Forum - View topicCross Game (TV).
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wombat6025
Posts: 5 |
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Agreed - completely answers any niggling doubts about their relationship in three sentences. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18213 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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But we do see that, during the closing credits starting at around the 23 minute mark. spoiler[Kou is clearly shown pitching, Akaishi is clearly shown catching, and the picture drawn by Akane hanging over the center field wall, which was supposedly modeled after Kou but Kou declared some time ago to actually be more representative of Aoba's pitching form, represents Aoba. And since that picture won a contest to be displayed prominently at Koshien, the scene has to be Koshien. So the dream is fulfilled, after all.] |
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wombat6025
Posts: 5 |
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Thanks or pointing that out Key (I've not re-watched the final yet and missed it first time-around) - I guess it would have been a bit cheesy spoiler[having some unlikely rule-change (I'd hoped the old drinking geyser was going to swing that one) and have Aoba on the pitch] - perhaps I'm too greedy. 
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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Realized yesterday that I had stopped at 47 for some reason, so I finished up the last three episodes. Wonderful ending. However, if I have to pick a flaw in the series, it was Senda. I don't really get why his role had to be as large as it was. I suppose he was meant to be comic relief, but he just wasn't funny. He didn't ever understand the social dynamics that were the focus of the story, but constantly tried to become involved in him while all the other characters passively aggressively antagonized him. Also, the rock-climbing cousin seemed rather extraneous to the whole plot. I don't feel he added anything at all either.
Still, those are pretty minor issues, and is easily ignored when the show delivers complexity in seemingly simple statements, like Aoba's outburst of spoiler["I've always hated you!"] |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18213 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Senda was my second-least-favorite regular character, but he did serve two important roles in the series. He was not so much a comic relief character as the lively one, the one who displays naked confidence and enthusiasm even when it isn't warranted, whereas the rest of the cast tended to take things a little too seriously. Besides, I often did get a chuckle out of how out of the loop he always was.
His other important role is that of the Clueless Character, which the series does not otherwise have. CG has several characters who aren't honest and forthcoming with their feelings, but it is also full of characters that are quite insightful. Senda has to be the voice for the person who just doesn't get it. Now, the rock-climbing cousin, him I could have done without. He was in there, I presumed, to provide some romantic competition for Kou, but that never really gelled, which was the series' one true failing. In the end, he was just a waste. |
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ChrisH8
 Posts: 37 Location: Southern California |
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IMO, the series' one true failing was its animation quality. It was mediocre at the beginning and only improved to good later on. While I thought the writing for the series was excellent, I do have a few nitpicks. I'm glad more women's national team stuff was added for Aoba. However, I would've liked to have seen some effort made to get Aoba to play in the men's tournament games, even if was just symbolic. Also, something good should've explicitly happened to Hiroko, the "chubby" team manager. Her character seems to have disappeared at the end. (I've only seen the episodes once, so I may have missed something.) |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18213 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Agreed. If I ever get to review this for a release, I will have to dog on the animation and the lack of variability in facial expressions. (Showing more than one different expression is so rare for most characters that it really stands out when it happens. Do we ever see Aoba smile, for instance?)
Enh, she was never more than a background character so I never expected much. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well, I just finished this series less than two hours ago and I've already been a good boy and written my writeup on my MyAnime page. Since I am also a very lazy person, I'll just copy-paste it here.
"This is not the Masterpiece that some people will have you believe. Not even close. But it is entertaining and engaging, and notably well-executed for a Sports Anime. The direction and the music are excellent, and the flashbacks are integrated in such a way as to not only avoid being annoying, but as an actual integral part of the show. I also commend the show for its unique character designs. Though at first they are confusing, it doesn't take long to learn to differentiate between characters; those Anime that insist on impossible hair colours could learn a thing or two about subtlety. However, as good as their designs are, the handling of the characters themselves is actually a bit of a let-down. Kou and Aoba have many great touching scenes together, but usually, Aoba's ridiculous insistence on being antisocial around him gets really tiring. I also thought that many of the supporting characters were woefully underused, and then there's Akane, who's inclusion I just never bought. Additionally, we never get to see the characters have real lives outside of baseball and That Dream, which sort of makes it hard to properly like them or - especially - see them as actual people. yeah, I know they're not, but that's no excuse. They are all passionate, I get that, but their sole devotion to baseball above virtually everything else is almost inhuman. How many times did we see Kou in the classroom? Hardly ever. How often are major characters completely uninterested in members of the opposite sex? Until the later parts of the show there was Nakanishi and virtually no-one else. It is a show about baseball, but the characters - merely high-school age, remember - come off as being weirdos in their obsession. So anyway, the whole point of that rant about the characters was to say that much of the emotional appeal just didn't work for me, and without such appeal I cannot rate this a Masterpiece. And since the show itself is rock solid but not amazing, I can't rate it Excellent either. Hence, my rating. I do believe that this is the show to get people into Sports Anime, and so I do wholeheartedly recommend it. But I won't pretend that this is something it just simply is not (i.e. a Masterpiece)." |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18213 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Can't agree with you on a lot of those points, dtm42 - and honestly, you're being too nitpicky in your expectations. (Which is, of course, your right even if I think you're being unreasonable.) Focusing primarily (or even exclusively) on the highlighted aspect of a student's life is a very common story structure in both anime and live-action productions, especially when the other elements have no significant impact on the main story. In this case, what goes on in the classroom simply isn't relevant in the story, so they don't bother to show it. Also, let's face it, nearly all of the key student-aged characters in this story (really except for Akane) are jocks or those who normally associate with them (i.e. the chubby manager), and for kids in that age range who are serious about a particular sport, that kind of singular focus is hardly unusual; for instance, here in the U.S. if you're a top basketball prospect in your middle school and high school years then you're so involved with basketball-related matters that you don't have much of a life beyond that.
Besides, they do at least occasionally show Kou, Aoba, Akaishi, and others in down time, such as the festival episode where everyone finds out about Akane, the one where Aoba goes out on a "date" with several suitors at the same time, or the various times characters are just hanging out in the batting center's cafe. Granted, this doesn't happen a lot, but there's enough of it to fend off accusations of the series being too focused. |
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ChrisH8
Posts: 37 Location: Southern California |
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Yes, and after a little checking I found out that baseball is the number one team sport in Japan. Kōshien stadium was built in 1924(!) and it was built to host national high school baseball tournaments. And whilst at war with the USA during World War II, baseball tournaments were likely taking place in both countries. So the characters' devotion to baseball isn't that extraordinary.
BTW, I previously didn't understand some things about the Kōshien tournaments while watching the series (I'm not Japanese). After beating Ryuō high school to win the Northern Tokyo regional, Seishu high school will compete against 48 other regional champions in Kōshien Stadium. Because Ryuō made the semifinals in the previous Summer Kōshien and later won the Spring Kōshien, Seishu must be one of the top teams in the country and should do very well in the Summer Kōshien tournament although with it being un-seeded, they could use some luck. Other trivia: * Somehow due to the timing, 1st year high school students typically can't participate in the invitational Spring Kōshien tournaments. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4613 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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I just finished Cross Game, I got through the 50 episodes in a week and am tempted to just start over.
A very satisfying series. (I was going to put this in the just watched section but saw that a lot of my observations weren't discussed here previously so maybe it'd be best to post here instead) And although it worked very well marathoned I sort of wish I had been watching it as it came out weekly so I could have joined in discussions. I had a lot of little and I guess unimportant questions pop up some of which I've probably forgotten. Here's a couple: What is the custom of pictures included in a Japanese family shrine? In the show only Wakaba's picture is in it but the mother would have died somewhere between 1-4 years prior to Wakaba, it seems to me she should be there too and not just on the wall near-by Does a family only include the picture of the most recently passed family member? Was this a prime-time series? What sort of timeslot did it hold? From the picture contests and postcard lottery/quizes it's obvious it had some sort of youth following. There was a scene in which Momiji is remembering some happy memories of her with both Kou and Wakaba and then says "I'm sorry, Wakaba." What did that mean? spoiler[I thought maybe it meant that she had realized that she too loves Kou and feels guilty, which would not be unimaginable- they treat each other like siblings but it would make complete sense that she would have stronger feelings for him. Yet they never followed up on that and is never really hinted at, maybe out of love for Wakaba or deference to Aoba or just because she doesn't think he could ever see her that way.] Still, it's an intriguing dropped line. Did anyone else wonder if it might have eventually been revealed that Akane was actually spoiler[the weak swimmer that Wakaba was attempting to save when she lost her life? (A sickly girl that tried swim camp despite not being strong) Apparently that swimmer didn't also drown, so Wakaba was either successful or the other girl wasn't actually in danger. Even before Akane's introduction it seemed to me that the explanation of Wakaba's death should have been made more explicit and the introduction of the girl that was saved could have helped given closure to the mourners. Yet that wasn't the case with Akane and the details of her demise were never fully explained. Although I have to say that not knowing gave the the situation an effective melancholy feel and a sense that a death could just suddenly happen and would feel completely unreal.] And finally, did everyone notice the slight difference in the opening credits of the final episode? At some point in the early episodes I became impressed with the artistic touch they gave of dimming the "Wakaba" leaf in the clover to represent that sense of loss. But in the final episode the clover was complete again (as it was in the first episode). I guess it represents that they have finally mostly come to terms with the loss and that Kou is maybe filling the void. Last edited by Spastic Minnow on Sat Jul 17, 2010 12:35 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Sunday mornings at 10 am on TV Tokyo, I believe. There may have been showings at other times in other regions, but if so, I doubt they'd have been late at night. |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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I had not previously given thought to this idea, but I would have to say, no, I don't believe that to be the case. spoiler[The point that Akane looks like a doppelganger of Wakaba is a fairly important one, and Akane wouldn't have simply forgotten what the girl who saved her life as a child looked like, especially if she looked like she might have been an identical twin.] |
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 4613 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Well, if it had gone that way it would have also been the case that she was keeping it a secret. It would be an awfully hard topic to slip into conversation and something she would feel guily about. Yes, eventually it was made clear that was not the case but in the beginning I wondered. spoiler[Like when she met Ko by the graveyard, it crossed my mind that she could have been visiting the grave as well. And when she asked to see pictures of Wakaba I wondered if she were confirming to herself who Wakaba was. ] |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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You're not alone; I too wondered if Akane wasn't the girl Wakaba had saved. However, I didn't think to piece the graveyard meeting together with the theory.
It certainly would have been a great plot twist, on the spiritual level moreso than the intellectual one. |
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