Reviews

Jan 27, 2016
Mixed Feelings
Baby Steps oftentimes gets praised for being one of the most realistic sport anime out there. This point stems from the fact that all the moves MC pulls out are thought out and explained in a rather elaborate manner, and we see everyone, not just main character, struggle to get better match after match. Yet, everyone seems to forget that Eichiro - as talented and as gifted as he may be - has only been playing tennis for so long. If you wish to thread the line of realism, it's impossible for him to beat people who have been playing tennis their whole lives.

On the flip side, Baby Steps definitely is amusing. To be honest, it's really kind of like a shounen battle manga translated into sports, with a dash of well-done romance (if you'd believe it, I consider it to be the most realistic aspect of this manga). Rivals come and go, stronger ones appear, random new-moves MC thinks up on a spot work, and he often wins battles that seem far out of his reach. It's not a bad anime, just calling it realistic is quite a stretch.

Story is slow paced. And I mean slow paced. It may not seem so at the beginning, but the longer you keep watching it, the more you realize that not many things are happening. Sure, it's not the slowest paced sports anime out there, but it's not the fastest either. This takes a huge, huge spike if you get into manga where 1 match can drag on for 20+ chapters which mostly consist of monologue - and the same case is with the anime itself.

During matches, audience is being fed exposition like no tomorrow. Main character literally explains everything that's going on as if everyone in the audience is a machine incapable of grasping a simple concept of "oh, he's trained for his whole life that's why he's better". Anime tries to shrug it off on his personality, as Eichiro is a rather anal person, but it's a large stretch and I often found myself skipping scenes as they literally recap what happened 2 minutes ago. This alone stagnates the story in a large way, and slows it down too much. Some people call it realism, but, what it actually is, is just dragging the shit out. Another weird part is that anime will sometimes have huge time skips (for three months as an example) so it makes me wonder why not just balance the pace. Such large contrasts in storytelling only serve to bring the overall quality down, and were the first signs, at least to me, that this won't be as fun of a ride as I had hoped.

Another point that I need to drill on is monologue: it's insane. If you think that Your Lie In April has a lot of monologues, you haven't seen a damn thing. Monologues usually go this way:

1. Ei-chan is in trouble and/or is being completely ran over by his opponent
2. He initiates a severe dose of monologue waging his options and the success rate of each
3. His chosen option flat out works or he says something along the lines of "well, I didn't score the point but that move shook my opponent so it was worth it".

It. Never. Changes. Absolutely never. Yes, problems and options may differ, and sometimes the outcome itself is unexpected, but that doesn't change the fact that the pattern is noticeable the moment you start thinking about it. It's not rare for writers to fall into a trap of explaining things in the same manner, but this is just literally acing it home.

Within the story you'll find your standard sports drama; unfortunately, this is not a good thing. Why? Because it's the same shit you've seen everywhere. Zero-to-hero stories can be done well, but if you follow every aspect of it, you simply make it predictable. I never had any trouble figuring out whether Ei-chan will win or not. As the matter of fact, I predicted every single match in 2nd season with 100% accuracy, something that hasn't happened even in Diamond no Ace, the epitome of cliche sports anime. This trend continued on in the manga, basically nullifying a large portion of what makes sports drama exciting: being unable to predict the outcome.

Story is by far the weakest aspect of this anime (and manga as well) and drags it down by quite a large margin, just making you think "what could have been".

On the flip note, production values are higher. Art itself is colorful and crisp and, while it isn't really spectacular by any means, it's more than enough to hold the show itself on a higher note. Animation can be hit and miss; oftentimes, you'll simply see stills of shots rather than the animation itself, but it has some decent moments. Don't expect nothing on the level of KnB or DnA because, remember, this sport story is realistic.

Music itself is passable. Opening song is catch and good though, simply showcasing just how bland the soundtrack is. Voice acting is fairly decent and there's a huge cast so you'll probably find a performance or two you'll like more than others. Overall, nothing spectacular, but definitely on-par with today's standards.

Now we come to the characters, the thing that makes this anime realistic supposedly. Nope. Again, I'll repeat myself: no matter how talented he is, he should NOT be able to compete on national level after mere 2 years of training. Not only is the tennis one of the hardest sports to pick up as you get older, but he actually doesn't even have innate talent from it. They shrug it off on "working his body beyond its capacity", but if that's all it took in real life, everyone could be a great athlete. Don't get me wrong though: Ei-chan is a good character outside of tennis, but I have a feeling this manga would have been far better if it focused on a sport that's solely about thinking, as this would be far more realistic.

With side characters ... as expected of sport stories, there's a bucket load of them. From the ones that get forgotten to the ones that stay all the way through. You have Nat-chan, probably one of the best female leads I've seen in a while. There's nothing exceptional about her character, but it was executed so well that you can't help but somehow feel entranced by her. She's "go with the flow" type of a person and, even though I usually have a hard time connecting to people like that, I found myself drawn to her far more than any other character in the entire series. The romance between the two MC's is definitely slow (as in, real slow) but as it's just a side thing, it was actually a breath of refreshing air whenever it came up, and it didn't drag on for as long as I thought it would. Props for that.

I won't discuss any others because then it would take me 10 pages to cover them all. Just know that there's a huge cast of diverse characters and even though sometimes you'll be thinking "ugh, freaking backstory; I don't care, just go back to the fucking match already, Jesus", I found myself liking more characters than I disliked, so that's a good thing.

Overall, if you're into sports anime, you will enjoy Baby Steps. It's a relatively easy going watch but, again, if you're expecting true realism, you won't find it here. You'll realize this rather quickly, but it shouldn't really deter your enjoyment of the series too much.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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