One Outs

Toua Tokuchi is a prodigy when it comes to both baseball and gambling. Pitching nothing but mediocre fastballs, he has made a name for himself by attaining 499 consecutive victories in the game of One Outs: a one-on-one showdown between a pitcher and a batter. Despite his remarkable abilities, however, Tokuchi sees the sport as nothing more than a way to make some quick money.

When Hiromichi Kojima, a legendary hitter for the struggling Saikyou Saitama Lycaons, witnesses Tokuchi's skills firsthand, he realizes that the man might be exactly what the team needs to get out of their slump. Determined to recruit Tokuchi no matter what, Kojima places his own career on the line and defeats Tokuchi at his own specialty—One Outs.

Forced to become a Lycaon, Tokuchi soon finds himself at odds with the team's owner, Tsuneo Saikawa. After Saikawa refuses to give him a reasonable salary, Tokuchi proposes a special contract: pitching an out will earn him five million yen, but giving up a run will cost him fifty million. With every game having the potential to either make or break him, Tokuchi must outwit all who stand in his way.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tokuchi, Toua Main

Hagiwara, Masato Japanese

Ideguchi, Satoshi Main

Yamaguchi, Kappei Japanese

Kojima, Hiromichi Main

Isobe, Tsutomu Japanese

Takami, Itsuki Supporting

Matsukaze, Masaya Japanese

Big Mama Supporting

Fujita, Toshiko Japanese

Johnson, Dennis Supporting

Kusunoki, Taiten Japanese

Kawanaka, Junichi Supporting

Terashima, Takuma Japanese

Saikawa, Tsuneo Supporting

Utsumi, Kenji Japanese

Oikawa, Mitsuo Supporting

Furukawa, Toshio Japanese

Nishimura, Kyousuke Supporting

Tokumoto, Yukitoshi Japanese

Tamura, Manabu Producer

Nakatani, Toshio Producer

Satou, Yuuzou Director

Yajima, Tetsuo Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Jan 24, 2010

PureLionHeart

Recommended

“Nobody wins, but I!”, the subtitle of the series, couldn’t be more accurate.

One Outs is the story of the extremist gambler Toua Tokuchi, his battle to completely crush his opponents in the Japanese Pacific Baseball League and, perhaps less importantly to the pitcher, earn a beefy salary while doing so. While advantageous, and likely to increase one's enjoyment of the series, a deep knowledge of the sport of Baseball is not required. Make no mistake; the series is first and foremost about the character, rather than the vehicle used to display his feats.

The story begins in the island of Okinawa, with the star player ... of the Lycaons, Kojima Hiromichi, training for the upcoming season in the hopes of leading the dismal team to the championships. It is here the title game is revealed to be a betting competition between batter and pitcher, with both sides attempting to overwhelm and suppress the other respectively. Tokuchi is revealed to be the undisputed king of the game, and through multiple matches with Lycaons members and Kojima himself, Tokuchi loses his first contest yet and agrees to join the Lycaons at the behest of Kojima, who believes he can lead the team to victory.

It is here that the primary antagonist is revealed, and the driving gamble of the series is set. The Lycaons team owner, Saikawa, is only concerned with money and the return he can get on stadium seating compared to his losses from expenses such as the players salary. As an all-too-intriguing prospect to Tokuchi and Saikawa, the One Outs contract is formed, granting Tokuchi 5,000,000 yen for every out he acquires as pitcher, but a deduction of 50,000,000 yen for every run he gives up. Thus the stage is set for a battle between the two, whilst Tokuchi also has to deal with the other teams in the league and the various methods he must dispel to win the game with a profit. A fun and smart little addition to the series is the revealed sum of Tokuchi’s current salary, usually given after every few games, to give the viewer an idea of just how much the strategist is escaping with.

Toua Tokuchi (And his very black & white view of winning & losing) is very much the star here, with even the over-lording antagonist being delegated to a role of being completely outwitted and shocked at each loss. In this sense, the series is very much like another oft-compared Madhouse anime, Akagi (In fact, both characters share the same voice actor, Masato Hagiwara). The spotlight is always on the overly-confident, cold-blooded genius, and you seldom if ever really feel like he’s going to lose, no matter what the predicament. If this isn’t your type of thing, One Outs might not be right for you, and another Madhouse gambling series, Kaiji, is likely more up your alley. Secondary characters such as Kojima and the catcher, Satoshi Ideguchi, essentially act as reasons for Tokuchi to explain his plans, though they occasional prove useful on their own, and the owner is always most concerned with ways to recoup his losses on the games with Tokuchi.

The rival teams all have various methods for victory, from star players to expert strategy to outright cheating, and watching these plans be revealed, falter, and be destroyed in kind by Tokuchi’s insight never gets tiring. The extents of the wild gambler’s methods are seen to truly reach their peak during the team’s third match with most powerful squad in the league, the Mariners. As if controlling puppets on a string, he turns the game into a farce just barely within the rules, with both teams striving for errors and various other foul plays in a race against time. Another example has him practicing the principles of “an eye for an eye”, responding to an intentional pitch thrown to injure him with throwing the bat at the pitcher during his swing. As all the teams have multi-layered paths to their own victory, the three-game series’ are never over too quickly, as both sides continually adjust in an attempt to corner the other. Many of the “tricks” aren’t easy to discern by oneself, and will paste a smile on your face or have you laughing manically upon the eventual reveal and Tokuchi subsequently using it against the opponents.

The series artwork is fairly realistic, with exception of characters like the Manager and Assistant Manager who are drawn in the fashion of comic relief. The series makes use of a few foreign (Essentially American) players as well, and draw then is somewhat stereotypical fashion, but still utilizing good designs. It seems Madhouse also wanted to appeal to female otaku in the series as well, with the OP housing continual shots of Tokuchi shirtless and looking aloof.

The audio work in One Outs is fitting, but the musical side never really rises above. It all fits great in the series and never feels out of place, but it’s also not really a soundtrack you would listen to outside of the anime. The voice acting is done really well, with Tokuchi’s voice actor, Masato Hagiwara, easily stealing the show thanks to his familiarity in the role (And gambling anime in general) thanks to his previous work as the title characters in Akagi and Kaiji. The Lycaons manager also performs admirably in his efforts at comic relief, making it a bit hard not to chuckle every time he calls for a “safety bunt-o”.

The series provides everything a viewer could want in a series based on mental and/or gambling, and the use of baseball allows all 25 episodes to remain fresh thanks to the numerous ways the rules can be warped and the loopholes that can be exploited. Anyone looking for series revolving around plans, schemes, and overall mental talent will certainly not be disappointed.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Apr 16, 2014

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

One Outs was a baseball manga written by Kaitani Shinobu. It was adapted into an anime by our old friends at Madhouse, who brought us such classics as Black Lagoon, Petshop of Horrors and Rideback. Unfortunately, they've also been behind some of the worst anime I've ever seen such as Highschool of the Dead and Devil Hunter Yohko. I'm honestly not predicting their best work this time around, although a lot of that is more to do with the subject matter than anything else. I am not a person who cares about sports in the slightest. So, let's look at One Outs and see if ... it holds up in spite of my own apathy towards the material.

Story:

Our story opens with some minor league players at a training camp. After an injury destroys their pitcher's ability to throw balls at a guy with a stick, two of them go on a search for a new one. At this point they get lured to a gambling arena where people bet on whether or not a guy can hit a ball with a stick. The two lose a large amount of money and their friend, Kojima, who has won a bunch of awards with names that are meaningless to me, returns to challenge the pitcher who beat them, Tokuchi. He loses, but returns for a rematch, if he loses he'll retire, if he wins he'll take Tokuchi's hand so that he can never gamble using baseball again. Because a game that requires people to hit a ball with a stick and run in a square is serious business and not some kind of game.

In spite of a rather serious hand injury, Kojima wins, but instead of inflicting violence to take Tokuchi's hand, he recruits him as a pitcher to help his team, the Lycaons, win the championship. So, the basic plot is that a low ranking team aims for the championship? I haven't seen that plot since... every piece of sports media ever made, I think. To be fair, One Outs isn't typical in its execution. It uses Tokuchi's unusual contract with the game's owner as the primary source of tension instead of whether or not the team will win the big game. It also puts the focus, not on whether or not the Lycaons will win since basic pattern recognition gives it away, but on how they're going to win. Which is more interesting than it sounds since Tokuchi uses a lot of psychological manipulation and has to think of ways to outsmart his opponents while thwarting the owner's attempts to sabotage him.

The strategic aspects are pretty well handled in this anime, in spite of the rather trite plot. The series is also good at keeping the viewer's attention with various new elements and twists as well. However, the story telling isn't perfect. The biggest problem is the narrator. His entire job seems to be to give exposition. Which isn't so bad when it's used as a tool to skip through the boring bits, but it's also pretty unnecessary. You could cut out the dialogue for almost all of these scenes and lose nothing. There's also the issue of the plot itself. Even if the execution is unique, just about everyone knows exactly where it's going to go which does limit how much tension the series can have.

Characters:

The characters of One Outs are mixed. Tokuchi is a pretty interesting “magnificent bastard” type of character. The Lycaons' owner makes for a compelling antagonist as well. Ideguchi and Kojima are two-dimensional characters. They get some personality and develop a bit, but not a whole lot. The rest of the characters are pretty one-note. They're around and you might remember their names, but there isn't anything that really makes them unique or compelling. They're just “that guy who runs fast” or “that guy with glasses.”

One thing of note is that a lot of the antagonistic teams that Tokuchi and the Lycaons have to face are shown to have foreigners as their big guns. I'm not sure whether it's a demonstration of Xenophobia in which the great all-Japanese team has to face off against those foreign players who came from some unspecified location or it's just a coincidence. That being said, they do make it a point to bring the foreign players to the viewer's attention so the former seems more likely.

Art:

The art is pretty good, overall. The character designs are distinctive. The backgrounds are nicely detailed as well. That being said, there are some questionable art decisions. There are some ridiculously exaggerated expressions. For example, a “shocked” character might just open their mouth so wide they could fit their own head in there. Tokuchi also has an absurd hairstyle that makes him look like he's gone half super saiyan. I know, an anime with silly hair what an original concept.

Sound:

The acting in this is okay. It doesn't stand out in any way, but it's passable. The music is really effective when it comes to atmosphere. The tense moments have a score that perfectly emphasises the tension as do the victorious moments.

Ho-Yay:

There is none in this series. 1/10.

Final Thoughts:

In some ways, One Outs is a typical piece of sports media. Underdog team pushing for victory. In others, it's not at all typical. The battle of wits aspect works pretty effectively and the main protagonist is an interesting character, even if most of the side characters are really flat. Still, it has quite a bit of intrigue and I do recommend checking it out for the battle of wits, if you don't mind watching grown men act like hitting a ball with a stick is a pastime of dire importance or a predictable plot arc. Final rating, 6/10. Next week I'll look at Shining Tears x Wind.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 22, 2022

jaliscojackson

Not Recommended

DISCLAIMER: I wrote this when I was maybe 15 or 16, and while I still think One Outs is repetitive and boring, I think a lot of my criticisms here are unfair. Still, I will not be taking this review down because I like it when One Outs fans come to the comments in my profile and act like there's something here worth debating about. Why don't you go to war for an anime that's actually worth something? Anyways, please enjoy this juvenile rant.


Shit.

I cannot express to you my level of disbelief at the fact that so many people gave this show a rating above ... 6. This show has to be the most stinking pile of shit I have ever seen in my favourite genre of anime: sports. And I know what people are going to say. "Oh but dude, this isn't a typical sports anime! You just don't understand baseball! You just don't understand Tokuchi Toua's intelligence!" This is false. You would have to be a mentally impaired slug to not understand Tokuchi Toua's intelligence after watching this series. In fact, that's basically the only thing that you take away from this series, besides a pretty decent OP and ED.


Characters:

There are none. No, wait, that's incorrect. There is one. One character. His name is Tokuchi Toua. He is the only person in the whole show. He is the only person in the entire world with a mind that is capable of functioning. Yes that was me exaggerating. But not really. The only reason any other character exists is to highlight Tokuchi Toua's godlike, incomparable intelligence. So let's give the cast a name. I propose, "Tokuchi Toua and His Bunch of Braindead Bitches." Because everyone is his braindead bitch. Not just the players on the team, but the manager, the owner, the players on the other team, and maybe even his parents for all the fuck I know. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if they at least gave us some backstory, some insight into Tokuchi's past that lets us see what made him this way. Anything that shaped his personality. But NO! God forbid we get a backstory on the only character worth caring about! Let's get backstories on characters that disappear after 3 episodes! Like that cheating manager! Or that shitty catcher! You know, they tell us that he's been playing One Outs his whole life, but they don't explain how he knows so fucking much about baseball. I'm just left to assume, but I won't dwell on that because it's not a very big complaint of mine. Hold up, did I mention that Tokuchi Toua is the perfect human being? That he is perfect in every sense of the word and nothing he does is incorrect? Because that's exactly how it seems. At the very beginning they tell us that, "despite his slow pitches, he still wins because he plays with other people's minds!" Which is fine, until you realize that he can, indeed, pitch fast. Fast enough to get the fastest baseball runner in the world out. He was hiding that trick all along. No mind games needed here. No weird tactics. Nothing. So yeah TL;DR, Tokuchi Toua is the everything and everybody else is either his bitch, an evil cunt, or both.


Music:

Usually one of my favourite parts about an anime but fuck. There's nothing here. I like the OP and ED, but besides that all there is is a bunch of bland, forgettable, funk tracks. And some atmospheric stuff I guess. Shit.


Story:

Interesting premise, I'll give it that. It starts off really strong, and basically has me hooked up until about episode 10-12, where I realize that every game they play is the same shit. The same predictable outcomes. I'll admit it is entertaining to watch the process by which Tokuchi arrives to victory, but if you don't know much about baseball and if you don't like sports/psychological anime, then I don't think you would enjoy this anime past the 8 episode mark.


Themes:

Not even the most basic and easy themes to explore are even hinted at in this anime. The theme of teamwork and unity to achieve a certain goal or purpose, the theme of never giving up regardless of how the odds are against you. These are all themes that are prevalent in sports anime, and I'm not saying all anime should follow genre conventions, but if you're going to choose between following a convention and not doing anything at all, I'd usually say go the conventional route. Teamwork can't be explored because they chose to replace characters with the cast of, "Tokuchi Toua's tools to triumph." In case you haven't noticed, I love alliteration.


TL;DR don't watch unless you absolutely adore baseball or psychological anime. And even then don't expect much.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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