Hi baseball fans. Here is a detailed review of TAMAYOMI: The Baseball Girls. It is an underwhelming, low-rated anime that overachieved itself.
Story: 15 points
The story follows Yomi Takeda (a pitcher), Tamaki Yamazaki (a catcher), and the suspended baseball club at Shin Koshigaya High School (HS). The two girls are childhood friends who spent countless days playing catch and throw with each other before going their separate ways in middle school. One the first day of their new HS lives they suddenly and unexpectedly reunite. Yomi is so overjoyed that they decide to play some catch after school on the HS baseball field. In a manner of minutes their talent level is exposed and they decide to restart the suspended baseball club, along with fellow classmate enthusiasts Ibuki and Yoshino.
Little by little, the club grows until a full team of nine players, a faculty advisor, and a team manager are gathered. They decide to make a common goal, and that is to play in the Japanese nationals in baseball, and indirectly bringing back the glory of the past Shin Koshigaya HS girl’s baseball team as being a powerhouse team that deserves to play in the nationals.
The plot is a common theme often used in anime; a washed-up club or team comprised of greatly varying players comes together, trains hard and plays hard, and goes from nobodies to respected somebodies all in the manner of just one single anime season. Impressive, right? No, not really. A similar story evolves in anime like Princess Nine, Taisho Baseball Girls, or Harukana Receive just to name a few that I have seen prior to this.
So is TAMAYOMI: The Baseball Girls bad then? No, not at all. It is true that this is not a brand new take on a common theme. However, it is also true that the story is still interesting and enjoyable to watch since the pacing is done very well, it is an easy follow, there is just enough character development to compliment the plot, and there is enough trials and tribulations that the cast experiences along the way to keep things fresh enough to continue.
Before moving on, one important thing to note is the ending. Unless there is a second season in the series’ future, then the ending is a considerable let down, but not unexpected from the solid pacing and limited 12 episodes (thus far anyway).
Animation: 3 points
If anything, this where the anime shows one of its greatest non-existent strengths. If that sounds confusing, then to be blunt…the art and animation suck! The anime is colorful much of the time, but the art is simple in design, the overall animation is clunky, and the CG elements practically ruin the baseball enjoyment and intensity because it is bad, just bad; bad even by anime standards.
Sound: 6 points
The sound effects are the best part of the overall audio. The clinging of the ball and bat when they connect, the sound of when the baseball hits the glove, and the other occasional sounds that you here when the girls are on the diamond playing ball.
Music wise, anything in the background is easily forgotten, while the OP and ED are at least average and/or tolerable.
Characters: 15 points
The players that make up both the Shin Koshigaya HS girls' baseball club and team are the only characters I am going to focus on since all the others are practically minor ones. Prior to the details, I will say that the entire lot of personalities fall somewhere in the middle of worst to best. Like the story aspect of TAMAYOMI: The Baseball Girls, they do not make or break the anime; they maintain a steady course of average. There is limited development of the characters, but enough varying personality to differentiate them from among one another.
The club consists of nine players, a player manager, and school faculty advisor, Miss Fujii, who is the only secondary character in this anime, which is a 100% accurate assessment of all the remaining cast. Of the nine baseball players, seven of them are first year students, including both Yomi and Tamaki. Although neither of them is the team captain (Rei, center fielder, is bestowed that privilege), both girls are the backbone of the story, especially Yomi. She is a borderline eternal optimist who gets completely excited when the odds are stacked against her. In a weird sort of way, she has a similar personality as Goku does from the Dragon Ball Universe (DBU). When facing almost unbeatable odds or an overpowered opposing player, she gets super excited rather than scared and cannot wait to go into battle. Plus, she never puts her own desires and ambitions ahead of the team's winning objective in the same fashion that Goku does not put himself ahead of protecting his family and friends. Besides their individual kickass passions, where they differ is that Yomi appears to be somewhat of an airhead, but is actually above average intelligent, whereas Goku is not. He is just a likeable idiot, but I digress with the DBU comparisons here on out.
Tamaki on the other hand is a well-rounded player and student, who happens to be the only catcher that has been able to handle Yomi's insane breaking ball. If I had to identify this pitch, I would consider it a fictitious variation of an actual slurve, or slider-curveball hybrid, except hers moves at a near fastball speed and breaks both top to bottom, right to left like no realistic pitch ever could. So while it is an amazing pitch she throws, it is perhaps even more impressive that Tamaki is able to handle it as the team's catcher. The fact that she is an above average hitter makes her and Yomi an excellent first year duo.
Now to briefly mention the other players, I will start with the team captain, Rei, and fellow second year student, Risa. When the baseball club gets suspended in their first year, both of them decide to maintain the field, equipment, locker room, and prevent the club from being dismantled altogether. In that regard, they are the all-stars of the team for all the hard work they have done in order to keep baseball alive at Shin Koshigaya HS.
Then you have the remaining first year players on the team in Ibuki, Nozomi, Ryo, Shiragiku, and Sumire. Ibuki and Shiragiku have absolutely no prior experience at the game of baseball. However, Ibuki has an uncanny ability to perfectly mimic any pitching and/or hitting style almost instantly, which actually gives her great vision when at bat. She draws a base on balls more than anyone by far. Shiragiku is the reigning national Japanese girls Kendo champion, who has always has an interest in wanting to try baseball. The strength she has from being a renown martial artist is what makes her deadly at the plate and quite athletic. Ryo, shortstop, and Sumire, second base, are friends who happen to play in other leagues outside of school. They are talented enough to be first year starters on other mid-level teams, but they are memorable for always teasing each other when they are fielding the ball. Nozomi is a near freak-of-nature hitter who has as nearly excellent vision as Ibuki, but is an awesome contact hitter who manages to strikeout the least due to putting the ball in play the most. She does get a little envious of Shiraguki's raw power, which makes her quite competative towards only her. It can be funny at times.
Finally, the last remaining student on the team is Yoshino, the player manager. She has near god-level intuition when assessing any player's strengths, weaknesses, and overall abilities. She knows how to manage in-game situations almost flawlessly. She is quite possibly the freakiest freak on the team, perhaps more than Yomi. Yoshino does not play the game, but damn, she can lead a team from the bench during games and team practices. Her twitching pigtails is actually quite amusing too.
Overall: 59/100 points
My favorite sport is baseball, and as long as an anime can do some justice in the telling of a baseball story, then I am hard-pressed not to at least score it decently, which is exactly what TAMAYOMI: The Baseball Girls is, decent. Plus, consider the lower score it has up to the point of me publishing this review, I had rather low expectations for the anime. Considering that fact, it is a much better anime than the ratings suggest.
Entertainment Score: 14 points
Achievement Score: +6 to Overall
My expectations were Low, and it delivered Above those expectations.
Age Rating: TV-6+
Additional Information:
Video Format: FHD (1080p) Streaming
Audio Format: English dubbed
Publisher: FUNimation
Equipment Used: LG 60UH6550 4K TV, Vizio 5.1 Sound Bar System SB3651-E6, Sony Blu-ray Player BDP-S5200
Screenshots
