Yes once again it's about high school baseball, yes it's about another overpowered pitcher and his struggling team, and yes it's all about getting to that mother effing Koshien, Japan's nationwide high school baseball finals. This time around its Hiro and Noda's battery that take center stage as they help their newly established baseball team out of the rut.
Now here's the problem, despite the 41 episode count, H2 in my opinion wastes a lot of time, roughly the first 10 episodes or so of not so great character building and generally dilly-dallying around. With Hiro's broken shoulder and Noda's broken back, their doctor instructs them to never play the game again or risk permanent damage. So the two are practically drifting for 10 episodes doing much of nothing and the story not progressing at all. For a while Hiro is just getting bullied by the soccer club with the story at a stand still until his very first baseball game.
When the story does finally get into gear, things are great, fantastic even. The victories wholly satisfying, the losses saddening but hopeful. The baseball side of the story is great and equally the romance is sweet and innocent. I love it, devoid of any modern anime cliches, just a bunch of baseball loving teens discovering and growing into their love interests.
And ultimately here's the major problem. It's unfinished. All ongoing storylines, whether baseball or romance are just unresolved. Not sure of the circumstances, but I can just assume it caught up to the manga at some point and just had to end abruptly. So sad.
