Taishou Yakyuu Musume.

Taishou yakyuu musume had the misfortune to be on my schedule soon after Ookiku furikabutte, and since the latter shone brightly, the former paled rather severely. well, in some ways that's the fairest way to judge a show, in comparison to its peers.

the story's premise is quite promising, a show about girls playing baseball in the early taishou period (1920s) could be very interesting. alas, this anime doesn't strike a blow for realistic feminism, indeed it doesn't even try. some lip service is paid to resistance by others, but in fact there are no real difficulties to overcome, even the 11th hour ... drama lacks urgency. the show feels mostly like an excuse to have cute girls run around in short uniforms, giving it some legitimacy by setting it in an interesting period, but ultimately failing to actually use the inherent tension. despite the uniforms most fan service is blessedly absent, except for some dreamy shoujo-ai action; the show goes for cute over sexy. we also get some hetero romance, but that's not a major factor either. i didn't really care for any of the romance, there is just not enough development. that could be the epitaph for the entire show: there is just not enough development.

as for the promising setting, i am not the most knowledgeable person about japanese history, but even i could recognize many anachronisms, so i gather the writers didn't actually do any research on the period. the artists did a little more research; early baseball gloves looked like that, and some backgrounds show verisimilitude, though it's still not much.

the characters are flat. cute, vaguely likeable, but so generic that i didn't really warm up to any of them, except maybe koume, but even with her, i don't miss her now that i am done with the show.

the anime does manage to concentrate on baseball instead of milking the romance and/or moe aspects, and there is some realism here in that the girls have to work hard to get anywhere (though the uniforms remain spotless). but this is not a show for baseball fans; not enough time and effort is placed on the intricacies of training or the games, and in the end realism leaves the ball park entirely (never ever will a group of 14-year old girls who started playing a few months ago be able to legitimately challenge a team of 17-year old boys who're training for the national championship).

the show's art is as pale as its story -- everything feels washed out. the character design uses ye olde hairstyle and wild hair/eye colour tricks to let us easily distinguish the characters, which works within the show, but makes the characters impossible to tell apart from those of another thousand shows with this style. the only good character designs are for older side characters. the animation is so-so. there is a lot of simplistic repetition of the same actions. some of the baseball action is animated decently, which comes as a relief.

the BGM often does not fit the period, except for a parody song koume sings. the OP and ED don't just not fit, they actively clash. the voice acting is a mixed bag. some of it is good, some is overacted, and some doesn't fit the character -- 24 year old seiyuu do apparently not always manage to sound like 14 year old girls. which surprised me. i am in general not a big fan of female seiyuu because of the hyper-cutesy affect so many of them sport (not really their fault; it's what the industry wants), but as a result anime girls often tend to sound younger than they are supposed to be. not here.

short verdict: inoffensive milquetoast, slightly above average, too short and undeveloped to be worthwhile.