Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls (Episode 4) - Pitch of Promise

After putting a team together, they finally get a chance to play a game. It’s a practice match but against one of the favourites for Nationals. Let’s see if Yomi can use her unstoppable pitch to good effect!

Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls (Episode 4) – Pitch of Promise

What happened?

The visiting team were without their star pitcher, who hadn’t shown up yet, so they started the backup and even she had a killer pitch. That said, they got off to a surprising start as Nozomi hit the first pitch and made it all the way to third base. Amazingly, by the end of the innings, they had three runs. Now it was time for Yomi to show the results of her years of hard work. It took her a little to get used to the idea of relying on her teammates after spending so long as the only player taking it seriously, but she survived the first innings without conceding a run. As the game went on, Yomi had a little blip and allowed the opposition to take the lead. Then, as they entered the seventh innings, the opposition’s star pitcher had taken the field and it wasn’t looking good.

Tamayomi The Baseball Girls Episode 4 Pre-game Talk

What did you think?

The animation for this series really isn’t going to win any awards, but then neither is the story. It is pretty much as you might have guessed. They started well, surprising their opponents who were taking these nobodies lightly, gave up the lead, and then set things up to bring it home, only to lose at the last. It was a textbook first game, but it was enjoyable enough. I don’t see myself getting too invested in this, it’s certainly not Harukana Receives or Hinomaru Sumo, but it’s not going to be a chore either. This is going to be a fairly easy series to watch and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t expect too much.

Tamayomi The Baseball Girls Episode 4 Tamaki Yamazaki and Yomi Takeda Striking Out Batters

What have you learned?

Is there a new way to do the same old thing? Probably, but this isn’t it. I think it would be an interesting idea to step through the cliches and standard path for a sports series, but then completely throw a spanner in there. It would definitely be an easy setup, because everyone, and I mean everyone, will be expecting the usual, so even the slightest deviation would make for a pretty big shock. Ironically, I think a series like this would be the perfect place to do something like that. I don’t think that’ll be the case here, but one can dream!