Akiko's pitching needs a lot of work.

When I started Taisho Yakyuu Musume, I expected charismatic characters and engaging subplots about friendships and schoolgirl life in the '20s buffered by light comedy and occasional drama. However, I wasn't expecting accurate baseball in any case—nothing better than Princess Nine, at least. But to tell you the truth, the baseball elements in Taisho Yakyuu Musume ring truer than those in Cross Game.

Maybe Tomoe will invent night games.

This is not to say that there aren't a lot of anachronisms in Taisho Yakyuu Musume. That's sort of a given. For one thing, I suspect Japanese high school baseball (if it even existed at the time) would still be in the dead ball era in 1925. After all, the dead ball era had only ended in American's major leagues around 1919.

Kochou legs one out.

Aside from that, the actual games and practices depicted in Taisho Yakyuu Musume are fairly realistic. For one thing, a junk ball rookie pitcher who can barely lob strikes over the plate can certainly expect to get positively hammered during her first outing. Furthermore, the importance of cooperation and trust within a battery is also accurately described, perhaps even more so here than in Major. It's also nice to see outfielders using two hands when shagging routine fly balls. Likewise, I'm glad to see the speedy leadoff batter learning how to hit left-handed in order to get a step or two closer to first base. (If these are true 90-foot base paths, though, she's already fast as fuck.)

This actually had fewer homosexual overtones than the
corresponding segment between Goro and Toshi in Major.

Additionally, the charismatic characters and engaging subplots about friendships and schoolgirl life in the '20s buffered by light comedy and occasional drama are also there and up to the standards I expect from J.C. Staff. Combine all that with nicely executed baseball elements and it's no wonder Taisho Yakyuu Musume is the best new show airing during the Summer 2009 season.

That is entirely too many ribbons, Lilicia.

As I expected, this season is basically all Noto Mamiko all the time. Among the shows I am currently watching, she stars in Kimi ni Todoke and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza, and has roles in Seitokai no Ichizon and Queen's Blade: Gyokuza no Tsugumono. Additionally, she played a late addition to the fifth season of Major, which I recently finished watching. Technically, Major ended a couple seasons ago, but it wasn't fully subbed until now.

Miho learns about the cruelty of baseball.

Thus far, Kimi ni Todoke is as good as I hoped. I am glad they established early on that Sawako is aware of how people view her. I was afraid the show was going to be about wall-to-wall misunderstandings. While there are a lot of misunderstandings, most of them are driven by Sawako's social awkwardness and inability to communicate her feelings.

Despite this innocuous screenshot, Haruka II is downright dirty.

The second season of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu is not very good, which should not surprise me since the first season wasn't that great either. I'd much rather have a second season of Narue no Sekai, but I don't think that's ever going to happen. I am not as put-off by the addition of Kugimiya Rie as some people, but I am tired of her particular brand of tsundere. The trope wasn't so bad when it was associated with the Naru and Chidori varieties.

Tomoe is the most serious character in Queen's Blade.

I don't know why Mamiko isn't just phoning in her Queen's Blade role like some of the other voice actresses, but she deserves an award for it. I'm not sure if I've enjoyed her work this much since her completely anti-typecast scenery chewing in Dai Mahou Touge (Magical Witch Punie-chan).

Punie leg locks the shit out of Elise.

In fact, I nominated Noto Mamiko for her work as Tomoe in Queen's Blade in the 4th Annual Seiyuu Awards. No, I'm dead serious. Queen's Blade is a ridiculous show, but Mamiko plays Tomoe in a completely serious and eminently professional manner. That in itself is somewhat absurd, but it significantly contributes to my enjoyment of this terrible show. I don't know what I'm going to do if, as episode five suggests, Queen's Blade II actually develops a coherent plot and incorporates character development.

Shimizu is a peach.

Are "Best of the Year" lists premature at this point considering December hasn't even started yet? Normally, I would say yes, but for 2009 Girl of the Year honors, Shimizu Kaoru from Major has boat raced them all. This is an easy win for Shimizu because I'm giving her an unfair amount of latitude in defining what "of the year" even means. Were I to strictly consider only 2009 appearances in making this judgment, it is possible—perhaps even likely—someone would surpass Shimizu for top honors. (Aoba from Cross Game, that's who.)

The fan service in Major gets completely out of hand.

However, followers of the five-season, one-hundred-twenty-plus episode baseball epic Major enjoy the unique privilege of seeing its characters mature from very young children to adulthood. We see Kaoru grow up just as we see Goro grow up. Shimizu is not just a "childhood friend" in the typical anime sense. Most of the time we're just told someone is a childhood friend character and we're expected to fill in the blanks with what we know of the trope from previous broadly drawn stereotypes.

How this got past the censors, I have no idea.

This is not the case with Shimizu. We meet Shimizu when Goro meets Shimizu, and by the time she describes herself—years later—as a childhood friend, we're almost surprised to realize Shimizu has been with Goro all this time. Part of this surprise is because she does not wake Goro up in the morning. Nor is she is a substitute for a missing parent. And she is not a devoted slave. This is not to say Shimizu is 100 percent realistic, but she's still a very sweet girl and far superior to the typical cookie-cutter osananajimi stereotypes.

Shimizu rounds third and digs for home.

So maybe it isn't entirely fair to weigh five seasons of character development against competitors that may have only got to play a single inning, but sometimes a single up the middle with nobody on and the outcome still in question ends up being worth just as much as the attention-getting walk-off home run. True, Shimizu still needed to take three bases back when I called the 2009 Best Girl of the Year shot in April, but I knew she'd be safe all the way.

This was considered pretty good quality at the time.

All right, here goes: I never skip the opening and closing credits of any episode of anime I watch. That's right, I watch every single OP and ED of every single episode, even for episodes I've already seen before. The only time I skip an OP or ED is when the encode does not include them (as with many of these old ass Love Hina first-generation digisubs that I am sort of re-watching right now).

I admit dancing in the rain helped Shimizu win Best Girl of the Year.

Nearly every single time I've made the admission, the response has been incredulous. Yes, I know it's a very simple matter to set up a hotkey that jumps the video ahead 90 seconds (plus, better containers and, you know, actual store-bought discs permit you to chapter skip), but I don't watch every OP and ED because I'm too lazy or ignorant to skip them. I watch them every time because I consider them part of the show.

All right, I haven't bought the Ah! My Goddess series DVDs yet, okay?
At least I've purchased The Adventures of Mini-Goddess,
the OVA, the movie, and the manga already.

And since I consider OPs and EDs part of the show, how much I like or dislike an OP or ED affects how much I like the show as a whole. Disliking the Lucky Star OP is one of the reasons I've never finished watching the series. I do find Lucky Star a little boring (and I straight-up dislike Lucky Channel), but I probably would have finished watching it by now if I really liked the OP instead. Likewise, I am grateful the Macademi Wasshoi OP is horrible, because it guaranteed I would find the series not just terrible, but completely unwatchable after the first episode.

I like First Winry better even though she doesn't
have massive hips or manhands.

However, since I consider OPs and EDs "part of the show," does this mean I consider OPs and EDs canon? Well, no, although I suspect there are times we would all like to think of scenes depicted within OPs and EDs as canonical. For example, Shimizu dancing in the rain during Major season four, or the Winry's-daily-life EDs from either of the Fullmetal Alchemist series. These sequences are reasonably plausibly canon—as much so as the Aa! Megami-sama TV "date" ED which we know from the manga is canon.

A bodyguard and his poor little rich girl.

What about ones like the Kaze no Yojimbo OP? Depending on your point of view, it might be nice to think those events actually happened, and from a certain perspective I can see how it's at least plausible, but I think it's more likely the scenes are pure misdirection—perhaps to divert some attention from what the show is really about. Not that OPs and EDs can't include misdirection and still be canon. Princess Tutu, I'm looking in your direction....

Ahiru as a duck. Unless you're ADV,
in which case it's Duck as a duck.

So what is worse? That I never skip OPs and EDs or that I care about them? Surely it's not that strange, is it? On days like these, I'm probably lucky I leave comments disabled.

I'll watch B Gata H Kei if Yamada actually screws 100 guys.
Queen's Blade → Seikon no Qwaser → B Gata H&K
[Spoilers: Never going to happen.]

After looking over this list, I'm afraid there aren't very many shows that interest me except for the sixth season Major. (Season six! Fucking awesome.) Of course, this probably means Shimizu Kaoru is going to win Girl of the Year two years running. And here I had thought Aoba from Cross Game had the title all but locked up.

Fine, fine, I'll also watch D.C. ~Da Capo~ Ext if the franchise returns to its Sakura-killing-deadbeats roots. But if there are no Sakura murders, no deal.

Even this is a spoiler.

It's difficult to talk about the sixth season of Major without revealing numerous spoilers for the early part of the series. Major is epic, with long story arcs and characters that first appeared as small children now returning as young adults. In fact, if I remember right, Kaoru's little brother Taiga is the only character still in high school.

Wow, an anime high school kid who isn't late for school.

To tell you the truth, it's a little difficult sometimes keeping all the names and faces straight. There's a running gag where Goro occasionally has to get old acquaintances and teammates to reintroduce themselves because they've been out of the show so long.

I'm calling my shot. Shimizu is going to be Goro's Girl in White
during Major season six à la Glenn Close in The Natural.

Speaking of long-time characters, I wonder how they are going to keep Shimizu Kaoru in the story for season six. I certainly hope 2009's Girl of the Year stays in the game. I feel a little bad for her, since she's too good.

Try a little tenderness, Honda.

It's hard to even discuss the OP with much detail since Japan loves to put spoilers in its OPs, EDs, and episode previews. I'm told Legend of Galactic Heroes is notorious for having massive spoilers in its next-episode previews, for example. I also remember one episode of Monster with a helpful warning from Soldats to avoid the next-episode preview due to spoilers. Them is some solid fansubbing ethics right there.

Honda father and son jerseys.

But I digress. I'm pleased Major season six begins with a new arrangement of its very first OP. I still prefer the original arrangement more, but this new version appropriately sounds more mature and I enjoy the numerous parallels found in their respective sequences. I don't know if this will be the final season of Major, but wrapping things up by coming full circle wouldn't be a bad way to go.

Sometimes Goro is still the punk-ass kid he was in season one.

I still can't figure out a way to discuss the current season of Major. Episode four featured the return of Alice, the ever popular Bats owner. Unfortunately, that likely means nothing to one-hundred-point-all of the people still reading this post.

I think we can count on seeing more cosplay during season six.

Shorter shows really are more suited for anime blogs, as the barriers to entry are far less daunting. I know I, for one, have started watching some shows because an anime blog entry piqued my interest in something I knew would require only modest commitment.

Gotta feel bad for Shimizu, the poor kid.

Nevertheless, I shall continue to encourage people to give Major a try. Just be forewarned that the show can be a little cruel at times. I suppose I realistically need not worry. People willing to pick up an epic baseball anime are likely already accustomed to how cruel baseball itself can be in the real world.

Baseball is a cruel sport, Shimizu.

Shimizu Kaoru easily won Best Girl of the Year rights in 2009. Despite her lack of screen time, it appears she is making a solid run at repeating for the title in 2010. Unfortunately, it's difficult to mesh Shimizu's daily life into the current main plot of the sixth season of Major. Thus, I was very glad to see the recent episode focusing exclusively on her. Hopefully her role will expand again as the season progresses. She still has a lot of catching up to do before she passes Aoba from Cross Game. However, lucky for her, Shimizu is up last.

Just ask yourself what Ryoko would do, Goro.
[Hint: Ryoko is a beast.]

With regard to the main story, Major takes the narrow path between embracing serious baseball drama and remaining accessible to casual fans of the sport. For example, Goro's recent moral dilemma about payback—contrasting the view of Murdoch (the belligerent new troublemaker on the team) versus Goro's position on the matter—does occur on the field occasionally, but rarely as overtly as depicted in episode 12 of Major season six (episode 141 overall). Ultimately, the qualified instructions Keene relays probably prove the most appropriate, but I personally think Murdoch was right this time.