Diamond no Ace is an anime about baseball. That immediately causes problems for me because not only do I not like baseball, but I can't understand the rules! I persevered through it nonetheless! Anyway, it's not just about baseball, it's about Eijun who fell in love with baseball in middle school and made all his classmates play with him then, in his final middle school game a teacher from Seido high school school see him pitching and offers him a scholarship!
He soon finds out though, that he is not as skilled as the other players and that if he wants to join Seido high's elite team he has to work a lot harder. Especially if he wants to achieve his dream of being the ace!
It's a tale about working to achieve you dreams and fighting through the hardships that might get in your way. It's a very feel-good story full of motivation! So, I don't like baseball, but I'm trying to not let that bias my opinion because it's no worse than any other sports anime. It does lack anything that makes it special as far as I'm concerned, but it's not a bad plot. Although, nothing really happens because it's more focused on the characters and character development rather than progressing the plot, simply because there's not really much you can do with a plot about a high school baseball team with out making it totally ridiculous!
Anyway, what was that about characters and character development? Nothing but praise! All the characters are totally individual, they feel more personal than the stock characters which are so often used! Eijun is lively and optimistic but it more carefree way than Onoda so he's still a lot of fun. Furuya appears serious at first but not only do you see him slowly open up to the rest of the team he also has a comical way of reacting to serious issues!
Beyond that, there are lot of characters who though at first might be minor characters are further explored in detail just to elaborate on the theme of overcoming obstacles. There's a catcher who hides his injured shoulder and at first appears to have given up on baseball, a pitcher who loses his self-confidence after seeing the first years progressing so quickly and just little things like that which are carefully interlaced in the story. Unlike some series where characters get an episode devoted to their backstory and development, these stories are carefully intergrated so they don't mess up the overall pacing of the series.
It is worth me repeating that I really don't know anything about baseball, but it's disappointing to see that my knowledge of baseball hasn't improved! Unlike when I watched Yowamushi Pedal, I didn't know anything about cycling races, but they carefully explained the technical terms. Diamond no Ace isn't explaining any of the terms, I get quite lost sometimes with all the baseball jargon! "Oh, but in Yowamushi Pedal they explained the terms because Onoda was a total newb to cycling!", yes but in Diamond no Ace Eijun is new to the elite training style of Seido so I'm sure they could explain things a bit with out it being too awkward!
A second thing that makes me uncomfortable in this series is the 'manager' club. The idea being that there's a handful of girls who are training to be baseball 'managers', but it seems to me a lot more like the girls are just slaving over the baseball club. They have to do all the mundane tasks like makeing the lunch, preparing drinks, and cleaning the pitch. My understanding of manager is not like that at all. That sound more like the baseball teams groupies! The worst part: they are the only girls in the show! The only thing females do in this series is cook and clean and that's upsetting!
So I think I'm going to have to sit on the fence about this one. The baseball thing is a big turn off for me, especially as they don't explain any of the terms but that's such a fundamental part of the show that it's hard to look past it! Their use of female characters is distressing, it would've been better if they had none at all but the members of the baseball team are all such brilliant characters that I often forget that they even exist! I would definitely say to watch it if you are a fan of baseball because I'm positive you'd enjoy it! Those less familiar with the sport are going to find it very inaccessible since without understanding the game the cliffhangers don't have any suspense in them and the serious situations just aren't going to connect with you in the same way. Being a member of the latter group makes it very hard for me to draw a decisive conclusion on this show. So basically, I'd say it's worth a watch if you like baseball.
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