Big Windup! Ookiku Furikabutte

After completing the first season of Ookiku Furikabutte (Big Windup!), I've decided that it deserves the 2nd place in my favourite anime list. 1st goes to HxH of course XD

It was plain awesome, even for a person who knew nuts about baseball (except that you try to hit the ball with a bat and run somewhere before the opposing team gets the ball)

Story is about this wimpy pitcher, Ren Mihashi, who had been bullied by his middle school baseball teammates, thus under the impression that he's the lousiest pitcher ever. He then transfers to Nishiura High School intending to quit baseball cos he believes he's not good enough to succeed. However, he is dragged into the baseball team by the coach. Assisted by his new teammates, especially the catcher, Takaya Abe, he grows in stature, confidence and skill, helping his team to excel.

Partly taken from wiki, cos summaries give me a headache =l

Anyway, I'm here today to fangirl over the characters and certain aspects of the anime. My favourite character is Abe, because he is so dependable and his droopy eyes are hot.

These screenshots are all from the opening sequence cos I realised that Abe doesn't look very photogenic from the shots I took during the anime hehe.

Next is the adorable main character Mihashi! His mouth becomes a diamond shaped when he's flustered---- extremely cute XDXD looks like a bird! -squeals- though he teared a lot throughout the entire season, I wasn't too irritated cos Abe did the scolding

Sho cute desho?!

As expected of a team sports anime with 99% of the characters male, there are a few of yaoi pairings. The most obvious and popular one being Abe X Mihashi. I don't blame the fangirls, seriously. The subtitles made me cringe at times.. Well, if you don't see anything wrong with the next sentence, I apologise in advance for having a dirty mind -__-

Abe thinking to himself: I want to make him (Mihashi) feel good.

When actually what he meant was to let Mihashi gain confidence and experience the awesomeness and satisfaction after throwing strikes and outing the batters of the other teams. These kinds of misleading subtitles were repeated a few times in the season and in other situations too X_X

This is unlike Prince of Tennis where the relationships aren't always made clear and the animation itself seem to encourage such shounen ai stuff.

Mihashi and Abe.

I mean, urgh. I don't accept shounen ai for this series because the relationships have been stated quite clearly right from the start. Pure friendship, like Killua and Gon in HxH and I'm quite angry with the subs for putting such a thought in my mind. Now I can't look at emotional scenes of Abe and Mihashi without having that shounen ai factor clawing at a corner of my mind. Partly my fault too =((((( sigh

Abe: Hands off my uke please.

Fan girls are free to come up with and like all these pairings and I'm not saying that Oofuki anime doesn't fuel their imaginations in that direction but as someone who simply enjoyed and was touched by the friendship, the subtitles really spoilt it for me. Of course, it might just be me being biased cos I heard that the manga drawings are even more suggestive than the anime =/