Cross Game

Kou Kitamura and Aoba Tsukishima are often at odds—even though their families happen to be close friends and business partners. Although the only child of a sports shop owner, Kou has never been interested in playing baseball. Despite this, he possesses an impressive batting ability honed by frequent visits to the local baseball batting center run by the Tsukushima family. On the other hand, Aoba loves to play baseball and is a star player with exceptional pitching form.

However, these two seemingly complete opposites share something very important to them—Wakaba Tsukishima, Aoba's older sister and Kou's destined sweetheart. Admired by the quarrelsome duo, Wakaba often finds herself the catalyst to their never-ending rivalry. But whether or not they realize that they have more in common than either would care to admit, only time will tell. The game of baseball may just be what the pair needs to ultimately overcome their own personal struggles.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kitamura, Kou Main

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Tsukishima, Aoba Main

Tomatsu, Haruka Japanese

Azuma, Yuuhei Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Tsukishima, Wakaba Supporting

Kanda, Akemi Japanese

Akaishi, Osamu Supporting

Nomura, Kenji Japanese

Azuma, Junpei Supporting

Madono, Mitsuaki Japanese

Nomo Supporting

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Tsukishima, Ichiyou Supporting

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Senda, Keiichirou Supporting

Kishio, Daisuke Japanese

Ookubo, Hiroko Supporting

Kameoka, Mami Japanese

Sakurai, Ryousuke Producer

Aoki, Shunji Producer

Furuichi, Naohiko Producer

Saitou, Masahiro Assistant Producer

Reviews

Aug 27, 2010

LiLSatania

Recommended

This is the first anime that I watched that was written by Mitsuru Adachi. I love baseball anime so I give this one a chance, I never thought that I'll love it so much~ :D Just finished re-watching it for the third time.

Story:
Honestly, i was blown away by the first episode, what a very strong start for an anime. It was all unexpected, Just the first episode and it already made me cry... The story was about the cat and dog relationship of Kou and Aoba. Adachi-sensei used his usual pattern of story, the childhood friend route. With a lot of twist ... , surprise event and a roller coaster of emotion that you will like. We have comedy, romance, drama, Baseball action in one place.

First, let’s discuss comedy, Adachi-sensei never missed any opportunity to crack a joke, the very important thing about delivering a joke was the Timing and that was done perfectly. He will happily use anyone or anything (old or new) as a punch line, so even its just an ordinary day you will find it funny and interesting. Next is Romance, the romance in the story isn’t rushed, you can see it develop little by little, with love triangle in every corner makes it interesting so you can enjoy the love and hate relationship of the two protagonist until the end~. Drama, when Adachi-sensei put a drama in his work it become the key point of the story, just like what happened in the first episode, it will leave an impression until the end of story. Baseball action, Maybe because Adachi-sensei have his own baseball team that he can deliver such an exciting baseball game. He knows When and how to make incredible events to happen, totally surprising, that's why I love the baseball manga the he writes.

Another key point of the story is memories~ Every now and then you'll see a flashback in the story, well I didn't find it annoying, it plays a major role in the character development of the main characters. Sometimes those memories makes me teary.Ending, I'm somewhat contented with it, all the feelings was sorted out and finished the climax of the waited battle in the baseball tournament. Somewhat because i wish he continued it until koushien XD

Character:
If u already read some of Adachi-sensei's manga you will find that all of his male protagonist has the same kind of character and i think same goes for the female. This time its Kitamura Kou, only son, cant even play catch ball till 5th grade, hard working and good at lying. The Ace Pitcher of the Seishu Academy, a typical character that you will like. Tsukishima Wakaba, same age, birthday and birthplace as Kou and love him more than anyone else. She plays a major role in the story despite of her status. Tsukishima Aoba, wakaba's little sister, who hates Kou very much and love Wakaba. If there's a word to describe her its "Tsundere". Kou's teacher about pitching. Very talented in Baseball despite of being a girl. Akaishi Osamu, position catcher, 5th batter and later the Captain of the Seishu baseball team. Like Kou he loves Wakaba too. Azuma Yuuhei, 1st base and the 4th batter and a talented one. He first appeared as an antagonist. He's emotionless when talking and only shows different emotion when playing baseball. Takigawa Akane, I'm really surprised of her appearance in the story, almost jaw dropping. The girl that moved next door and the daughter of the Soba Restaurant owner and a great painter. Her appearance takes the story to a new height.

Art:
Here's another trademark of Adachi-sensei. Imagine a classic drawing and add modern day coloring and you will get a remastered feeling. His character design is all the same, specially the ears and the hair color were black, blond and brown. Same goes for the character faces, i had read in one of his manga that even Adachi-sensei criticize his own work for having the same face design for some character. Overall, the classic animation style that used in this anime was some-what refreshing if you want to escape the modern day animation style.

Sound:
The Opening song "Summer Rain" really suits the anime, it gives the listener a tropical kind of beat, maybe because of the guitar. Good thing that they didn't replace it until the end of the series. The Ending song Koi Kogarete Mita Yume fit perfectly to the 1st quarter of the season~ that slow and sad song can easily make u cry if added in the scene specially in the 1st episode~ The 2nd one is Orange Days, a Rap song, IMO it doesn't fit the anime, its not like the song is bad or anything, just that using a song like that in an anime with a classic style of animation isnt good. The 3rd Moeru You na Koi Janai Kedo got a nice beat and slow rhythm . And the last ED song is Rehersal, one of my favorite song. The piano is great and the lyrics too.

Enjoyment:
I really enjoy Cross Game. I laugh on the jabs, cries in the sad and touchy scenes and get caught in the suspense and excitement of baseball action. that you will ask for more. Well if you Want more baseball action, read H2 and Touch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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May 5, 2019

OremLK

Mixed Feelings

Cross Game is the story of two high school kids who play baseball; Kitamura Ko and Tsukishima Aoba, who fight and argue continuously on an inevitable trajectory toward romance or heartbreak. Aoba loves baseball, and Ko has immense raw pitching talent, and they hate each other. Or so they say. *Everyone else* says that Aoba and Ko are exactly alike.

The biggest problem with Cross Game is that there's simply too much of it. There isn't anything seriously wrong with the writing--the characters are fine, and much of the cast has developed and changed in gradual but realistic ways by the ending. ... The story hits all the major beats you'd expect from a sports anime, and although it's never surprising, it has enough satisfying moments to keep you going.

It's just that the series spends 50 episodes telling a story which feels like it could've been told just as well in 25. There are many elements which are repeated over and over again, until you want to scream "I get it already!!" at the screen. There are too many useless characters, some merely brief comic relief, and others (like a certain cousin of a certain character) who are returned to again and again despite the fact that they add absolutely nothing to the story. There are some truly idiotic episodic subplots, such as the four (4)--count 'em--times the characters foil petty criminals by using their baseball skills. There's even a bottle and clip episode which almost entirely consists of replaying scenes from the first episode.

I don't mind a story which moves slowly, if it spends that time fleshing out interesting details to make the world or the characters deeper and more satisfying. That's not how Cross Game spends its time, sadly.

And then we come to the baseball itself. For a series which spends so much time on the sport, Cross Game exhibits a surprisingly shallow understanding of the Grand Old Game. I'm a huge fan of the sport. I've watched many ballgames and spent many hours studying and writing about the sport. Cross Game... ain't it. Definitely do not come into the series expecting detailed depictions of the strategy and craft of playing baseball. It's more of a slice of life about baseball than it is a sports anime with slice of life elements. It oversimplifies the sport, making it too much about a handful of star players doing magical things, and too little about how they learn to do those things, or about the tactical battles which happen within the context of individual at-bats.

Maybe all that would be ameliorated if the animation was a little better. But this is not a well-animated show. Some of the character designs are distinctive, but others are much too same-ish. None of them are particularly appealing, but that may just be my taste. But that's not the biggest problem. Rather, it's how little actual animation there is here. There's so much filler that some of the biggest key moments are simply slideshows of still images. They ran out of money, and it's rarely been as obvious as it is here. Maybe they should've tried making 25 episodes instead of 50.

But despite all of that, I still rated this series a 6 out of 10. Going with my heart, here. I really liked the characters. I liked that their relationships didn't offer easy answers. I was rooting hard for Ko and Aoba to get it together. The beginning and ending of the series were fantastic. There were many scenes when the show grew boring or made me roll my eyes, but it never fully lost me. Good dialogue and solid characterization go a long, long way.

I won't tell you to watch Cross Game only if you really like baseball, or if you really like slice of life, or catty high school romance. There are better depictions of each. But maybe if the combination of all three of those sounds amazing to you, and you don't mind sitting through a lot of filler to get to the good stuff, it just might be worth your time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 3, 2010

Rampant

Not Recommended

Well, I will say first of all that both this manga and anime are perfectly nice, perfectly pleasant, and probably perfectly enjoyable for a lot of people. It is all smiles (except for Aoba who is, you know, completely incapable of anything but frowning or looks of indignation), all optimism, and simple but sweet. Unfortunately, that keeps it from being very good either.

The story is your typical "gets one star, enjoys a meteoric rise to the near top, loses anyway, probably eventually wins but ONLY in the very last year" formula. Typical to this, ONLY the protagonists and "notable" opponents ever in ANY way matter. ... The only real gags in the entire anime revolve the few times they do not have the protagonists/notables easily succeed...which is not a very good gag element. The only real change to the overall plot tendencies is that they throw in a tragedy, and the tragedy is not a very good one...having to see people get all sadfaced and wax nostalgic about it is pretty annoying, and the onslaught of flashbacks repeated, while not as bad as it could be, is fairly overboard.

To the actual baseball parts of the action, since pretty much the largest negative emotions it displays are an "oi oi oi" "are you kidding me" attitude, there are not really any sore losers or sore winners. I know that the cliche "big personalities! ridiculous action!" shounens are not that great either, but all this manages to produce is a baseball team with no personality, taking matters to the other extreme. The baseball games are never really interesting because of this, and there is no real reason to sympathize with the team and want it to win no matter how much time they spend on all of the characters.

The characters are pretty weak. It is nice that Ko is not a brat, but he is also pretty bland, having no real personality to speak of...this goes for a lot of characters, probably everyone but Aoba really. Their personalities are pretty much all "stare around thoughtfully/at another person, crack a smile, play baseball". I appreciate that they wanted to use silence to set some sort of tone, but they failed to craft any meaningful personalities because of it. Unfortunately, Aoba is your standard grade unenjoyable tsundere who does NOTHING but complain and lie about her "true feelings" for 50 episodes, so she is not a good break from all of this at all.

The art is a nice style, but it has some major problems. The character art becomes very chunky and bold in a lot of zoom ins for some reason, despite having previously looked fine zoomed out just seconds before. The next biggest problem are the mouths, which are some of the least expressive I have ever seen in an anime...just because you chose a simple style does not mean you have to totally cop out of drawing faces! They pretty much are just a barely open o ( or closed | all of the time. The other biggest flaw with the art is the coloring - everything is vivid, but nothing actually has any detail! Pay attention and you will notice this is true...it does not ruin the anime, but it makes it difficult to find much interesting.

The animation is very smooth most of the time, a real treat to watch actually, but it also deals in most of the major problems of modern anime. It has a ton of slow zoom ins on characters to simulate movement that is not there. It has tons of white action lines to simulate false excitement in the sports scenes (no idea why, they ACTUALLY decently animate most of the time, so why do this?) - this happens more as the anime goes on, initially it was rare. There are lots of repeat moments (as in triple takes et cetera), lots of white outs during action scenes to try to draw out and create a bigger impact, and other various tricks that really fall flat...again, it is not bad enough to destroy the in episode pacing or destroy the "feel", but it is overboard and slightly distracting.

The voice acting is completely average, and the music is terrible and interferes with a lot of moments.

A final miscellaneous flaw is that the transitions are incessant and really poorly done. Oftentimes they will flash to some random scenery and pan straight up, this happens literally about 30 times. Also literally about 30 times they will use the terribly drawn cat (worst part of this anime) to clumsily transition.

This is a decent sports anime/manga, but really I would say that not only are there better slice of lifes around, and alternately there are better hot blooded sports anime/manga around, and that I would fill my time with either of those alternatives first before looking to a work like this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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