Grit is also what I'd use to describe Maruo's character. Maruo is more or less a machine. Not in the sense that he has no human emotion, but more so in the sense that his determination or his "sense of duty" so to say is out of this world. It's inspiring to see someone achieve the heights that Maruo does by throwing his entire life at tennis and when you consider how much he works it does kind of make sense. A problem i have with a lot (and i mean a lot) of manga and anime is the disconnect the readers feel from the characters, which make it hard to understand their emotions. Baby Steps' pacing makes the readers relate to Maruo. When he loses we can feel his frustation, because we were there for the entire journey. We saw every step of the way, which makes the scarce emotional parts of this manga so much more impactful.
As said in the previous paragraph, the pacing of this manga is very slow. The matches sometimes span 20-30 chapters, so if you are not here for the matches themselves and instead here to see Maruo become a professional at unrealistic speeds, don't bother trying this manga. It will eventually burn you out. In my eyes, the matches themselves are the highlight of this manga. The characters and the romance, they're not bad. However, I love seeing Maruo duke it out with someone on the court and seeing him discover new parts about his tennis.
Is this manga perfect? Definitely not, far from it. One main issue I can think of is that the author definitely leans into the shounen part of the manga too much at times, especially during certain arcs. A jump shot and an egg ball are not real things in tennis. Strategically tennis is pretty simple. Hit with spin, hit deep and/or make your opponent run. If you're in a tough spot, hit a shot that gives you time to recover. That's more or less it. Obviously there's nuance here and there, but a lot of the players in this manga have a certain "trump card" that doesn't make sense in the real world where most of the time your opponent just has a super good forehand. However, there are other times where the manga actually does seem to be highly educated on tennis. One example I can give is that the manga stresses the necessity of a strong serve. Another thing I did miss is the mention of different surfaces. Maruo plays at plenty of different venues, so it's very hard for me to imagine all of them are the same surface. The difference between a clay court, a hardcourt and a grass court is huge. Takuma (one of Maruo's main rivals) has a playstyle that is much better suited for grass than it is for clay. I find it odd that for all the detail this manga went into, surfaces never came to light. Maybe it's because Japan almost exclusively has hardcourts?
In terms of art, I think the artstyle is appealing and definitely a lot better than season 1 of the anime (which is a little too cheerful in my opinion) but I do kind of miss variation in technique from Maruo's opponents. Maruo having textbook technique makes perfect sense because of the person he is, but in the tennis world you don't typically find players with the same strokes. There are certain parts of a forehand that are always the same, but there's variance beyond that point for everyone. I think the author could have used more footage from real life pros to give Maruo's opponents a bit more of a unique playstyle. Visuals come a long way with that sort of thing.
Overall, I stand by what I said. Baby Steps is the best manga ever made. Maruo's gritty journey is amazing and while definitely not perfect I can't think of a manga I love more than this. It's highly unfortunate that it got axed and I had to read fan translations for the last few chapters, but the manga itself is highly polished and is an amazing journey about Maruo's tennis career.
