Ookiku Furikabutte (Oofuri) (Big Windup)
Ookiku Furikabutte, also know as Oofuri for short, is a baseball sports manga with a 2 season anime adaptation. The manga is still ongoing, but I'll be talking about the anime in this post.
Like almost all sports centered anime or manga stories they start with the main character entering high school with flashbacks of their middle school years. Middle school memories are usually of their time in the sport's club. The main character is Mihashi Ren, a small physique and awkward boy who had a very upsetting time in his baseball team in middle school. He was bullied about his awful pitching, and blamed him for losing all their games since he refused to leave the mound.
Mihashi decides to go to a different school than his middle school teammates, and doesn't plan on joining the baseball club at his new high school though he was dragged into it. Nishiura is the high school he goes to, and they just formed a new baseball club so the team is all first years. For the first half of the season one is for Mihashi's new teammates to help his low self esteem since he is their only pitcher. Despite his pitches being slow he is skilled in his control of the ball which pleases the catcher Abe. The coach is a busty woman name Momoe and she entrusts Abe to make Mihashi more comfortable. Though Abe gets easily angered by Mihashi's hesitance and nervousness. They both respect each other so they do their best to get along though it will take time. Their first game is a practice game with team Mihoshi which has Mihashi's former teammates. This makes Mihashi on edge for awhile, but this match was set up to make him overcome his past.
The story is really wonderful at portraying team work, sportsmanship, and friendship. The characters are really cute and boyish so they're not like other sports stories with hot blooded characters. Their opponents are also nice kids too. I'm not into baseball and some of the baseball terms are over my head at time, but I still really enjoyed the series. The anime aired in 2007 which was quite some time ago, but the anime is not at all bad looking. Overall this series is a feel good series. The drama is light and the comedy is not over done. A game can be a bit long and its is a bit tiring to see the repeated cheering squad and audience. Its not unbearable since the game is still engaging, but luckily that was only for one game. Also, a unique aspect of this series is that the boys' parents are quite involved! Its so typical for anime characters to have their parents practically nonexistent. I definitely recommend giving Oofuri are try!
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