Diamond no Ace: Act II

The hallowed ground of Koshien Stadium is the "field of dreams," where the ambitions of high school baseball players come true. After emerging victorious in the autumn tournament last year, Seidou High School baseball's team has finally earned the right to compete there for the first time in seven years. Beyond the spring tournament looms the battle to decide who is the best team in the nation — the Summer Koshien.

With the third-year players due to retire after the summer tournament, the team has to integrate the experience of the seniors and the potential of the newcomers to overcome familiar and new opponents alike and win the coveted national title.

Meanwhile, pitcher Eijun Sawamura is as determined as ever to earn jersey No. 1 and seize the position of "ace" from his persistent rival, Satoru Furuya. As the team prepares for their greatest challenge yet, Sawamura and Furuya carry on their struggle to lead their team to glory and become the star of the game: the true "Ace of the Diamond."

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Miyuki, Kazuya Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Sawamura, Eijun Main

Oosaka, Ryouta Japanese

Furuya, Satoru Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Takigawa, Chris Yuu Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Kominato, Haruichi Supporting

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Kuramochi, Youichi Supporting

Asanuma, Shintaro Japanese

Yuuki, Tetsuya Supporting

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Todoroki, Raichi Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Narumiya, Mei Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Okumura, Koushuu Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Yamauchi, Mirai Producer

Masuhara, Mitsuyuki Director

Watanabe, Kotono Episode Director

Mano, Akira Episode Director

Reviews

Mar 31, 2020

BabyGirl06301

Recommended

How probable is it that Diamond no Ace just gets better and better? Well, it does, and I'm so stoked to be reviewing this anime for the third-- and hopefully not last-- time.

Jumping right into it, let's talk about the art and sound. I've long said this about Diamond no Ace, but the animation in this anime blows me away. The fluidity in every motion is phenomenal. I won't harp too much on it, but the art and the animation are absolutely gorgeous. As for the soundtrack, Diamond no Ace has got to have one of the best soundtracks I've heard in anime, at ... least from my experience. The way it's able to evoke emotion just from a backing track or character theme gets me every time, man. It really does.

Alright, characters. Holy hell, this season was pure joy to watch. This anime definitely doesn't develop its characters lightly; it takes progression and improvement and failure very seriously, and this season was no exception to that rule. Actually, I found that this season in particular took special care in developing the characters, though maybe that's due to the fact that a lot of time in this season was spent in practice games rather than actual games, which allowed for an interesting path on which these characters could develop. Though, we didn't only see amazing personal developments this season from the characters, we got to see interpersonal developments as well. Especially considering the fact that this season added a new cast of characters in the new first years, it was absolutely lovely to watch these fresh relationships grow into the core of what this anime is.

Which brings me to the story. With new characters to develop, barely any official games on the records, and a story dedicated to pure advancement of the characters, was it a worthwhile season to watch? Hell yes it was. It was the best season yet. The story being so focused on team and individual progression as it was allowed me to connect with these characters in a new way. It felt like this season was the perfect setup to a future of Diamond no Ace while also being relentless with progressing the story. I absolutely loved it.

I can't talk about much more beyond this point without spoiling the season, but let me just tell you, watching Sawamura-- in all ways: on his own, with Okumura, with Miyuki, with Kataoka, within the team-- grow this season was the most excited I've been since starting this journey. Thinking about where he was in episode one of Act II to where he stands now makes me so happy, and I'm counting the days until I can watch him pitch again. Personally, I can't recommend Act II highly enough. Until the next one!

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Apr 3, 2020

fangirlfluff

Mixed Feelings

I usually never write reviews but I was too disappointed by this season to resist.I love the characters and the soundtrack, they are as usual, wonderful. However, I was very disappointed by the pacing of the season and how it was put together. Presuming that everyone reading this has already watched the previous seasons, the drop in quality of story pacing (presumably due to the change in studios managing this project) made the entire anime feel rushed and unsatisfying.

The anime used to build on the tension it built in previous episodes, to allow each exciting moment to create an impact on the viewer, but ... in this season all of those moments were replaced with still shots or rough summaries by secondary characters which made each pivotal scene less exciting.

However, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, even though this season ends at the beginning of an important game, at least those scenes seem to be constructed in a more exciting format. I hope next season will be much better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 17, 2021

psychorabbit

Not Recommended

Funny

Easy, if you like a story where the autor loves to destroy the protagonist and each character one and every time like an endless loop, then you'll enjoy this series.

The whole story doesn't have a protagonist, the one who gets treated like a true one is a secondary character, the main character is constantly hated by the author.

I really don't understand how this show has such great score in MAL. The plot is pretty simple and cliche, the story goes in a loop of a constant hope-desilusion and enjoy-destroy it's plot and characters. You can enjoy a chapter and then the next one something totally ... random (more like plot armor rather than random) happens and the plot rewinds.

There's almost none character development, even if the characters becomes "stronger" in each chapter, the author like to ruin that development with a nonsense "situation" to wrap the plot armor and allow the show to have more misery and suffering.

Really, don't waste your time in this, even if you like baseball, go watch another sport anime instead of this garbage.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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