Our boys have done it! After nine agonizing innings of tense gameplay and fraught psychological drama, Abe and his teammates have secured victory over Mihashi’s old team. Of course, a great part of that victory came from accepting that Abe is not the undisputed leader of his team. It took Tajima’s support to get Mihashi back in the dugout after failure, and it was actually Mihashi himself who made the crucial discovery regarding Oda’s batting strategy. As a fellow control freak, I can sympathize with Abe’s desire to micromanage every aspect of his victory – but ultimately, his perfect team can only flourish through him letting go, and trusting his players as much as his own instincts.
The results of that trust are already clear to see. When offered the opportunity to return to a repentant Mihoshi, Mihashi unambiguously declared his new allegiance, and then passed out for his first peaceful sleep in a week. Abe believing in his teammates means they will believe in him, too, and play far better for it. With our heroes having secured their first victory and consolidated into a true team in the process, I’m eager to see where their journey leads us next!
Episode 8
Mihashi’s perpetual awkward smile is very relatable. Whenever anyone includes him or is nice to him, he defaults to this deer-in-the-headlights look with a stiff, nervous smile on his face. Every time, it looks like he’s mentally asking himself if he’s allowed to feel happy at this moment, or if he should be apologizing, or if everyone is perhaps playing a joke on him. It’s a fight-or-flight panic response borne from years of actually being the butt of all his team’s jokes, and learning that whenever they pay attention to him, he’s going to suffer for it. His new team is genuinely trying their best to make him comfortable, but you can’t unlearn that sort of conditioning just because someone tells you to. It takes a long time to learn to trust again
Interestingly though, all of the Mihashi panic in this OP seems to precede this recent game, with the OP’s “climax” or dramatic turning point being that moment where Abe chased after him, and assured him they’re on the same side while holding his hand. If the OP itself is framing that moment as the resolution of Mihashi’s conflict, he might be in better shape now than I expected – that, or this is just as far into the show’s conflict as the first OP covers
“Time for a celebration! A telephone celebration!” Mihashi’s incoherent dream is wonderful. Mizushima sure knows how to land a joke; in anime, his understanding of comedic timing is second only to the mastery KyoAni can achieve through their unified production style, and that’s not something he can really compete with as a mortal director
Some surprisingly fluid animation as Mihashi’s mother wakes him up for morning practice. Subdued but naturalistic movement for both of them
“It’s Sakaeguchi… is it okay to greet him?” Yep, Mihashi has to mentally ask himself permission to engage with his teammates in any way, having been so traumatized by the last crew
With the first full game complete, Big Windup! now has the breathing room necessary to fill in more of Abe and Mihashi’s teammates. Learning all of these names and characters earlier would just have cluttered the drama, and diluted the focus on Mihashi’s personal conflict. Instead, the story is wisely pacing out the formal introduction of his teammates, solidifying the core of the team before bringing the rest into focus
Some nice shots around their neighborhood, unsurprisingly emphasizing the bright blue sky ahead
Their conversation proceeds naturally, but is dense with both characterization and information. Sakaeguchi quickly establishes himself as the most personable, upbeat member of the team so far, while we also learn Mihashi was living with a girl relative their same age until just recently
“You didn’t look freaky at all. We won!” Love Mihashi’s quiet personal smile here, as he realizes for the first time that his pitching could be something to be proud of, not ashamed by
Oh noooo. Sakaeguchi carelessly tells Mihashi that Abe was with “an amazing pitcher one grade up” back in middle school. So of course, now Mihashi immediately has a phantom competitor he’s comparing himself to
“Starting today, we’ll meditate before practice!” Right, I’d totally forgotten about this show’s off-field focus on psychology and mental focus. Let’s get into it!
They’ll be training to “activate alpha waves”
Our coach cruelly invents a snake harassing Shinooka, in order to demonstrate the act of full concentration on a single priority
“To relax does not mean to loosen your body, but to concentrate and let out unnecessary tension.” A tricky lesson to learn. You can be idle but still stressed, with a racing mind and tense body
“Say it’s the bottom of the ninth, and you step into the batter box with two outs. Can you forget that situation and relax?” A handy example for demonstrating how “relaxing” isn’t necessarily easy, and also how crucial it is. If you can return to mental quietude and total concentration even in high-pressure situations, you’ll perform much better on the whole. This training regimen feels like the recipe for a truly terrifying eventual team
“You can be conditioned to relax”
“If your hand is warmer than the next person’s, give your body heat to him.” He’s framed all of this activity in scientific terms, but the end result is still forcing his team to get comfortable with each other
I like how the pacing of this scene actually matches the pacing of this exercise. The show is inviting the audience to meditate along with the players, providing both a guide for your breathing and a slowly shifting series of peaceful images, drawing us into this still morning
They’re apparently going to watch a prefectural game. Abe recognizes one of the names, meaning we’re probably about to meet that pitcher Mihashi was so worried about. Efficient seeding of that emotional conflict across this first half
“If the goal’s too big, sometimes it can’t serve as a goal.” Another efficient psychological tip from Momoe: hype your players up with a level of performance that seems just beyond them, not one that seems hopelessly out of reach. While Abe has been seeking perfection and glory right from the start, his teammates are not similarly motivated; Momoe understands they need more achievable goals to strive for, even if they’re intending to eventually rise beyond them. A natural contrast between the team-conscious Momoe and the self-motivated Abe
Of all choices, the most fluid piece of animation in this episode is Tajima tossing all his clothes aside, so he can get tanned in his boxers
As expected, this team’s pitcher immediately strolls over to our players, and starts demanding that “Takaya” come speak to him. You hear that, Mihashi? Abe is on a first-name basis with his last pitcher
Oh my god, literally the next line is Mihashi fretting that he didn’t know Abe’s first name. I love this kid, but he is a challenge
“You started the baseball club this year? So you don’t have any upperclassmen. You really just can’t be subordinate to anyone, can you?” Oof, brutal jab by this pitcher. I have to imagine he’s right – after all, it’s only been in the last few days that Abe has started extending any trust to his teammates. Given that, he must have been a relentless micromanager of everyone back in middle school
This pitcher’s name is Haruna
This conflict is useful for a variety of reasons. It offers natural challenges to both Abe and Mihashi, forcing Abe to grapple with his changing perspective, and challenging Mihashi to reaffirm his new confidence. It also provides a necessary perspective on Abe’s overall trajectory, to match the arc we’ve seen from Mihashi. And finally, it establishes another known, emotionally resonant rival for our team to face, a crucial resource in any sports drama. The earlier you establish rivals, the more impactful it feels when they square off against our heroes
“There’s no way you can catch what I’m pitching now!” Haruna seems like your classic hot-blooded sports lead, an archetype that’s noticeably absent from Big Windup!’s main team. This is not a show about Effort and Striving, it is a show about the finer tactical and psychological points of baseball, and its leads are designed accordingly
Momoe catches the tension here, and once again reads Abe like a book
Abe states that Haruna is “the worst pitcher!” Presumably because he refused to do what Abe wanted, and just played accordingly to how he felt
This game also serves as an opportunity to quickly seed some other competitors, as we check in on two separate other teams watching from the stands
Nice attention to posture as the team sits in the bleachers. Abe lounges sideways across his seat, a picture of feigned indifference, while Mihashi sits with his hands tucked between his knees, not taking up any more space than is necessary
Apparently Haruna always leaves the mound after 80 pitches, no matter what
As one of the other team’s players points out, half of the summer tournament’s prospects are currently waiting in the stands, scouting out this potential opponent. The insular intensity of Japan’s high school baseball scene is something else!
Interesting. In spite of Abe clearly seeing Haruna as “selfish” for conserving his pitches, we see that Haruna and his own initial pitcher actually have a great relationship, with Haruna eagerly complimenting his teammate, and both of them mentally benefitting from the shared strain of the job
Mihashi predictably dissolves into a self-hating mess when he sees Haruna’s fastball
“I can’t take Abe’s compliments at face value and let them go to my head.” NO GODDAMNIT MIHASHI, THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT YOU SHOULD DO
“If we play him… it wouldn’t be a match between Haruna and I. We play baseball as a team!” Alright, we’re finally getting somewhere
And Done
Dear lord, that was a busy friggin’ episode! It seems more than clear that we’ve officially left Big Windup!’s introductory phase, and are now on a collision course with the entire high school baseball community. Whether it’s a fighting tournament or a baseball game or whatever, I’m a sucker for a good “let’s introduce all the competitors” episode, and this was an excellent example of the form. Information-stuffed without feeling overly busy, propulsive while still leaving time for moments of rest, and a natural continued exploration of Abe and Mihashi’s distinct psychological shortcomings. Big Windup! seems more confident than ever as we move into the meat of its drama, and I’m eager to see our heroes face off with these new rivals!
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