This anime delivered a lot of the things i like about sports anime, character growth and epic sport moments. That alone should have been enough to give this a high score, but the characters in this anime were excellent even the minor characters were shining. However there were some moments in this which let it down a bit, some episodes felt pointless. (ignoring the recap obviously) It's hard to fault the series as a whole, as the story was delivered correctly but with those few episodes which ruined the show i have to give this 9/10 as a result. It's still a good anime to watch but be aware that not all the episodes are great.

I was really enjoying the ride for the first however many episodes. It was really hyping up and up and up and was an exciting show (especially for sports fans). After that, there was a huge drop, as others who have watched the series will know and agree (you can also tell in the ratings per episodes). If you can grind through the lows though, you can see sparkles of greatness coming back, and it has definitely come back as strong as before, looking to ramp up even higher. Overall the show is quite good, and the lowest of lows helps a long series, but might find it has lost interest in people as a result. I'm happy I stuck with it though, because it really is quite enjoyable.

I know nothing about baseball, because it isn't really big in my country, and so it may be weird I'm writing this review having watched my way through most of this series. (I have not watched s3 yet as it is a work in progress, so this review is for s1 and 2).

But maybe that's why I think I should. This anime is really just baseball in terms of its broader plot themes. And yet somehow it's really compelling to watch. I've found myself thinking about watching a few matches on TV over the summer xD.

So to the plot. If you expect anything original from a sports anime you're in the wrong place. They're predictable for a reason. You watch it for that predictability and it's fine so long as the characters can carry it. This series, they can. And as time goes on you build a better awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of many characters, not just the central one. But let's begin with him.

The Protagonist: Arguably Sawamura Eijun. The plot begins with him - a cocky brat with talent scouted to a famous school, Seidou, after being seen in a local tournament. He makes himself known by annoying the top batter at the school and then turning up late for training and so basically being waitlisted for the club, let alone the team. And so his quest to be ace begins.
It's easy to root for Eijun at most points. All I will say is that after the 100+ eps of seasons 1 and 2, his stupid shouting moments are getting more and more annoying and I've started to mute or skip them. If you like that kind of thing, though, great.

This series works for me, though, because it doesn't hang on that one noisy loud character but fleshes out most of the team. One clever piece of writing is how lesser characters at the start (eg Kanemaru, Aso) become more integral as the series go forward and the dynamics change. Also, characters evolve, even though they pretty much live, sleep, eat, drink, and breathe baseball and mostly nothing else for the whole of the series. That's quite a feat to achieve, especially to someone like me who didn't come to it as a fan of baseball.

Key characters to look out for:

Furuya Satoru - A rival pitcher and another first year, talented but socially awkward and never played in a team. Furuya starts of seeming quite detached but it becomes clear he's really just looking for a team where he is included, and is willing to put his well being on the line for their sake if need be.

Miyuki Kazuya - I am biased but Miyuki is the real star of this series. Fans apparently also voted him top in a character poll in the manga, so that's not an unpopular opinion. He's the catcher, a role he chose as a child because he liked the idea of controlling the game and being the strategist. He's smart, dry-witted, precocious and described often by the others as "haraguro" or "seikaku warui". These get translated harshly in English to things like "horrible personality" but that's an exaggeration, mostly because he likes to mess with the opponents' heads in matches and he is good at deflecting things by winding people up within his own team. He's not above using those things to motivate the pitchers and the team, though, so it's a calculated skill as well as for his own amusement. He gets a lot of character development in the second season particularly, which I think makes it especially clear what kind of person he actually is.

Kominato Haruichi - another first year who basically spends most of his time refereeing between Furuya and Eijun (and batting ferociously - you know he's going to hit one when you can see his eyes through his fringe!) Haruichi's older brother is also on the team in season 1 and so there's an element of rivalry between them.

There are a lot of others who grow on you as the series progresses. Kuramochi, Eijun's 2nd year roommate is one I didn't like much to begin with but now, at the end of S2, he's probably in my top five.

So being the kind of anime it is, they play a lot of games against a lot of teams. Some of these teams come up more than once. Key ones of note are Inashiro Jitsugou and Yakushi. I find most of the Inashiro team annoying and cannot stand their pitcher. I genuinely enjoy seeing him lose games. I think everyone on the Yakushi team is a bit crazy, including the coach. Each team has it's own characteristics, its "ace", its star plays and star players. I anticipate rematches will continue with some of these going forward into season 3 as well.

I'm less fond of watching games not involving Seidou. It's like they're your home team and you really don't care about some other game involving two other teams.

Still, I have to give this series props for making me not only watch over 100 eps of a sport I don't know anything about (I feel like I do now, though...), but actually make me care about the players and the game as each game plays out slightly differently. Albeit the rival teams sometimes pitch a stupid option at the end which gives the win to Seidou.