dirty and playing halfhearted(which in 1st ssn would've been seen isnta and beat out of, btw), these dragged by ears moments that are almost against all odds in the situation, it's like a negative set up or something, really makes feel dreadful. This feeling like robbed of some dramatic setup, as if ur Niko from GTA IV and Roman is showing u his home for the first time and u realise it was all a lie, all that bragging. I know the anime is still partly done well and sometimes almost at the 1st Major lvl, but at times it drops like a forkball. Pitchers throwing 4 balls left and right without stopping on 3, all the atmosphere on not giving the damn is getting to me, honestly making not give the damn as well, keeping in synch by default. The first ssn could've been more RPGy, but for some reason it wasn't, author didn't show us that everything is trainable, like it was with Goros' left hand pitching after breakin the shoulder, which is a great real life lesson as well, I would've enjoyed some plot like that for the 2nd time EASY, because it's SO REAL, can rehab irl big time, some ppl cure their freggin fatal knee injury in some 4 months when every doctor says that 2year and dont even try faster, I mean they prob use some peptides or w/o hormonal stuff but ye, worth a try when it's a career yeh/na question in the air. Making that shoulder gain power was, after all, the thing that was most likely the essential RPG element for the story, but the Daigo RPG did stop even much before the 2nd ssn(of 2nd Major), he learnt some technique, aight, now throwing a bit better, where's the rest of RPG, why is there no info about how he's building the shoulder up, I mean, why not, Goro did all kinds of stuff like that even with a strong one, and it reflects the reality as well, u can build muscles, in any exercises suitable, for pitching even, EZ, and if he had ABSOLUTELY NO way of building the shoulder enough for monster speed pitching his pops did, Major 2nd could've had a thing about breaking balls, some deeper breaking ball meta, detailed breaking balls strats, that's what the 1st ssn did lack, all Fastball-Fastball-Fastball till the very end almost, when atm some Kershaw uses all kinds of em pitches, some clutch once in a thousand times Euphus, and the trick with a moving fastball + fast slider(Katori thing from the 1st), making best batters swing like a yard away coz they look extremely similar, this is what Major did lack, as for me. That Mayumura skillset, where he in reality had not as insane fastball as Shigeno did(even if a close one, it seems), but made up for it more than enough with insane breaking balls development, where he could pierce em through the strike zone by one pixel and before that make em fly in and away completely outside of the strike zone. 1st ssn had these things with "pitches looking similar and super hard to hit", with Katori "kousoku suraida" feint with pitching into the ball course to feed Goro a fake slider he was training to hit, because they've defined what he's trying to hit by looking at where his eyesight is directed to. Or with Bravo(Cuba) pitching in the World Cup, where he had 3 similar lookin curves, and the biggest curving one pitching out the almighty Kyoshiro. Fox was also doing tricks like that to make up for Sanchezu lack of control coz he's a slow starter. But still those were like rare ones, although I like how they were set up to, it felt so natural that it was unreally cool. In Major 2nd not only setups aren't done sometimes, but also stuff isn't that cool as well. Honestly, everything is pruned, like that shoulder of the main hero. If you prune the starting abilities of the hero then make up for it with deeper RPG stuff, that technique of throwing like Kyoshiro is a good start, now add some mad training with some rubber strings, some athletic ball throwin or whatever! :O
The anime is done in a way that really has that deep RPG intended, yet the author makes the skip of details value even larger than in the 1st Major, where it worked perfectly with the monstrous power characters' irrational kind of vibes, being in the zone not caring about details and smashing, the "flow" essence of irrationality, giving all plots in maximally natural way, at the same time drawing crazy shonen energized scenes. But here in 2nd, when no strength, need precision, right? And this is what makes it really weird, approaching us from the "This is actually The Smart Terrotory, bby" way, with the main protagonist Daigo being a catcher, seemingly moving to that Jeff Keene thing with being efficient as a supercomputer with teamplay and ordering pitches and smashing hard by doing that, yet all details just SINK ezpz, who threw a sinker with details boiz, making random number generator matches with Daigo not droppin a single sweat particle, watching his pitcher throw 3 balls, each worse than the one before, some TWELVE times in a season, while showing him as "attentive to all details and smartplaying it", and ofc it turns to 4 balls each time, every1 is surprised, ikr, how comes. Even in the 1st ssn, that had that hard-boiled irrational madskill flavor, some Komori or Toshiya did insta yell "TIIIME!!" at like Ball 2, let alone 3, and asked pitcher if he ate some tomato with milk, or told him he's danzo, gabella, kapit, and he will just lose all ERA the next pitch, like Keene did, or Goro with "Kawabata, lemme talk with Toshi for a sec I'm sure that he understands the situation" and then straight up flaming him to the ground for being confused as a catcher. But they DID give the damn, even back then, in the irrational monsterpower 1st Major!
When watching 1st, I could relate on so many things, it felt like I've lived through the same even if not being a Major Leaguer. 2nd needs plenty of fixing in the future if there will be one, to make ppl relate to it easier, so far it's been some minor(league) value of that, some niche elements of sympathy. Let's hope Masuda will get it better next time, and, hell ye, all to gym, boiz, rebuild em shoulders :>

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 7, 2020

KayB

Recommended

For reference, I watched the entirety of the original Major series from S1 to S6 in one go, including all OVAs and movies. While I consider myself a fan, I think the original series is far from perfect and suffers from consistent flaws from start to finish.

One of my biggest issues with the previous show was how similar each arc was. This may be a controversial statement, but the original Major kept retreading on the same conflicts, some you even see in other baseball manga before and after its inception. Goro's development, at least to me, peaked in S2, and we've only seen micro-improvements ... to Goro's skill and character since then, with the only unique issue being his yips in S6.

All of this to say is that I was pleasantly surprised to see Major 2nd tread in a completely different path than the original series. Goro from the start was shown to be an incredibly talented individual with his independent goals. Daigo on the other hand is less talented and has to fight the pressure of his legacy. The combination of the two makes his journey as a character more poignant as an athlete than anything I really saw from Goro in my opinion. There's also significantly more highlighting of the side characters in Major 2nd that the original started to mostly forget, especially in later seasons of the show. Finally, Daigo is a catcher, one of the most interesting positions in baseball but one that's constantly overshadowed by most baseball manga in favor of highlighting the pitcher. This new perspective that you don't see in almost any other manga makes this a unique and fascinating read.

This is not to say that Major 2nd is perfect, I think the show in particular has a weird and borderline unhealthy view of child development in how they go about encouraging baseball. While it's not really too bad in the beginning, it gets really bizarre in the final few episodes to the point where it's hard for me to wrap my head around.

That being said, Major 2nd overall brings so much flavor and uniqueness using Daigo as the star of the story that Major never offered. The original Major felt like gourmet french fries. It tastes good, it's flashy, and it's well-made, but ultimately you only appreciate the first fry for so long before you just scarfing piece after piece down and it all blends together. I genuinely believe that Major 2nd is on track to be much more ambitious than that and more than any other season of Major I've seen to this day, I'm incredibly excited to see what comes next.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 29, 2018

Fro_Buntu77

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (7/25 eps)

The original "Major" is one of my favorite animes of all time. Although Im not a baseball fan (I like sports though), it was very wholesome, inspirational and unpredictable.

Major 2nd was unwatchable to me by episode 7. The "Satou" 2nd is very flimsy as far as background and character development go. Very "friendship and baseball" with the only substance being young Shigeno's (2nd) trying to step out of his fathers shadow.

But instead of focusing on that its mostly the mother and sister talking about the boy constantly and manipulating him into playing baseball. I was very annoyed by those two as the first 7 episodes ... (atleast) were mostly them being almost cruel to a boy whos trying to figure out things thatre bigger than baseball.... Instead, all the nagging and manipulation make it very gynocentric although its a boy's sport.

This seems to be geared to a very young audience that will not read too deep into it and just go with the "friendship power" theme. Its like the original Major if all the deeper plot points and thorns were removed.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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