Vice Interrogation: Big Windup! Oofuri

  
 

Vital Stats:

Title: Big Windup!
Japanese Title: 大きく振りかぶって
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Licensor: FUNimation
Director: Yosuke Kuroda
Based On: Asa Higuchi's manga of the same name.

The Story

Mihashi is just starting high school after spending middle school (/junior high) completely miserable due to being on the baseball team. He loves the game, and he loves his position-- pitcher --but he's just no good at it, and he's come to suffer a complex about it thanks to the poor treatment he suffered at the hands of his teammates, who blamed him for their loss. See, he was still their "ace" starting pitcher, thanks to the fact that Mihashi's grandfather owned the school. Of course, within practically a minute of his first day, Mihashi has been snatched up by the female coach for his high school's brand new baseball team. Insert joke about "hard balls." 
 
After a bit of a practice session filled with Mihashi's constant muttering and stammering about how terrible he is, the team's catcher, Abe, has identified that Mihashi has an amazing strength in his pitching: he has remarkable precision in his throwing. Meaning he can aim high, low, inside, outside, or down the middle consistantly, which is rare for anyone who's not a pro-- he just needs a catcher who can read the batters right to call for the right kinds of pitches.
 
Which, of course, Abe is more than happy to be. Abe is also happy that he's found a pitcher he can really control, since Mihashi is too scared of Abe disliking him to shrug off Abe's calls. The team starts to train for the season...but their first game is a practice match against Mihashi's former school. Of course.
 

The Review

I've been decidedly in a "baseball" kinda mood lately-- blame all those tragic SF Giants games I watched while in the Bay Area --so when the #AnimeVice IRC channel suggested I review Ookiku Furikabutte / Big Windup! next, I was happy to acquiesce. 
 
Don't let anyone fool you: Ookiku Furikabutte is an honest-to-god baseball manga, published in the seinen anthology Afternoon, and the anime is no different. You will learn more than you ever wanted to about curves, screws, balls, and bases, and it's aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall baseball. That said, while it's a seinen sports manga, it's also got a remarkable shoujo bend...specifically yaoi. It doesn't matter how big the coach's boobs are-- and those are some massive tits, I must say --this anime very clearly knows that a bit of yaoi subtext goes a long way with the fangirls.
 
But while yaoiphobes might run out of patience pretty quickly, anyone who is willing to put up with it (or who likes it) will get a pretty pleasant ride. True to form, it's a slow-paced title; the first half of the first season (read: first seven episodes) follows the team formation, a little training, and the single game against Mihashi's junior high-- the latter of which is five of those episodes. So be prepared for a nice slow slug-fest, and pretty realistic depiction of a game...at least in terms of points and stuff. I have no idea if baseball players are really thinking that fluently  all through the game.
 
I will also say that out of sheer laziness I stuck through the dub all the way through, and it's pretty solid. I admit that as a fan of southern accents, I didn't like the voice of Hiroyuki Oda, a batter from Mihashi's school who talks a lot and has an unspecified accent-- I'm guessing in the Japanese that it was Osaka-ben, which is almost always depicted as a southern accent, even though the stereotypical attitude attached to the accents are pretty different. (I guess it's because Osaka is....south...of...Tokyo?...)
 
I WILL say though, there is a scene in episode seven where TWO different characters pronounce Mihashi's name wrong-- they pronounce it "Mihoshi." It's kind of understandable since Mihashi's former school is called Mihoshi, but c'mon, shouldn't someone have noticed that and fixed it? I had to listen to it twice to make sure. But beyond those complaints, the dub was fairly decent. But if for any reason you're not fond of Greg Ayres, who plays Abe, you may want to skip the dub for this show-- Abe does a lot of the narration and explication in his mind.
 
So, bottom line: if you like a good sports anime, or you like baseball (I'm the latter; baseball is the only sport I like to watch), OoFuri is a great choice. But it will definitely test the patience of yaoi-haters and people who need a quicker, more explosive pace.

IF, THEN

If you like these shows, you might like Ookiku Furikabutte.
- Slam Dunk
- Nabari no Ou
- Hikaru no Go

DVD Info:

Released: August 18, 2009
Length: 13 episodes
Features:
- English subtitles
- English dub
- Creditless OP
- Creditless ED
- FUNimation trailers