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Tamayomi ended being my favorite anime for the spring season. Tamayomi became famous for what happened with episode 4 when the studio was affected by Covid-19 and turned in an uncompleted episode for broadcast. This was later fixed with a re-release but maybe the damage was done, which was a great pity because this was a pretty decent show overall. There were a couple of episodes where the animation showed problems again but not to the level of the infamous episode four. The more the story progressed the more baseball it became, culminating of course with the big deciding game. This is a show about girls playing baseball and the character development that happens is all about their development in the sport - with one surprise exception, but I will say no more about that! The animation style is simple yet economical and while the characters have a moe feel, they also have realistic builds for dedicated athletes - all the girls bar one have extensive baseball experience of one kind or another. Nor are any of them conventionally moe pretty (bar one girl with a cute moe fang). The other thing to note is none of these girls have major personal or social problems outside the game - they are all pretty normal kids really. This allows the story to focus on its central premise, which is baseball. I for one was thankful for that.,
Tamayomi also has a good pedigree behind it - Its director also directed a number of series of the "Major" franchise and thus has a good understanding of what a good baseball story requires. Jun Maeda (Angel Beats, Charlotte) was responsible for the OP and Ed themes and they both combine with the OP and ED animation very well, particularly so in the case of the OP.
It is when we get to the later episodes that Tamayomi's story takes off with some exciting and tense baseball action and where the earlier character expositions pay off.
In short if you can get past the recurring animation flaws (particularly with the CGI), you will be treated to a pretty fine baseball story told well. I hope it gets a second series because the Shin Koshigaya story is far from over at this point.
