Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls Revisit – Full First Season Episode Review

I reviewed the first 5 episodes of the series Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls in a previous blog entry.  I enjoyed the series and gave it a generally positive review.  There were a few negatives, though, such as some awkward animation and the need for the viewer to like baseball to get the full enjoyment of the series even if a lot of the characters and story was watchable without any understanding of baseball.  I enjoyed the series enough, though, to continue watching it on Funimation and recently finished the first season, which is 12 episodes long.

Unfortunately, a lot of the later part of the first seasons is structured so the flaws in the series become more noticeable and start to take away from the ability of a casual viewer to enjoy watching the show.  The main issue is that after the first 5 episodes the series starts to move away from the character focus and relies more heavily on the baseball games to provide drama and story beats.  There are still some nice character moments present in the later portion.  For example, during the final game the slugger Nozomi helps to encourage and cheer up the team manager Yoshino in a really sweet moment that highlights how the characters have helped each other grow.  If you don’t know a bit about the rules and strategy of baseball, however, you are mostly going to find yourself lost or bored as most of the drama centers around tactics and the action happening in the games.

Additionally, focusing more on the game action means more of the awkward and clunky 3d animation.  While in the early episodes these issues were mainly seen in the background or were just a few seconds in each episode, as the games take center stage in the events of the show, there is progressively more of the 3d animation and it makes up more of what the viewer is seeing in each episode.  By the later part of the series it gets to a point where the animation is actively detracting from the viewing experience.  If a viewer isn’t as engaged by the baseball focused content they may have a hard time looking past the animation.

The final issue with the first season is that the story is left incomplete.  The season ends after the second game of the regional summer tournament without finishing the tournament.  While the second game is finished, there is barely any wrap up or reflection.  Instead, the characters are left just kind of waiting around.  Additionally, a second season of the series at this point is not yet announced and may not even happen, so there may never be a resolution to the story.

Overall, I still liked Tamayomi, but I am a baseball fan.  If you are a more casual baseball fan or don’t like the sport at all, the series may not be for you.

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