I stopped reading Ookiku Furikabutte well over a year ago, suspecting (rightly as it turned out) that Nishiura would be playing Senda for a long, long time to come. I was both sad and happy to discover I didn’t really miss the series either. I like the characters, but everything takes so long to happen it’s not really worth following on a month-to-month basis.
But it’s a new year, I have time to kill, I thought I’d pop in to see how the Nishiura 9 (or 10) was doing against a top team like Senda. The first thing I noticed again was how bad the art is. Especially if you started with the anime like I did, it’s like WHAT IS IT I DON’T EVEN. Those eyes! Those mouths! Those body proportions! Even after you get to know the main characters, sometimes Higuchi just draws them so off-model you’re like… who?
More importantly, the spoilers: Nishiura is losing against Senda pretty badly. Mihashi’s special fastball is being knocked around like pinball and he’s already allowed 4 runs in that inning. I think the score is 7-4 in favor of Senda. To make matters worse Senda has just sent in an unknown batter as a pinch hitter… is the situation they’re in when the chapter begins.
And I was too lazy to read the whole thing so I jumped around a bit… Uhh, Abe failed to catch Mihashi’s knuckle curve and let a runner on. This match seems designed to teach Nishiura all the ways they’re lacking so they can improve on them. I should have thought the Koshien prelims did a good enough job of that, but well, let’s keep going. Flip, flip…
Oki makes some kind of mistake and Senda scores again. Okay, Nishiura has definitely lost this one. I hope Higuchi puts readers out of their misery soon. The series needs a time-skip to the next year ASAP, because these first-years have gone as far as they can possibly go. Sakaeguchi calls out to Mihashi, “You’re not alone! We’re all here with you!” Well I’m not.
The next batter gets another hit, but luckily Izumi catches it. 2 outs, still one more out left to get when the chapter ends. Even if they do get him out and change sides the game is almost over and Higuchi Asa isn’t the nice, warm kind of mangaka who would let her team come back from a 4-run deficit. At least now I know enough to check back in in about 6 months or so to see what the team does next after losing so spectacularly.
And might I add here that even though in real life losing matches and winning matches last roughly the same amount of time (especially in timed sports like soccer), fans don’t necessarily want to read 10 chapters of their favorite team losing, especially if those 10 chapters take 12 months to cover when you factor in the author’s breaks. Higuchi is a planner who must have known she was going to make them lose in the end, so she really should have condensed the match and focused on the “what happens next” aspect. We’re not going to get attached to Senda at this point, so stop introducing so many new characters and get on with it already!
