Tamayomi First Impressions

“If Yoshino and Ibuki were there to watch, and if Tama caught for me… I’d do it…”

I’ve lamented in the past that, despite being a broad genre with a multitude of different subjects, sports anime rarely center around groups of females. There are rare exceptions, but often they’ll be centered around fanservice like Keijo or aim more towards club comedy like Scorching Ping Pong Girls appeared to do with its first episode. Tamayomi is refreshingly traditional in that sense, but possibly to a fault. Aside from featuring female players, the series is about as traditional as it gets. Baseball is the most common sport to base an anime around, so keeping the narrative fresh and engaging can prove to be a challenge. That isn’t to say it doesn’t have a few charms, but with substandard animation and a cliched hook, it has its work cut out for it. Frankly, I want Tamayomi to succeed, but I don’t believe I’ll be sticking with it through the season, especially given its mediocre production values.

The story centers on Yomi Takeda, a former middle school pitcher who, upon reaching high school, decides she’s going to leave baseball behind. It’s tempting to compare her story to Big Windup!’s Ren as both ran into conflicts with their teammates. The difference lies in the reasoning though, as Ren’s slow pitches weren’t appreciated for their precision, while Yomi’s extreme curveball frustrated her less serious and committed catcher. On the first day of class she meets a pair of twins named Yoshino and Ibuki Kawaguchi who are both baseball fans. As they leave to go visit the mall, Yomi encounters her childhood friend, Tamaki Yomizaki, who became a pitcher. Shocked to encounter one another at their new school, the pair agree to play some catch, leading to Yomi showing off her unconventional curveball. Impressed by her ability to throw a ball that swings extremely wide still end up in the strike zone, the girls convince Yomi to give baseball another chance. Yomi tentatively agrees under the condition that Tamaki acts as her catcher.

As a narrative, that’s straightforward but charming. Now it’s time for blunt honesty. This is an ugly show. Studio A-Cat is handling the production for this series, and they screwed up. This looks like animation and character designs from 15 years ago. To add insult to injury, during the course of looking up production information, I pulled up the art from the original manga, and its visuals are quite charming. The aesthetic in this adaptation is almost unrecognizable. Character models are angular with limited details and flourishes. Studio A-Cat has only produced a few anime in the past, and most were joint productions. It’s one thing to have an anime be visually bland, but to have one that feels like it’s selling its source material short is a big no-no. I feel sorry for the original mangaka, Mountain Pukuichi. Before looking up the details on this series, I legitimately wondered if this was a light novel adaptation. Sports series based on light novels aren’t a common occurrence, but at least it would explain the below average character designs.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• Can we have an embargo on starting your sports series with a flash forward to a big game? This is a recurring trend in these titles, and it comes across as forced. You’re supposed to build to those big moments, but the series wants to offer a snapshot to assure viewers that things will get exciting eventually. Sometimes it’s done well, but often I find myself irked by it.
• This isn’t one of the ugliest anime I’ve watched, but it’s a striking disparity between the source material and the adaptation. Plus, this is just the first episode! Imagine if the studio can’t maintain this quality! At least with Isekai Cheat Magician we were starting with a light novel, and the manga adaptation wasn’t visually great either, so it made sense that turned out rather ugly. And W’z was an adaptation of an epileptic seizure blended with a night terror, so that made logical sense. (This is a joke. W’z never made logical sense.)