TAMAYOMI: The Baseball Girls

球詠

5.87(13K votes)

Ranked #11472Popularity #4269

episodes

Type

Status

Finished Airing

Aired

Apr 1, 2020 to Jun 17, 2020

Studios:Studio A-CAT

Sports

Synopsis

Yomi Takeda and Tamaki Yamazaki have loved baseball since they were kids. They used to play catch together whenever possible, and in doing so, Yomi discovered her talent for throwing the ball in a way that seemed like magic. The girls promised to keep playing baseball even when they are older and were separated soon after. In the years that followed, Tamaki went on to become a skilled catcher, but Yomi did not get very far despite her throwing prowess. Deciding to quit her passion, Yomi starts her first year at Shin Koshigaya High School. Try as she might to avoid anything related to baseball, she meets the twins Yoshino and Ibuki Kawaguchi, both of whom are enthusiasts of the sport. Moreover, she stumbles upon Tamaki, and just like old times, they decide to play catch—reigniting Yomi’s desire to pitch. Reunited, Yomi and Tamaki set out to fulfill their childhood promise. Alongside Yoshino and Ibuki, they strive to revive their school’s baseball team which has been on hiatus. More members join until their group is complete, and now the new goal of Shin Koshigaya's girls' baseball team is nothing less than winning the national championships. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

36,058 Members

Worth Watching? — Global Verdict

6.2/10

Average Review Score

50%

Recommend It

Reviews Worldwide

International Reviews

csticks

Recommended

I’ll be honest, I didn’t care about baseball at all going into this anime. I knew the rules of baseball and had seen a couple games before watching this anime, but I would not have even considered baseball a passing interest to me before starting Tamayomi. While I still am not entirely interested in watching nor playing actual baseball, it occurred to me while watching Tamayomi, baseball is the perfect sport for an anime to keep someone at the edge of their seat. The way baseball is structured with its three-strikes-and-you’re-out mechanic just makes it so easy for Tamayomi to build tension. Multiple times inTamayomi a character is shown pitching or batting twice and we are introduced to their weaknesses during play. Then, there’s a pause on the third pitch that creates great tension: will the character overcome their previously shown weaknesses and arise victorious for their team or not? All Tamayomi needed to do was follow this model of creating tension through normal baseball play for the show to be entertaining, but for the show to truly stand out it needed to fit this mold with an amazing style, which it ultimately did not do. The Good: Tamayomi starts off slow to introduce us to the cast and all of their former play before they joined the high school baseball team. This is where I think the show might lose some people, because most of the characters have run-of-the-mill personalities on their own and none of the show’s Cute Girls Doing Cute Things moments particularly interested me. Upon watching the later episodes of the show however, I noticed that these early episodes are a critical foundation for the tension created in the moment-to-moment baseball play presented in the later episodes. Instead of wasting time introducing us to each player’s backstory as they play, the back stories were already given to us so we can infer just how meaningful each pitch, catch, or swing of the bat is to every player on the field. These character moments presented through baseball plays are reinforced by the comradery of the team on the field. Each character’s inner monologues and cheering on of their teammates are rewarding as a viewer because of the character backstories that were established early on. The high personal stakes of each baseball moment coupled with the tension-building formula I mentioned earlier makes for extremely dramatic baseball gameplay that is not in the least bit boring, which is very commendable with how much apathy I had for the sport going into the anime. The Bad: As I previously mentioned, none of the CGCDT moments really did anything for me, with one exception. At the end of most of the first five or six episodes, I was left thinking: “I could not give a single fuck about any of these characters.” The one character that did stand out to me was Yoshino, her love of the sport and everyone involved really sold me on the team as a whole and her encouraging messages given to the team during play help each game feel meaningful. As I said earlier though, these more forgettable moments in the early episodes are a necessary evil for making the baseball games later in the series more impactful, though the series probably could’ve done a better job of making me care about the characters as they’re being introduced. The Ugly: There’s no way around it, Tamayomi is an extremely ugly anime. With an unfortunate reliance on robotic, 3D animation for many important scenes and some poorly drawn faces on the characters appearing sporadically throughout the series, it is hard to say Tamayomi is anything except ugly. Though the art did get slightly better towards the end, the art is still the biggest thing holding this anime back from being great. As Tamayomi aired during the COVID-19 pandemic when many anime had production issues, bad art might be given a pass, but when every shot is so poorly drawn and animated that it becomes the focus and distracts from what’s actually happening, it’s too big of an issue for me to ignore when scoring. Verdict: Tamayomi starts off with forgettable character introductions but makes up for it with incredibly engaging baseball games later in the series whose characters’ love for baseball makes it easy to find enjoyment despite little interest in the sport itself. Though the baseball games are exciting, the awful art and animation hold the anime back from being something amazing.

Episodes (12)

Filler Recap

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Community Discussion

dlxuniuniu

Recommended

It's time for baseball (again)! The Japanese baseball hype continues! Every year we see a new baseball anime, many will remember the anime "Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine" from Spring last year surely. If you already know it and liked that anime, you will also have fun watching Tamayomi. STORY: You want to win in every sport. Winning is fun, but losing is also part of life. You have to learn from your mistakes. Baseball is played with nine people on the field, but there are more is involved than the nine players themselves. In "Tamayomi" we see a total of eleven girls (a coach + a supervisor) who aimto win the championship. Many of the players already had a baseball past, but for school or private reasons this had to be put on hold. The "Shin Koshigaya High School", where our girlteam has their home, had a strong baseball history, but it has been disbanded. With the help and cooperation, our two protagonists Yomi and Tamaki (anime name: Tamayomi) managed to create a new baseball team again. Together our girls have the goal to win the national championship. In addition to their strong ambition, we also see their extreme commitment to cooperation. In baseball you can only win as a team! CHARACTERS: You can feel the close friendship and solidarity of the characters. They have fun playing baseball together. Even if individual mistakes are made, the team stands behind them. They win together and they lose together. The development can also be seen well. Each of our girls wants to improve in baseball. They train hard with each other and also discover one or the other talent of the other person that they did not know before. The bond between our main protagonists Yomi and Tamaki is the most emphasized of all girls. ART: The point that many would probably want an improvement. It's not the typical CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things) art style. The characters look adult-like and if you can them in one word: THICC. Yes, THICC is the right word to describe the style. It definitely has a different style than the normal one's. The different environments and colors are well expressed. The different flight curves of the baseballs are clearly visible. SOUND: The OP song gives you a sporty feeling as if it was cheering you on and saying: GIVE YOUR BEST AND WIN! It's fun to hear. The ED song also fits this sports anime. After a long and exhausting game, you want to end the day (preferably with a win, of course) in a comfy way. The music is perfect for this. In addition to the music, the flight noise of the balls is very convincing. In general, many of the small sound details were not neglected. ENJOYMENT: I had fun watching "Hachigatsu" last year, so this anime was definitely on my to-watch list. It is difficult for me to say which of those two is the better one. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Although I personally have nothing to do with baseball, I was still interested in how a game works here. In Tamayomi we get a brief but detailed explanation of the rules. The will to win of our is extremely strong, tactics are used that every viewer hates, even if they comply with the rules. This point is what appeals to me most personally. WINNING! On the other hand, I have to honestly admit that the art style doesn't appeal to me so much, I would like to see it in a different way (not that THICC). In the end, everyone has to decide for themselves whether they like this anime or not. The criticism for this is understandable, but also positive aspects can be taken. Winning is an important part of sport, but you have to have fun too of course!

20 found helpfulJun 18, 2020

okurokichoki

Recommended

Let me try to give this anime some understanding. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I enjoyed the characters save for the very few either less interesting or underdeveloped (some minor characters are a standout), the moments between them and mostly, yes, enjoyed the way the anime looked. The art isn't bad. I suppose it's hard to satisfy with it's reliance on cost and time-cutting measures, but it does set a high bar at times, the characters are well portrayed and the movement during the games is sometimes excellent. Yes at times it's nauseating, but let's just keep in mind the very good possibility the comittee didn'tget to fully complete what they set out to do on schedule due to unsuspecting circumstances. It's a shame, but I tried hard to make it detract as less as possible and it worked. I enjoyed the good, and I think there's lot of it that's good about this anime despite. For people who like baseball, enjoy, the game is portrayed well, the POV team's strategist is one of the leads (and the more likeable characters) and there isn't any bore with high-level tactics or babble. The sport is taken serious. For yuri fans, enjoy, there's many nice moments but keep in mind this anime sets up more serious relationships, doesn't deal with them. (and the payoffs are small and much later in) And generally for those who like giving overlooked anime a fighting chance, by all means enjoy! P.S. Among my favorite characters are those who appear later on, on the team which are the POV team's main rival, and later on are also some of the show's best moments and also much less reliance on cost and time-cutting 3D animation. So if you give it a chance, do mind you'll be missing a whole lot of potential hooks without watching this anime through.

13 found helpfulAug 23, 2020