Asada Hirofumi

Asada Hirofumi
Seidou High School
Pitcher
Bats:	Throws: Left
Kanji	浅田 浩文
Characteristics
Gender	Male
Age	15 (Debut)
Date of birth	10 March
Status
Education	1st Year High School
Class	1 - C
Skills	Curveball
First Appearance
Manga	Act II - Chapter 12
Anime	Act II - Episode 5
Cast
Voice Actor	Hatanaka Tasuku

“	Make yourself more appealing.	”
	— Sawamura to Asada

Asada Hirofumi is a first year student of Seidou High School. He is a pitcher and shares a room with Kuramochi and Sawamura.

Appearance

Asada is a tall and very lanky player. He has a rather plain appearance, wears round glasses and has short brown hair.

Character

Asada is quiet and introverted. He can be easily intimidated and always tries to stay in the background. The first impression of him appears to be "wimpy." He is seen slouching more than once.

History

He went to Mutou Middle School where he used to play rubber baseball (nanshiki - 軟式野球, see Major 2nd - 2nd Season when Daigo plays for Fuurin Middle) as a relief pitcher for all three years.

Act II

Being assigned to the same room as Kuramochi and Sawamura, Asada was subjected to the room's welcome tradition. Because of this, he felt that his high school life had ended before even starting.

Spring Tournament

In the third round of the tournament, Asada watches from the bleachers and is quite impressed with Sawamura's pitching. Moreover, his first impression of Sawamura being a animated person who's all talk changes.

Along with Okumura, Asada has a hard time finishing the required meals. When Sawamura offered him to take along for pitching practice once, he declined the kind offer immediately - regretting it because it was out of habit too adamantly. Sawamura wasn't angry about the refusal, which surprised Asada. Asada also had a hard time adjusting to the lifestyle of being in the dorm, resulting in him seemingly avoiding his roommates. Sawamura starts to worry and announces that he'll be the one to cheer Asada up.

Asada gets encouraged by Sawamura one time during meals which irritated Okumura, causing the latter to snap at Sawamura. Asada swiftly finishes his meal and asks Sawamura can go play catch to cut off the quarrel. They didn't get to play catch however, since an annoyed Sawamura went on to Kanemaru's room to complain about what happened in the dining hall, leaving the freshman behind.

Asada tagged along with Sawamura after the quarterfinal to watch his replay and was surprised that Sawamura would be so critical of himself despite such a good performance in the game. Asada became curious about how many pitches Sawamrua is able to throw, and the latter explains that it's not about the type of pitches but the type of grips. This made Asada want to see Sawamura's pitches up close, so he invited Sawamura to finally play catch with him.

Relationship with other characters

Sawamura Eijun

Asada's first impression of Sawamura is that of a high-spirited person who is all talk. But Sawamura's performance during the match against Eigen High told him otherwise. Sawamura also cares for his kouhai, encouraging him to finish up his meals and always inviting Asada to play catch. Sawamura also has influenced Asada and Okumura into picking up the tire-pulling training thinking it would help them catch up with the first string players faster.

Kuramochi Youichi

After Asada becomes the victim of their prank, he is a bit afraid of him. He describes him as a demonic upperclassman. Kuramochi doesn't take long to notice that he seemingly avoids them. Because of Asada's apparently lack of enthusiasm and motivation Kuramochi calls him "kinda listless".

Skills

Curveball

Asada is able to throw a slow, loopy 12-6 curveball that has very big drop. A breaking pitch that has too much of a pronounced break is usually considered to be not very effective; however, due to Asada's height and the fact that he is a southpaw pitcher make the pitch seems as if it was going to hit a left-handed batter on the head, forcing them to dodge the pitch, only for it to drop down and back into the zone. These characteristics result in a pitch that is very unique to Asada.

• Asada also applies pitching from the set position (or from stretch) most of the time even when there is no runner on base. Because he was told in middle school that tall and big players tend to have very noticeable movements making it easy for runners to steal from them, he apply this technique to help him reduce the risk of base stealing as he realized as a pitcher without special qualities, he will have to face a lot of runners.

Trivia

• He is no good at dealing with practical jokes.
• He is a morning person and a light sleeper.
• Because he and Okumura Koushuu are the ones who are struggling with the amount of food the most, Okumura calls them "the slowpoke squad."

Quotes

• "Make yourself more appealing!" - Sawamura
• "This person is sleep talking crazy things again!"- about Sawamura
• "He's getting the batters out one after another like nobody's business." - about Sawamura
• "Ugh this is too much for me after all. Living in a dorm in one room with those demonic senpais. It's over. My high school life is already over before even starting." - about Sawamura and Kuramochi
• "He looks like a wimp, but he's mustered enough assertiveness to be confident with his ball handling... Well, he's a guy who decided to come to a school like Seidou to play baseball. I guess it means he too, is a full-fledged pitcher, with everything that entails.." -Kuramochi

Gallery

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