This discussion is really interesting, thank you :)

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the nature of potential/expectation/and so on. I suspect there's a difference if you know baseball and how it works to if you don't, as I'm not looking at it technically from what the role of the Ace is so much as the characters and the way they speak and interact. I do agree that they also have faith in Furuya but I still feel that the putting him in in the Yakushi game was a valid decision based on psychology against Yakushi and it might not have happened against a different side. Raichi was fourth up to bat, all it would have taken was one mistake for Raichi to be at bat again, and then the whole situation changes, so it didn't seem silly to me with Miyuki injured to bring in Furuya, as Kataoka is fond of taking risks. He brings in Sawamura too often in earlier games for me to see it as them not seeing any potential for him to be the ace. The similarities between Sawamura and Kataoka are why I feel that's always there in the back of his mind.

Kataoka says he's not going to sacrifice the team for Furuya. If Furuya was the ace in the way Ochiai sees him, then that approach might be different. Kataoka's main focus is the team, and the win, and that for me inspires the other decisions he makes, some of which are psychological for his team/the opposition, and some not. But we can agree to disagree. I think it doesn't matter overall as it ultimately gets to the same point.

Miyuki's weakness as a character is that he thinks and calculates too much. If you look at his batting, he aims for the hard shots but sometimes spoons the easy ones. He's always looking for a way to run a play to take down the opposition and he calls aggressively, which can be good but is sometimes without realising the state of mind of the pitcher on the mound. I have never thought that he doesn't recognise either Furuya or Sawamura (or even, on his day, Kawakami) as the ace, because for me Miyuki sees as the ace the pitcher who is performing to his calls and getting the strikes/outs on the day and in that match. He's not at any point demonstrated for me a sense of being preferential to one over another, he's happier to play them off against each other to keep them on their toes and thus performing, even while not always realising that isn't the most positive outcome for the pitcher, confidence wise. His ability to do that makes him flexible between pitchers and that works well for the team overall - if he were to be too wedded to the idea of one ace, it wouldn't benefit anyone, so to do it seems out of character. He's capable of assuming x pitcher is more on form and thus more ace-teki than the other at one point or another - but he really isn't faithful in his approach to one over the other, at least to the point I'm caught up. And since all the Sawamura-accepting stuff apparently happens after that point, I'm probably not going to change my mind. There's nothing he says that I can bring to mind that suggests he is really playing favourites with one over the other. They're all...as he puts it...kono team no daiji na senryoku...important battle components in this team. He also uses the same term to refer to himself after the Yakushi game when the coach apologises for keeping him in, saying that if the coach saw him still as 'senryoku' then that was fine. That's where Miyuki's motivation is in my opinion.

Miyuki's main character development points come from his weaknesses, too, so I feel like whenever he doesn't do something that ultimately benefits the team or when his judgement is slightly awry, it's building him as a player as much as it is the aces.

This is the view of someone not au fait with baseball as a game overall and who has mostly learned anything about the game from this series, so there may be real life technical decisions that I;m not aware of. But I'm not really interested in them, as this is a fiction and more about the characters. Again, I'm happy to agree to disagree - I am just not personally persuaded that the key figures haven't seen Sawamura as a potential ace much earlier on in proceedings than they are generally given credit for.

Also, as another disclaimer, I don't have a personal preference for Eijun or Furuya and really don't get involved in those debates (XD). So it doesn't matter to me who is seen as an ace by whom at what point - it just seems to me that the expectation is there a lot earlier for Eijun than some people give credit.

The nuances of a mental advantage is there I do agree though my point was to stress that to Kataoka, based on the narrative that was presented, trusting the Ace was more significant. I mean, what kind of coach does not let his Ace pitch in a title game, when the title and the ticket to Koshien is at stake not even 1 inning. We also have to take into considering the context of the story being in a Japanese high school setting where both the peers and the audiences expect the Ace to be the best, if they don't see that trust represented by the coach then they would start to question his decisions. Notice how Kataoka worded his sentence "You're the Ace, you go and close it out". He was literally emphasizing the reason why he made the decision there and it was a valid move.

Yes he did although the nice thing about Daiya is that the characters change through time, sometimes they progress, sometimes they regress and it feels very organic. Kataoka did say he wasn't willing to throw away a game to grow an Ace but during the Spring Tournament, that's basically what he did and he himself didn't realize it until he saw how he missed the chance of saving the game by not subbing Sawamura in and had to apologize to him unpon realizing it. Kataoka decision in that game not only surprised Ochiai, who was formerly a proponent of such way to build a team which is to favor the Ace for the long term benefits, but it also surprised the other coaches and players watching that game. They felt that Kataoka was trusting Furuya more than he did back in Fall and that he was willing to give the guy more leeway. When you look at it, it's tough to say he was totally wrong with that move. Seidou has been lacking a "zettai-tekina Ace figure" up until that point. Furuya became the Ace, he was promising enough, he did great in Senbatsu, why shouldn't you try to grow him and give him more expectations over the rest of your pitchers. If Furuya was able to recover and not lost 5 runs in 1 inning, Kataoka's decision would have turned out right but Furuya blew the chance, he was too bad that day so we had a different outcome. Kataoka wasn't like that in Fall but the expectation for Furuya and trust kept growing through time so Kataoka's surprising out of character actions were sort of within the range of expectation.

I'll refrain to comment on Miyuki because I have a very complicated view on Miyuki regarding his baseball and his actiosn but it is nonconsequential to this discussion. I'll just say this, MIyuki isn't perfect and that's fine but a lot of the fandom expect him to be perfect and they either like or dislike him because of it which to me is a bit extreme. A character who has flaws have more depth to them more often than not and that makes them more relatable. The last thing you want is for a character to be static, they have to either develop or regress to make it an interesting story.

Yeah we can agree to disagree, this is a discussion after all, not a debate. My view is that although the pitchers' peers do acknowledge both Sawamura and Furuya, the story has presented that Furuya, with a more impressive head start has always been given more trust and expectation than Sawamura; once Furuya became the Ace, people's expectations have sort of settled for both of them and those expectations got further reinforced by Furuya's performance in Senbatsu. The Ace position at the end of the day is chosen by the coach and he has to go with the guy who's red hot/the most reliable at that moment, it was the case for Furuya in Fall and it was the case for Sawamura in Summer. The team is therefore, in my view, more reactive to that decision instead of proactively giving expectations on who could be what, especially in their first year. The hint of that is how no one in the team has ever say or think that Sawamura could become the Ace or a better pitcher than Furuya in the whole Act 1 but after the Ichidaisan game and the jerseys reset, people started discussing how Sawamura is looking more likely as a candidate, a conversation that they has never done before that point, even Miyuki started questioning himself has he really ever given Sawamura the kind of expectation as a possible candidate or has he really recognize that Sawamura has the potential to go even further. That sort of nuiances are what I think Terajima has layered down into the story.

I think the nuances and the fact we can discuss it with differing opinions demonstrates that layering because it's open to different interpretations. I can also see how a better understanding of actual baseball would influence how you'd read those interactions, which I don't have. I've lived in Japan, I have a knowledge of the cultural environment and can speak the language but had zero interaction with baseball while I was there, so I am looking at everything from an outsider perspective. Ironically I also now only know terms relating to baseball in Japanese xD.

It also sounds a bit like the ace contest is more about Kataoka's character development at this point. He did apologise to Miyuki for using him at the end of the Yakushi game, prioritising the win. And I have noticed that a little bit - he said he wouldn't prioritise Furuya but that was when he was also planning on leaving the team. At the end of the akitaikai he allowed Furuya to pitch (I still think for psychological reasons v Yakushi). I feel like his desire to win came out a bit more there and also did when he said he expects a Koushien aiming team to win every game - even though of course they don't, and probably his saying that is part of the reason why they didn't. In any case, it's an interesting question with lots of nuances and that's probably why I like this series so much. I suppose I also suspect Kataoka of doing what Miyuki does on frequent occasions, and saying what's appropriate at the time to get the best out of x or y situation. Which may mean I don't take it as seriously when he says the word ace.

I also have a lot of complex ideas around Miyuki which is why he's my favourite character, I'm always drawn in more to complicated, nuanced individuals. (Kuramochi is my second, Haruichi probably third at this point, I also really like Jun.)... I agree a lot of people expect certain stereotypical things from particular characters and sometimes make assumptions which I mostly don't agree with for any of them because nothing is that simple. With Miyuki I don't really like how seikaku warui is translated into English because I don't think it has the same weight in the English translation as the phrase does in Japanese. Whether you agree or not is fine, but I mention it because I also feel like you do that those same nuances exist for a lot of characters, especially as the series goes on and ones who are mentioned in passing early on suddenly get spotlighted. I guess it frustrates me when people are looking at it only one dimensionally re not giving Eijun enough attention or thinking all the other characters have to develop themselves by showing they love or hate Eijun's pitching, rather than recognising they're all being developed and not all that development centres on the ace. Perhaps that's also my resistance to the ace aspect because when you're not a baseball fan it just seems kind of in the way ;)

Zono is a great example of a character going forwards and backwards throughout the whole series, in my view. I can't help rooting for him, even though half the time he brings it on himself.

In any case, thank you for the discussion :D

I follow baseball (both MLB and NPB) on a daily basis and I also try to watch Koshien almost every year so I do admit I look at the story not just on its narrative but also the game, the level of playstyle and even the stats which is why I tend to not be too invested in characters that don't contribute much to a game or doesn't deliver. I would say that if you can, do try to get into baseball a bit, it would help you enjoy the series more as there are some things you cannot pick out unless you have a certain knowledge about baseball and sometimes up to date information about the game. For instance, it was very apparent that Terajima had only a limited amount of knowledge about baseball in the beginning, he messed up the definition of pitches which confuses the hell out of people, he never ever post stats of the players, etc. but since Act 2 started, he's started watching MLB a lot more and he's started employing stats and even some batting nuances from the MLB that hasn't really made its way to the Japanese game yet. That's a growth not just for the story but also for the author writing the story and it excites part of the fandom to see the the author taking time to research and upping his expertise.

You can take it as Kataoka being meticulous with this word choice to maximize Furuya's excitement, I do agree with that point of view; however, from the context of the story at that moment, he could have easily worded it differently and still got the same effect on Furuya. He choose to word it like that signify to me that both Kataoka and in extension Terajima wants to emphasize that point of being the Ace, the meaning of trusting the Ace in said moment. Again, it's a title match, there's no way an Ace will not pitch.

The reason why the Ace story is signficant is Daiya no Ace is, at the end of the day, a very pitcher centric story. The players' stories are there but Terajima spends most of his time focusing on the pitchers and it's no surprise that most of the most important players on a team in this story are pitchers or the Ace of their respective teams so we really can't understate how important the Ace narrative is and how it dictates a lot of the story and its development. Hence, as the main narrative has finished (Sawamura becoming the Ace) I'm eagering waiting for Terajima to give us as much character developments for the other casts as we can get before the story return to the inevitable pitcher showdown again down the road. The other characters make the story richer but Terajima really does not have much spare time to spend on them in between games and off-season due to the main pitcher narrative going on. That's how I feel about the story.

I'm not ever going to be a baseball fan, tbh. I am a football (soccer) person in general and I don't feel like it matters too much to my enjoyment of the series to not have the detail you do for this sport. I've watched/followed football anime but knowing much more about how the game works hasn't really impacted how much I like the series - it's still on the characters not the technique for me personally so I don't care so much if there are some weird unbelievable sporting moments interspersed with stuff that might actually happen in a game xD. I have watched a few baseball games on TV (they're on at a silly time here, ><) in the past but I'm not engaged with it. I guess that makes me odd :D

Instead of paying a lot of attention to stats, pitch styles etc, I'm paying it more to the character nuances. I feel like there's a ton of subtle development for most of the key characters which is kind of what I like since it raises questions and draws threads together. The problem I have with Eijun, bringing it back to the topic, isn't whether he is ace or not, but how often he shouts annoying things about/at the other players xD. I guess that demonstrates the difference of approach. A lot of really expositional development is no fun, tiny hints are better sometimes as you can easily bring them together to build a bigger picture. But Eijun yelling is just a bit too in your face for me about his character traits xD. I feel like in a sports series he's going to become the ace because if the mangaka gets to write to the end, the main character generally triumphs - but what's nice about this one is the plethora of other characters that are also relevant and fleshed out enough to care about them. (I said Miyuki is my favourite, Kuramochi and Harucchi are probably my others).

We could talk a whole lot about use of language, since so many things impact our understanding of the dialogue - both other people's translations and our own of the original Japanese in context with knowledge of the game or whatever else. That would be really off topic though xd. I am assuming since you mentioned 絶対的なエースearlier that like me you follow it in Japanese, but I've seen people arguing about whether a particular translated version conveys unfair bias towards Furuya or whatever by the way the translator chose to phrase it >< Such a can of worms...

Yeah, everyone has their favorite sport. I'm not suggesting you should try to like the sport but I usually suggest people to, if they could, spend a little time learning about the game through watching highlights or anything, you don't need to have to watch the entire game (although I do really suggest you watch Koshien live coverage available on Asahi Shimbun's website, it's a lot of fun and since Terajima watches Koshien as well so you could see what kind of things he picked up that year) so people can explore more about the world depicted in Daiya no Ace. Although again, that's totally your choice.

As for Sawamura interaction, I really don't mind it. Guys tend to be very abbrasive and dumb at that age, they say a lot of dumb things, be it Miyuki, Zono, Furuya, Sawamura or Okumura. Sawamura is inherently very loud mouth so I can see how he could appear as annoying to people, I'm not going to even bother defend that, he has it coming. Although I look at him from the positive side, that he has the guts to repent and apologize for things he said when he realized it was bad and not every character in-universe has that in them, in fact most of them doesn't. I like Sawamura because he really owns up to his actions instead of sweeping it under the carpet or act like there should not be consequences to their action. In addition, it's sort of both a blessing and a curse for Sawamura that Terajima has said that Sawamura being loud is a character trait that really defines Sawamura to him and that he's unlikely to ever going to change that so if you can't stand it, it's unfortunately there to stay although with that said I do want to add a bit of spoiler that Sawamura has matured very quickly after becoming the Ace, things that he was flipping out about or being loud about in protest previously, now he takes that with a smile. We don't know how far Terajima is going to change Sawamura but Sawamura 2.0 is already there and it's an encourging development. That's also why I like Asou so much more in Act 2 after he's realized how much of a douche he's been and it's time for him to stop just the pep talks and start to walk the walk as well.

As for translation, I don't take anything regarding to the technical aspects of the game from another translation and I'll look at it in its original form and the context related to come to my understanding of its meaning. As for the translation of the dialogues and such, there are a lot of variants, additional words added in attempt to clarify the meaning and context of the dialogues as you know, Japanese at times can be 曖昧/ambigous and they leave a lot to interpretation. Complaining about a translator's interpretation or their translating style is not sensible especially if you can't even read the original text so it's not a conversation I would usually care to join.

Don;t get me wrong, I like Eijun a lot too. He has a lot of real positives to his character and it's not really him being loud overall that bothers me, that's just who he is. It's certain loud moments that just make me wince because he's annoying the other characters and embarrassing himself at the same time. The 偉そうに moments where he comments uninvited on things like the performances of the others, and particularly Haruichi. Although it amuses me that he uses tameguchi particularly with Miyuki, so it's not all the time.  If he didn't yell those things he would probably make my top 5 characters, but there we are. He DOES have the ability to reflect on his errors and behaviours though, which is probably his real strength in becoming the Ace.

Personality wise in a lot of ways I find Furuya less annoying even though he's a lot less popular with the fandom - but I generally like them both the same because one needs the other for most of the development. Their strengths and weaknesses balance each other out so it's hard to pick one over the other (to me). It's one reason why I think it's a shame only one of them can wear the ace number as I feel they've helped to build each other.

They do all pretty much say stupid things at times, but that;s fine. It's the balance of it that's a problem for me. Raichi's constant laughing is also annoying to me. It's just those little things like that. Stuff the others say don't really annoy me. Even if they are idiot things, which from time to time they are.

Asou is a really interesting call actually, because he kind of appears almost from nowhere around the time of the new team (he's in the background before but you don't really notice). He's another background character you feel is slowly being fleshed out even to the point I've read up to. I'm glad he's also shaving off his more annoying edges. There are a few like this too - Yamaguchi, Higasa, for example. Also, one that really caught my attention is Shirasu because right at the start Eijun can't even remember his name, and yet he's such a core character to the team both in play and in terms of his personality. It's interesting that it's Shirasu who Kuramochi trusts with his fears about Miyuki being injured, because Zono (much as I like Zono) is a shade indelicate about discreet stuff. It shows how important even at that point Shirasu is to the dynamic of the team overall, even though he's also been gradually developed through his play to that point in the new team.

It would be interesting to see actual Koushien stuff. Although in another way I feel like because I'm such a detail nerd, if I understand more about it and spot the mistakes you mentioned, it might drive me nuts. xD. But the technical aspects of it are probably less important to me than the character development side of things. I'm not remotely interested in American baseball, which is all that gets aired in my country, but any attempts I've made in the past to watch Japanese stuff has been blocked by my region. If and when I go back to Japan I may try and visit the place directly...just to see it in context.

The translation aspect interests me as I used to translate manga in another community (or I should say retranslate it because the scanlations were so poor). I learned a lot then about how fast and loose people are with meanings and how it can create misconceptions. In that fandom one huge misconception was created by a scanlation group translating a Chinese version, not the Japanese raw, and even at the end of the manga series there were people who still didn't accept that that was a mistake and got angry with the mangaka for what they saw as him betraying their expectations. Tricky stuff. One reason I won't read manga in English, since I don't need to, and when it's a popular series people rush and make mistakes which then have bigger implications. I saw a whole argument over cutters and forkballs and another one over whether a particular scanlation made x character sound too pro-Furuya compared with the dialogue...so it's clearly a problem here too. I think it's fine to be aware that there can be mistakes in the translation, even if you can't read the original Japanese. The most annoying people are the ones who tell you the scanlations are right because they like them better :P even when they can't verify it for sure.  As you say, Japanese is subtle and a lot is conveyed by implication, so a perfect translation isn't really possible (it's harder to write down absolute accurate English even if you totally are confident of the Japanese nuance). But when scanlation groups translate from a chinese translation or something, gaps do appear and I don't think it's a problem to question those or ask people to verify.

To be honest, I feel as though the rivalry between Furuya and Sawamura is irritating. Furuya is a power pitcher his arsenal includes a heavy fastball that rises, splitter and forkball. He tries and often imitates what Eijun can do. Case in point, he's said on different occasions that he never thought he was better than Sawamura, but then in some of his reflections he thinks about Sawamura catching up and being "right behind me now" or when Sawamura pitched well in the second act practice matches during the spring "no you can compete with me". Honestly he has been feeling superior over Sawamura since day one and is jealous of his stamina, talent (because eijun has an open ended amount of potential and is a novice prodigy in his own right as seen with his control and ability to paint the corners, have multiple breaking balls, constant improvement, optimism, fielding, bunt master etc.). Coach O is right when he says Sawamura is on the team to fuel Furuya, however, Furuya is arrogant and selfish, plays baseball for himself and honestly, Kataoka goes easy on him Compared to how he treated and with the team continues to treat Sawamura. Letting Furuya continue to pitch bad games, but pulling Sawamura out immediately if something goes wrong and not giving him other chances for a while afterwards. Supressing Sawamura while encouraging Furuya. Look at the breaking ball arc, Furuya was being arrogant in having the Ace # despite not recognizing or trusting his team, having bad games where Eijun and Nori have to relieve him, yet he still gets the credit. Take a look at the times Eijun has asked to continue pitching, but then Kataoka gives the last inning to Furuya for his glory and building of his pride while Sawamuras confidence and trust takes a hit. Its so frustrating that he is always suppressed and told to walk on solid ground now where as we turn around and the Furuya is encouraged to rise up despite being negligent of his body, his health and training. The ankle, his back, and even telling reporters "I lost the game" after Sawamura was the saving grace of the team for stopping Ichidai 3rds momentum , but the rest of the team failed to score. And its bs that instead of truly being the ace when he does finally get the number, he still has Furuya attached to him and still isnt truly acknowledged. I truly hope that salmuera develops even more throughout the series that were able to see a good third year for them, see where the senpais are in life, bring back a little bit more I've tetsu and Chris and Masuko, Miyauchi, Sakai ,Ryouke, Jun and Tanba and when Sawamuras year becomes 3rd years how they develop and move forward. Since the anime have caught up to the manga, which is really frustrating because the manga has been running for so long an anime season start every 2 years, I honestly think this will be some great content for Filler episodes to keep the momentum and the fan base going for the show. I'd like to see sawamura get more breaking balls, pitch faster, become an inside pitch batting specialist to add to his list of achievements as a baseball player and become more well-rounded. It wouldn't hurt to see a little bit more of his old team, maybe plots where we're following their team and wakana. There's definitely a smidgen of a love Ark in there, so that needs to be brought out. It wouldn't hurt to see OVA episodes about other characters and about sawamura going home to visit and more of a backstory for furuya

I would love to see an ark where sawamura gets his attitude back. Much like the first episodes and chapters where he would step up to people who talk down on him and his teammates. Thinking about his last Junior High game and his meeting with Azuma. Coach O has put him down and continuously said that both boys being on the same team Sawamura will never be the best pitcher and that he's a stimulant for Furuya growth. I want salamura to grow a little bit taller because from what we've seen is that both his dad and grandfather are on the taller side, not to say I want him to be at tallest Furuya or taller because growth pains could possibly hinder his flexibility and unique form as a pitcher, but he needs to grow and also become even more mature. His comedic relief is good sometimes, his personality is great, but I would love to see him be selfish for once, expand upon the attitude that he had with the team and with Amahisa, take some time for himself independently and apart from Seido, Karaoke, Furuya and Miyuki. He honestly is suppressed by all of them. Maybe an arc where he takes time off from the team, gets selected for an ALL JAPAN team and special training camp, or an outside mentor steps in, hell, even doing some training with Chris and Animal.  Because Furuya always eavesdrop, takes hint and pointers that are meant for Sawamura, tries to mimic him to keep him off the mound. I have a hard time seeing it as a rivalry when Sawamura is encouraging, takes a lot of hits to his pride and confidence. I want to see scouts coming after Sawamura, for him to develop his arsenal of change ups and breaking balls, learn new ones-maybe he'll achieve finger dexterity for even more crucial pitches, bat better and field better. Honestly most games show Furuya as the main attraction and he does get the most play time. but have more faith in Eijun. This could be a turning point for the series . though the previous comment is mine as well. I think this series could expand and be on par with a series like Naruto. 

adding on to my previous 2 comments ⬆️ Sawamura needs to achieve more speed and velocity. Maybe bulk up a little more with the help of Miyauchi to add to his flexible style and maybe ignore Furuya as a rival and focus straight ahead. He's being limited to Seido baseball, but could definitely become a coach or join a college team or pros after hs.-the joy