Dokaben

Dokaben, a great journey. The series is based on one of the longest manga ever that only concluded few years ago, so this anime is only covering the start of the start of the story.

The story follows Tarou Yamada and his team as they fight in the High School baseball championships. There isnt much happening in the story other than the games and the focus is always on the team vs the rivals. That might sound familiar position as its kind of similar that was presented in another series Kyojin no Hoshi, however unlike Kyojin no Hoshi this series is more about the team as ... a whole, even when Yamada is at focus relatively often, compared to Kyojin no Hoshi where Hyuuma and his relationships were what the series essentailly was about.

The whole team as characters are essentially important but 4 of the members of the team are what I would call as the main chatracters inside of the team: Yamada, Satonaka, Tonoma and Iwaki. These four characters are the carrying force of the team and the character of the team. Most of the arcs focus on one of these characters. Other important group of characters are the rivals, this is where the series gets interesting as there are lot of rivals, and these rivals are what make the scale of the series feel larger as the series progresses.

Now this series like I mentioned is only the start of the start of the series, and at the end of the series you see all of these rivals and other characters ready to move forward. You just want to see what step all of these guys take next, most of the characters that are introduced are not forgotten and will be relevant later which I think adds another layer to the scale of the series.

The series managed the make the world and the characters and how they move forward towards pro baseball very exciting and I think that is pretty impressive considering this series covers only the start of the whole journey.

Only downsides in the series were mostly that there wasnt much excitement on the matches and some of the elements presented in the series were essentially supernatural and were kind of weird, However those dont really bother the experience as much as the series doesnt really present itself as serious as series like Kyojin no Hoshi and instead realies lot on comedy.

The comedy in the series I'd say is really good and lot of the comedy is carried by the character Iwaki and his antics which make the series I think very enjoyable.