All posts by 小百合姫

Eijun and Miyuki, not just for reasons of canon but because of what sakuhin actually means, and their growth over the course of the series. Also that Eijun has transmitted ideas about battery to Okumura that he got from Miyuki but not from Chris.

Not that I have anything against either Chris or even Okumura, but it's just a matter of what the manga says about their battery from day one. Key aspects of this are also not technical but personal. Eijun wants to form a battery with Miyuki, he goes to Seidou to do so, and now in current manga we've been told that this basically what a battery is, explicitly. Eijun's absolutely driven to make THIS summer happen as well.

There are a lot of points Miyuki recognises Eijun's ability long before they go to Koushien, though. This is really important when trying to claim Chris taught Eijun everything and is responsible for all of Eijun's growth (how did someone put it? Miyuki reaps what Chris sows?) This is a complete fallacy. If you go back to something like chapter 20, 21 of Act I, Chris is really abusive to Eijun. He tells him he will never be the ace, twice, and to go change schools as he can never compete with Furuya. In Chapter 22, Miyuki talks to him and points out that Eijun is the kind of pitcher that a catcher should most want to work with, or words to that effect.  Not only is this clear evidence of Miyuki recognising Eijun way before the Komadai game in Act II, it's also Miyuki recognising Eijun before Chris does, and prompting Chris to take action. We see his clear eyes first in that scene. Miyuki is the catalyst.

After Eijun has yips, too, Miyuki is the catalyst to get Chris involved. Chris tells Kanemaru that he doesn't want to make too big a deal out of it and something like he'll get over it because he's that kind of guy. It's only after Miyuki asks him to intervene that he starts teaching Eijun the outside pitch. Again, Miyuki is the catalyst. Without Miyuki, it's probable Chris wouldn't have done anything in either scenario. Not an ideal battery.

It's mysterious how often people pretend these things didn't happen, when it's so easy to read back and see that they did.

Moreover, Chris doesn't come into the second string game really to form a battery with Eijun so much as to save his ass. It's more a teacher showing the student, and showing Chris's talent for fixing the situation rather than Eijun really shining as his partner. A battery is a partnership - it was Miyuki, not Chris, who termed it that way first, though. That game is more about Chris's swan song in a way than Eijun, showing us what kind of a catcher he was/could have been, had he been fit. I never got the feel there was an actual 'battery' connection there. Teacher and student, yes, but that's not the same thing at all. Maybe it's because Chris had to be forced into dealing with Eijun initially.

Basically I support Eijun and Miyuki's battery because from my perspective, Miyuki's the catcher who never told Eijun he couldn't be ace, unlike Chris, and who has never tried to change Eijun's personality (unlike Okumura). Miyuki's accepted Eijun as he is, and hasn't capped his potential. Just because he doesn't squeal and hug him every time he gets a strike out doesn't make him unsupportive or disconnected. Miyuki's also the person who cares more about getting the pitchers to Koushien than his own health (Seikou game, tenth inning). In a sense he's far more engaged with the pitchers overall.

It's also Miyuki's lessons (Sakuhin and aibou/partner) that Eijun tries to pass on to Okumura, not Chris's. We never see Eijun mention Chris in front of either of the first years, yet we see him actively excited talking to Yui that he gets to practice with Miyuki in the bullpen.

As for the idea Chris taught Miyuki everything, the numbers are entirely Eijun and Miyuki's work, nothing to do with Chris at all (aside the 4seam). Ochiai taught the change up, but Miyuki worked through the winter on the numbers with Eijun. Miyuki also brought Chris to the game to see Eijun pitch against Ooya, because he wanted to show something Chris hadn't seen - evidencing Chris is completely detached from what Eijun is learning or doing except when someone else (Miyuki) brings him into the equation.

On the subject of other batteries, I like Ono and Kawakami as a battery, but that's partly because Nori is the most interesting Seidou pitcher to me, and Ono works really hard in Miyuki's shadow. Somehow both of them operate that relief position but they seem stable when they work together and I like that.

Miyuki and Furuya work well but not as well as Miyuki and Eijun, because Furuya like Miyuki tends to hide things like injuries and such. There have been a few mishaps there which make me think it's a less strong battery. If Ono could manage Furuya's pitches, he'd probably be a better partner for Furuya. Maybe Yui will be, I guess we'll see.

I'd love to see Toujou pitch more but anyway.

I personally think Furuya and Okumura work better as a battery in what we've seen thus far than Eijun and Okumura at the moment. It's funny that there's nothing on Koushuu's page for his interaction with Furuya. But I'm not sold on the Yui is already out of the race theory.

By this point the manga has obviously answered the question about how they met, and what their relationship is (not just on twitter). I'm catching up! Not completely caught up yet but enough to have seen the vs LA battery.

But I agree. They're not alike in character but they both have same sense of wanting to be in control. It's just a different manner of doing it (I see Mei as omote and Miyuki as ura in terms of how they control the situation - Mei is very vocal and ore-sama about things, Miyuki is very much more poker face and sneak tactics. That ought to make them the perfect battery but having read the LA game now I agree that they're not and never would be, because they both like to be in control. Mei and Harada worked well because Harada was easy going and put up with a lot of Mei's prancing. Miyuki wouldn't do that, so it wouldn't end well. (The closest example is probably to Furuya - if you aren't gonna do as I tell you, get off the mound). <---not something that he could do with Mei, because, well, Mei.

I feel like the manga is encouraging Eijun to think for himself more in games, but in the end there can only be one person ultimately taking charge of the play. And both Miyuki and Mei are used to getting their way.

What the LA battle and also the background stuff on Mei and Miyuki actually did for me was put it in context that Miyuki chose Seidou in part probably to compete with Chris as his target, but also because he wanted to be in competition with Mei, rather than on the same team. That way he was always guaranteed a rival at another team that saw baseball competition in the same way he did.

Mei has grown up a lot since the Ugumori game which means now he's no longer completely unbearable as a character. Miyuki's also grown up a lot even since the start of the manga (but also compared to the flashbacks of him as a middle schooler and in first year) so by this point there's a more grown up mutual respect between them. Probably that's why the battery didn't go completely wrong in the LA game, but it still didn't go exactly right. But the fact both Miyuki and Mei were honest with things on the train after suggests to me that really they want a fair fight with no holds barred. And since this is the only year that the manga can write Mei vs Miyuki into a game, it will be a complete shame if Seidou don't manage to win it this time around.

(Totally off topic but loved Tetsu's cameo <3).

I always see it as a mutual respect between them for each other's skills, although from Mei it's more expressed in thoughts in that recruitment meeting, (admiring how Miyuki, even in a weak team, is looking to take down a strong opponent) and Miyuki's is more about acknowledging Mei as a strong pitcher. I kind of wondered why the Kazuya thing too, but there's been no flashback that they played together, only against each other. The thing is, if you're on the same circuit, you'd get to know each other. Miyuki and Chris's acquaintance began in that context as well. For me Miyuki clearly went to Seidou to improve as a catcher by competing with Chris, rather than wanting to be part of the dream team, whereas Mei wanted to construct a dream team to play in, therefore their intentions diverged.

Not to be blunt but anyone who says Miyuki and Mei have similar characters have absolutely no idea about either character, since they are extremely different. Mei shows his emotions all the time, and his ore-sama attitude, Miyuki teases and pokes at people's weaknesses but doesn't often show his actual feelings on something except when the attention is not directly on him (Furuya;s injuries for example, when he realises he's missed something other people have seen). They both do have a strong responsibility towards their teams but it's not the same. I think their respective roles help to show that. Mei is the talented genius pitcher. Miyuki is the talented genius catcher. The implication is that they would be the perfect battery, thus setting up competition going forward.

I'm of the school of thought that the Miyuki Eijun battery is the only ultimate result that makes sense and I will be annoyed if that isn't the finale or at least a good showing at Koushien. It boggles my mind that you see Eijun fans backing Okumura-Eijun as the ideal partnership even though Okumura has been much ruder to Eijun than Miyuki, refuses to train with him until he's in the first string and is fundamentally trying to change Eijun's personality by telling him off for yelling and being loud all the time. On the flipside you have Miyuki who teases it but basically accepts Eijun as he is and humours him and spends a lot of time in the off season working on the numbers and stuff to get them right. I know there's this concept of Miyuki/Mei as the ultimate battery but even though it's briefly there I don't personally think it works as well as Miyuki Eijun ultimately should. For me Mei is set up as a rival to Eijun and Furuya, but the fact that Miyuki turned down Mei's offer makes there a rivalry there as well.

Incidentally, it's Shirakawa who seems to have a real personal grudge against Miyuki, which I can only assume goes back to a game, maybe the one with Chris involved...since he hates him in the recruitment meeting ("I'm fine with any other catcher than you"), he digs at him before the summer final, "regret you didn't join us for ten or twenty years ahead" and then when they win the autumn torunament he's all "Unforgivable, unforgivable" like it's a personal insult for Miyuki to get to Koushien. And yet nobody talks about THAT as much as they theorise about Mei and Miyuki.

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.

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...

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

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.

Again, I pretty much agree with you. I should add a few disclaimers:

I'm not a baseball fan, it's not popular in my country. I am literally in this for the character relationships and the team, so cannot disagree with anything you said about the other players having their chance to shine. Being a fan of Miyuki doesn't make me blinkered to the team, it's the opposite I think.

I am not totally up to date with AII because I don't read manga in English, which means buying the volumes from Japan and thus trying to save on shipping by buying them in groups rather than on their own. It means prioritising a bit, and since #17 is coming out soon I am waiting a while for that. So some of the things you've mentioned I've not looked at for myself yet and have only heard about from other people/sources. I'm not worried about spoilers though :)

My concern with the first years is from a storyline perspective. Introducing all the new characters could shake up the team dynamic, and I feel like maybe too many new characters are floating around. Though I wouldn't be sorry to see Seki (Na!) disappear forever...that's just my personal preference.

I don't generally subscribe to other people's opinions of how things should be, but I've seen a lot of comments like you mention re Okumura and Sawamura as a new battery or whatever. I would rather see it being as you said it, because that dynamic is interesting.

There's one other thing here which has occurred to me going back some way, which is the sort of parallel between Tesshin and Eijun in terms of their play. True, Eijun wasn't ace in the first year, but otherwise, there are similarities. And ultimately, Tesshin gained the respect of his team and took them to the semi finals of Koushien in his second year, not his third year. I have wondered whether that's a pointer towards the end of this, although it's also been said the mangaka hasn't chosen his ending quite yet.

I am also not of the school of thought that Kataoka or Miyuki didn't acknowledge Eijun's potential as an ace until the point we are at now. I think it's fairly clear throughout that that's not the case from either of them. It's just that he has to answer those expectations and perform. There's a big difference between the possibility and the actuality, and they're both pretty pragmatic tacticians when it comes to this kind of thing.

I know a lot of people got really angry at the finale of the Yakushi match in the Aki-taikai that Furuya got to play the last inning, like it somehow undermined Eijun, but for me it wasn't that at all. Kataoka even says it that he didn't want to show Yakushi any weakness. Knowing they were intimidated by/beaten by Furuya in previous games, putting Furuya on the mound and keeping the injured Miyuki in obviously would take attention towards Furuya as a threat and away from Miyuki not being fit. Keeping Sawamura in and putting in Ono would have highlighted that far more, and the batters in question would've had an opportunity to acclimatise to Eijun from the previous innings, creating more risk of Miyuki's obvious weakness at this point being exploited. To me this decision was the same kind of psychological play as putting Tanba in the bullpen against Akikawa even though he never was going to play in that match. Miyuki even says before the Yakushi game that when to use Furuya was going to be key...but if you are only able to play him one innings, then you surely only use him at the end if you need to to really disrupt the other team's flow. I think the real difference maybe in AII that Eijun is now a person that Miyuki etc feels they can rely on, and thus he has become an ace, rather than just being acknowledged as having potential to be one.

That would mean that in reality AII is really about the team growing around the ace and catcher, and Sawamura proving he really can now become that ace and take his team all the way.

But as I said, not totally caught up yet, so *shrug*.

To be honest, I actually don't disagree. So long as it is the final point. I think what bothers me more is that I've seen people talking about beyond Miyuki and a Sawamura/Okumura battery and it all being the climax there. And I am a Miyuki fan so I am biased out of all get out when it comes to this, but for me as soon as the 2nd years go, the ace competition also becomes meaningless. Both Furuya and Sawamura came to Seidou because of Miyuki and the story constantly reinforces that, more with Sawamura than Furuya, even. So from a writing/plot point of view, the climax for me has to be a final with those two as the battery. I actually don't care if they win overall, but I care that that's the end of the story and we don't go into extra innings with a new catcher in order for Sawamura to finally 'win Koushien'. Sorry if that was not clear.

I think for me the most important thing is also not Sawamura but 'the team'. And again my bias, but for me 'the team' centres on Miyuki, and also Kuramochi, to such an extent that a new 'team' would (for me) be meaningless. Even though it worked with the third years retiring, that was also because from Sawamura's point of view, Kuramochi and Miyuki are way more influential and Chris, the third year that affected him most, continued to do so from the sidelines all through till graduation, rather than on the ground.

I don't hate the new first years but for me the story's been building from the start the idea Miyuki put forth of the partnership a battery comprises. If that battery isn't Miyuki and Eijun at the end of the series, then it undermines the journey.

I totally agree with your premise that the journey is way more important than the hero or winning overall. I just feel like the narrative has foreshadowed that final battery partnership from the start, so not to culminate with it in any form of finale would be a waste to me.

Again, acknowledging my opinion comes with huge pro-Miyuki bias :)

If you are actually writing something properly, then the characters should develop on their own though, right? So it's natural that you wouldn't know how the manga would end when you begin it. If you did, there'd be no point in writing it at all and nobody would read it...

In any case. I have a complicated view of Eijun. I want him to be the ace, but I also want to hit him very very often. Every time he goes off on one of his silly yelling fits about one of the other players - "become a man, Harucchi", "Now you have to live up to being a captain!" "THis is the level of this guy right now"...etc. ALL OF THOSE yelling moments make me really want him to go away and never come out again.

And that's for me the weakness in the writing of his character because in every other respect he's really likeable. He's honest, direct, works hard, plucky, fights back against adversity, deals with criticism, works to improve his game, and never gives up. If only he'd stop shouting stuff that's not funny the first time, let alone a million times later - I'd absolutely have him in my top 5 characters.

But that makes that impossible.

So Furuya. I don't understand the Furuya hate. To develop Eijun requires developing Furuya. While wanting Eijun to be the ultimate ace, I have a lot more affection as time has gone on for Furuya (not just because he doesn't shout stupid stuff all the time) because there's this sweet innocent simple side to him whereby he is just happy to be playing in a team. And I think it's fine to develop both of them, so they both grow. I think the series is stronger for having both of them. And if Eijun would just stop yelling stupid stuff all the time, I'd enjoy their rivalry so much more.

...But my #1 is Miyuki, and so what I want to see is the ultimate Koushien final win in THIS year, with him as catcher. I feel like if the series doesn't build on that very first episode, (and continued hints in that direction) where Eijun basically changed the course of his life having met Miyuki, then it will be a wasted trajectory. I am fine with Eijun taking time to get to the ace point, because I like character development and I'm patient. But I don't have any interest in the new catchers or a team without Miyuki or, frankly speaking, Kuramochi, who is probably my #2 character.

So however this arc twists and turns towards the finale, I want to see the ace/catcher pairing of Eijun and Miyuki winning at Koushien as the culmination of the plot.

How it gets there I really don't mind. So long as Eijun stops yelling stupid. I don't blame Haruichi for getting annoyed with him. I would have hit him by now.

Also!

I feel bad for Kawakami. :)