[Anime] Cross Game Review

[Breathless]

I’ve been reading a lot of reviews lately and I decided to write one of my own! Unfortunately I can’t boast of much knowledge for recent anime so I just picked out one of my favorites; Cross Game.

Anime: Cross Game
Company: SynergySP
Release Date: 5 April 2009
Episodes: 50
Genre: Sports / Slice of life / Romance / Drama
Original Mangaka: Mitsuru Adachi

I’m not particularly picky about the anime I watch, nor am I too lenient. So when I rate anime most of my scores idle around the middle of the spectrum. Cross Game, however, sits right at the top of my anime list!

It starts off following the 11 year old Kitamura Koh on one of his ordinary days. I had a smile throughout the whole episode, watching him prank his friends into playing baseball and trying to avoid bullies. Smiles for all, right? Wrong! The story quickly takes a turn for the worse as tragedy hits kitamura and his friends.

All though Cross Game is a sports genre, don’t expect it to be anything like Eyeshield 21 or Prince of Tennis. There’s no secret technique nor is any super powers. Nope, this is just plain old baseball, done perfectly.

The story is split up between a few genres, Sports, Slice of life, Romance, Drama. It doesn’t dwell on any one aspect but rather combines them all relatively equally.

Now, a big problem that I originally had with most of Adachi-Sensei’s works is the art. The characters may not be stunning but after a while you get used to it. Personally, I’ve had previous experience with his works so I was already desensitized to the art when I started Cross Game; in fact I think I have a crush on Tsukishima Aoba and of course the lovable Wakaba!

Which brings me to my next point, as far as the characters go you will immediately know who’s a main player in the story and who’s not. I wouldn’t exactly call the others ‘extras’ but you’ll know who you’re meant to be paying attention to. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and like the art it’s just a stylistics thing so I had no real problem with it.

The characters are ridiculously likeable for the most part, though somewhat stubborn but you’ll sympathize with them none the less. They all have their fair share of troubles that they have to deal while balancing it with their life. The deeper you get into the anime, the more attached you get to the characters and the harder it is to turn away from it. And in that aspect the anime is done perfectly!

As for Voice acting there wasn’t anyone who I particularly hated, but just the opposite is true as well. And in terms of music / sound tracks the same could be said so in that department it was quite mediocre to above average.

To sum it up while it may not show much fan service with the panty flashes or outrageous bust sizes it does everything else just right to keep your eyes on the screen! The most impressive part of the anime is the flow is at a constant rate, not dragging on anything unnecessary and flying through the good bits either. Though it may leave something to be desired for in the romance section I felt it was well done and achieved exactly what it aimed to do.

Characters: 9/10
Art: 6/10
Audio: 7/10

Overall: 9/10

Notes:

• I didn’t place a number on plot like I originally wanted to do because I feel that in comparison to other anime it doesn’t have much of one, but if you are to look at it as a sports anime (which it is) it has more than enough!
• Also the overall score is quite high even though the average of the others are not-so because there were a lot of things that were done well but can’t exactly have a number put on it.
• Please post your thoughts and feedback as I had fun writing this and would like to improve!
• Thanks for reading that wall of text!

[user_insanes]

Cant decide if I should watch the show because of review or too lazy to watch more than 50 episodes