Yesterday, the 99th National Colleges and Colleges' Basketball Players' Rights Conference, which was delayed by a typhoon for one day, officially started at the Jiaziyuan Stadium. The high school championship teams of 49 local conferences will compete fiercely for the national championship under the single-game elimination system. In Japan, baseball has always been the most popular sport and is called "national ball" by the Japanese. Especially during the period of defeat and reconstruction, baseball once became the spiritual sustenance of the Japanese people. If you can represent your hometown to win the field of Jiaziyuan , you will be regarded as a hero. Although the Japanese are much more rational in their attitude towards baseball now, their popularity and attention are still the same. Whether it is the youthful and passionate Jiaziyuan or the local professional baseball team with great strength and generous treatment, they are constantly interpreting Japanese baseball culture. As another major industry in Japan, the animation industry will naturally not miss baseball, a subject with a wide audience. Over the years, anime about baseball has emerged one after another. These works revolve around baseball, expressing passionate competition, youthful dreams, and ignorant emotions, which mobilize the audience's feelings about baseball. This article will take a look at the top ten excellent baseball animations in Japan. (The rankings are not different, from morning to night according to the year of creation)
1966 "Giant Star" Kajiwara Ichiki
"Giant Star" originally written by Kajiwara Ichiki and painted by Nobuka Kawasaki began to be serialized in Kodansha weekly " Boy MAGAZINE" since 1966. As soon as the work was released, it became a best-selling work. After it was changed to an animation, it became even more popular and became a pioneer of sports-themed animation. This anime tells the story of the protagonist Xing Feixiongma with the dream of becoming a giants star. Under his father's strict training, he has developed a super high ball speed through continuous hard training and has grown into a famous pitcher in the baseball world. It can be said that this is a muddy work, harsh training, direct sweat, and scars all express the difficulty of realizing your dreams, but the protagonist's never-saying spirit also deeply infects the audience and makes this anime a classic work in baseball anime.
1972 "Big Bowl" Mizushima Shinji
Mizushima Shinji is known as the number one person in the field of baseball comics. Since 1969, he has created more than 40 baseball comics, and the number is amazing. This "Big Beast" is Mizushima's representative work. It tells the story of the male protagonist Taro Yamada, who is from a poor background and a fat appearance, embarked on the road of baseball step by step with his optimistic and competitive attitude. In fact, when Mizushima was creating, he learned a lot from his life experience. Mizushima always wanted to play baseball at a prestigious baseball school when he was a student, but because of his poor family, he failed to realize it. Later, he expressed his strong desire in his works. In fact, in Japan, there are many people who have lost their baseball dreams. It is precisely because of this that baseball comics are so resonant.
1981 " Baseball Hero " Anda recharge
"Baseball Hero" comics were serialized in 1981 on "Weekly SUNDAY". The animation was broadcast on Fuji TV from March 24, 1985 to March 22, 1987, with a total of 101 episodes. In Japan, it is no exaggeration to say that "Baseball Heroes" has influenced a generation. Not to mention anything else, the name of the male protagonist Tatsuya is used by many parents on their children. For example, in the summer of Kaziyuan in 2016, Zuxin Academy, which won the championship. Its ace pitcher at that time was called Tatsuya Imai. "Baseball Heroes" itself shows a very emotional story, a pair of twins with different personalities, Tatsuya Kazuya, and his younger brother Kazuya is the ace pitcher of Mingqing Academy. He has outstanding talent and a bright future and has attracted much attention. Brother Tatsuya is a casual personality and does nothing all day long. But Kazuya died in a car accident when she was still one victory away from Jiaziyuan. From then on, Tatsuya embarked on the path of his younger brother. With his super talent, Tatsuya became Mingqing's ace pitcher. In his last summer of his senior year, he led the school into Jiaziyuan.After "Baseball Heroes" was Chineseized, there is another name called "Girl Next Door". The reason for this translation is that Kazuya Tatsuya has a childhood sweetheart, called Asakura Minami . The relationship between the three of them, especially the ignorant love between Tatsuya and Konan is a main line of this work. The interweaving of baseball and love creates a beautiful youth story. The phrase "No one in the world loves you more than me" has become a classic in anime.
1992 "H2" Anda Chong
"H2" is a mature work in Anda Chong's career and is also the longest serialized comic. He continues his style and advantages in this work. The name of this work comes from the names of two male protagonists, one is Kuromi Hiro. The Japanese pronunciation of "HIRO" is the homonym of the English "HERO". Another Orange Hero (HIDEO). This comic mainly tells the story of two old friends, Bilu Hexiong, who chose different schools when they were in high school and joined the baseball department respectively to compete with each other in order to enter Jiaziyuan. And there are interspersed with the four-corner love stories of Bilu, Yaling, Hero and Chunhua. Later, this work was adapted into an animation.
1994 " Major League Baseball " Takuya Manta
"MLB" comics were serialized on the weekly boy Sunday since 1994. The animation version was aired for a total of six seasons from 2004 to 2010. The anime depicts a complete baseball world, from Japan's Little League to China's soft baseball, from high school baseball to Japanese professional baseball, from American Farm League to major leagues, and even the World Series and the Baseball World Cup. Through the continuous growth and expansion of the protagonist, the background of the story is constantly updated. The hero Goro Honda has been a character who loves baseball since childhood and is willing to challenge, but is also a tragic character of fate. He lost his mother since childhood and his father was a professional baseball player. However, in a game, his father died of touching a ball. Goro became an orphan when he was five years old and was adopted by his kindergarten teacher. Later, the teacher married his father's former teammate, and Goro also changed his surname to Shiroo. In the anime, Goro is undoubtedly a genius, but because of his unyielding personality, he always makes himself covered in bruises. From the young master to high school, he always put himself in a very poor environment and then climbs up hard, so he has never achieved a decent honor. Only those who have fought with him understand how powerful Goro is as a pitcher. After high school, he came to the United States alone to challenge the major leagues. He became the main pitcher of the first-tier league team step by step, entered the World Championship, and won the championship. Goro is a very charming character. He has his own characteristics, has gone through hardships, and has insisted on his dreams. In this work, in addition to baseball, there are some things worth pondering. As Goro gets closer to his dream step by step, the person who played baseball with him has embarked on his own different lives. This is also a portrayal of real life. Different people eventually have their own lives and their own worries, but the happiness of the past will never be gone.
1998 " ROOKIES" Morita Masahi
Strong black and white contrast, mature lens use, and those who have watched "ROOKIES" believe that they will be impressed by Morita's style of painting. The young and passionate university teachers have reorganized the baseball department where bad teenagers gather. On the journey of the competition, these bad boys have also found common goals in these processes and have grown and changed. This very passionate comic has been loved by many people and has been adapted into a TV series and a movie.
2003 "Ace Pitcher, Shocking Your Arms" Higuchi Asahi
" Ace Pitcher Shocking Your Arms " is a baseball comic work that Higuchi has serialized in Kodansha's "AFTERNOON Magazine" since 2003. Ren Sanhashi, who strives to become the ace pitcher, was excluded by his teammates when he was in junior high school. When he arrived in high school, Sanhashi entered the public Xipu and became the ace. He formed a team with a group of novices and fought for the goal of Jiaziyuan.The biggest feature of this anime is that it focuses on portraying the characters' psychological activities, expressing the character's mental journey and growth, and has a strong sense of innovation.
2005 " Lucky Four-Leaf Crocodile " Anda Chong
"Lucky Four-Leaf Crocodile", also known as "Four-Leaf Game", is a representative work of Anda Chong's baseball animation. 2005 – 2010 serialized in "Weekly Youth Sunday". This work has many similarities to "Baseball Heroes", and it also tells a warm story. The Shutamura family and the Tsukishima family are family friends. The Tsukishima family has a very good relationship with Wakaba, but the third daughter of the Tsukishima family is a pair that is incompatible with the fire and fire. In the summer of the fifth grade of elementary school, Ruoye died of an accident, which caused a great blow to the people around him. When he arrived in high school, Mitsuki joined the baseball department with his friends Akashi and Nakashi, but at this time the baseball department had been occupied by new baseball students from other schools, becoming a tool for principal agents and gate supervision. However, in order to realize Ruoye's last dream during his lifetime, Xiao Guang and his team defeated the international student army supervised by gate supervision and marched step by step towards the dream of Jiaziyuan. A year later, Aoye joined Xingxiu. The two once again wrote their most beautiful youth. Anda Chong's baseball comics have never been a pure competitive plot. He is using the element of baseball to express some beautiful emotions and impress readers. In his writing, baseball is just a part of life.
2006 " Diamond Ace " Yuji Terajima
"Diamond Ace" can be said to be a very passionate recreating the reality of Japanese high school baseball competition. After losing the last game of the National High School, he received an invitation from Rei Takashima, the vice president of the Tokyo Baseball Club, Seido University Baseball Club, and came to the fierce battle zone of Japanese high school baseball, and was determined to become the team's ace pitcher, but because of his own pitching, his pitching has a very special nature, that is, the pitched ball will change irregularly, which makes Sawamura difficult for training. Akira Kazuya, who entered Seido at the same time as Sawamura, is a genius who can shoot speed balls of 150 kilometers per hour, but he also has the disadvantage of poor control and insufficient physical strength. The two players with obvious characteristics began to compete with each other, improve each other, and slowly become the pillars of the team in Seido High School, which lacks pitchers. At the first local meeting of Sawamura's school entrance, the team lost in the finals and failed to play in Jiaziyuan. After bidding farewell to the powerful third-grade team members, Seido, who seemed to be inadequate, got the ticket to the Spring Jiaziyuan, realizing the wishes of all the members. This "Diamond Ace" is very well-designed in character creation, style and plot rendering, and is also more professional and exquisite in baseball. The most important thing is that it creates the atmosphere of baseball very touching. Moreover, this work draws on reality very well. For example, the prototype of Daocheng Industrial is Waseda Masashi, and the prototype of the junior year in the city is Hitomi, both of which are famous baseball schools in Tokyo. The animated version of this work now has 126 episodes, which is also a well-made sports anime.
2016 " Wild Ball Boy " Original work: Asano Atsuko
TV animation "Wan Ball Boy", also known as "The Capture Partner", is adapted from a children's literary novel of the same name created by Asano Atsuko and broadcasts on Fuji TV's noitaminA from July 14, 2016. It mainly tells the story of the pitcher Harada Kobayashi who has the ability to excel in baseball. In the mountain town of Shinta, where he moved to when he was in junior high school, he met Nagakura Go, who could use his full strength to shoot. The two people who entered the baseball department of Shinta Higashi Middle School were involved in friction between the members and the affairs of teachers, and sometimes conflicted with each other. At the same time, as pitchers and catchers, the two became partners on the road to growth. Compared with other sports anime, this "Wild Ball Boy" is more like a fresh growth story, with a light overall style and a soothing plot. It is like a literary work. It tends to express getting along and growing up. It is a unique baseball animation.
