Tamayomi

Title:Tamayomi
Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls
球詠
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: AMANO Satomi
Animation - Studio A-Cat
MAEDA Kaori
On her first day at high school, Yomi Takeda happens across her childhood friend, Tamaki Yamazaki, also a new student. The conversation turns to baseball, and they recall the wicked breaking ball that Yomi could once throw with flexible toy balls, and how the two of them vowed that if she could ever do the same with the hard ball, they'd team up as a pitcher-catcher duo in the professional sport. It turns out that Yomi has done just that.

12 episodes
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 7 6 7 5 5 5 Ggultra2764 [series:3839#1552]
Tamayomi is largely pretty cookie-cutter for its story with its main group of girls forming a baseball team and having the familiar storytelling beats of attempting to recruit members, polishing their skills, and proving themselves in legitimate competition. Lacking any sort of character depth or development does kill much investment I can get with the series as the characters only get a simple personality type or character trope they're tacked on with and don't get much else to work with personality-wise. Without investment in the individual members of the main team, I honestly could care less for the two tournament games they played for the title's second half. Honestly with this major issue, Tamayomi is largely rather mediocre and forgettable for me due to the typical storytelling formula it depicts without adding any layers to it to give the storytelling and characters more depth to allow any sense of attachment to it.

Last updated Monday, August 08 2022. Created Monday, August 08 2022.
Rent Stretch [series:3839#628]
(All episodes watched):

At first, episode one of this show annoyed me--it seemed to have been dumbed down to the level of the lowest common denominator and the VAs seemed to have been whiffing helium before recording sessions. With time, however, I concluded that it wasn't all that bad. A question is laid out: can these two girls really make Yomi's amazing pitch and Tama's unique ability to catch it work against serious opposition? In middle school Yomi belonged to a lackadaisical team whose catcher considered her special pitch to be more of a liability than an asset because it was just as difficult to catch as it was to hit. I hoped this show would remain focused on the two main protagonists (their names compose the title, after all) rather than being about the entire team, and thereby lots of shallow characters instead of a couple of deep ones. Still, I didn't mind them meeting two new friends (twin sisters) who will no doubt be the first recruits for the team that is put together. As they hold an ad hoc demonstration of Yomi's pitch and Tama's catch the various characters talk enough to flesh them all out and by the end of the episode they no longer seemed like the near-airheads that they had begun as. In short, my guess was that Tamayomi will not be brilliant but had at least the bare bones of an enjoyable series.

In episode two the team starts to come together as a mix of new students and a few veterans of the old team which fell apart under acrimonious circumstances are recruited. A doubt is raised about whether Yomi's pitch is as fabulous as it has seemed up til now. So far, so good. In episode three the question of what exactly the team's purpose will be is raised. Will it try to go all the way to 'The Nationals' and win the high school championship? Or is it more about just having fun? Tama has some misgivings about the decision to shoot for the stars, though I wish they had been made more clear. I sort of wish somebody would make an anime about a team which plays just for fun and is surprised to find that that attitude sometimes wins games. It gets a little hard to believe how much latent talent this team has had the good luck to stumble across--like the Kendo champion who wants to give baseball a try, for example.

In episode four the team plays their first game, an unofficial practice game against what turns out to be a well respected high school team. They do better than expected. We get a touch of the conflict between winning-is-everything and just having fun. But the message seems to be that you have to do both--you won't win unless you are enjoying yourself as well. The converse question naturally arises, do you have to be winning to enjoy yourself? I couldn't help feeling that contrary to my hopes this show had become more about the team as a whole than about Tama and Yomi, and as a result it felt less focused and intriguing. I wasn't sensing anything really unique and distinctive about the entire team. So, Tamayomi struck me as not brilliant, not thrilling, but modestly fun to watch. At least I got a little baseball amid the pandemic.

A team which has won a total of one game is entitled to a chance at winning the national girls high school championship, apparently. In episode seven the team practices and studies potential opponents. They are regarded as little more than a joke by most other teams, owing to their scandal-ridden past. But somewhere or other they have gotten pretty good at baseball and are serious competitors. This anime must have done something right, because I was on the edge of my seat for the final episode. Despite my earlier wish that the series concentrate on just Tama and Yomi, and even though I couldn't remember the names or backgrounds of all the players, the team as a whole had taken on a life of its own and I could root for it. Though not terribly surprising, the conclusion felt genuinely cathartic. So, the total of Tamayomi was greater than the sum of all the parts. Throughout the season it had been a fun show to watch and whenever it was this show's turn I felt a little lucky.

Last updated Friday, July 17 2020. Created Wednesday, April 22 2020.

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