Ballpark de Tsukamaete! \u2013 01<\/strong><\/p>\n Ballpark de Tsukamaete!<\/em> was literally the last show in the season preview (though the \u201cModestly Interested\u201d pack could have been shuffled any old way) so it\u2019s fair to say my expectations were modest. But really, this was pretty decent. I\u2019m a baseball fan generally. And while this series isn\u2019t a baseball one per se, that helps. But I also love the unique Japanese ballpark experience, so totally different from anything you experience in the States. And this is really the only sports show (however loosely) this season that I\u2019m remotely interested in.<\/p>\n Catcher in the Ballpark!<\/em> focuses on the Chiba Motorsuns (loosely based on the Chiba Lotte Marines). A schlub of a salaryman named Murata Koutarou<\/a> goes to the park for his one diversion in life, but sits in the \u201copen\u201d seats because he\u2019s too self-loathing even to join in the cheering<\/a>. A gyaru-looking beer vendor named Ruriko<\/a> hones in on him as a possible easy mark, important since beer girls work on commission. She teases Murata pretty hard but does wind up reeling him in. What he doesn\u2019t realize is that Ruriko is a noob herself and rather shy, and he was the first guy she really talked to.<\/p>\n The whole beer girl subculture is (like seemingly everything else) a major thing in Japan. I love beer too, and there certainly is an art<\/a> to properly pulling a draft beer. The dynamic between these two is something I\u2019m still undecided about, but there were some cute moments. There was also a segment focusing on the security dudes<\/a> and a lost child, which suggests this series is likely to be a more general look at ballpark life than a laser-focused character study on Ririko and Koutarou. The seinen manga it\u2019s based on has been running for 16 volumes, so there should be no shortage of material to draw on (and the narrative seems likely to be pretty episodic).<\/p>\n A ballpark slice-of-life could certainly work for me, and I enjoyed this premiere a fair bit. Koutarou\u2019s musing on the \u201cthird place\u201d element is an interesting one for me. I worked at Starbucks as a manager many years ago, and they were the ones who really championed the third place mentality as a retail model. It certainly applies to the Japanese ballpark more than the American one. EMT Squared is nothing special as a studio and there are no marquee names on the staff list, so as you\u2019d expect the production values are nothing special. But the experience of Ballpark de Tsukamaete!<\/em> is on the whole a pretty pleasant one.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Your Forma \u2013 01<\/strong><\/p>\n Your Forma<\/em> is a light-novel adaptation, which doesn\u2019t get us off to the greatest start. But it\u2019s a robotics-A.I. crime thriller, and Geno is a studio that can be interesting. They burst onto the scene with the wildly underrated Kokkoku<\/em>, and their shows tend to have a somewhat scruffy retro quality that I often find appealing. The staff here is fairly interesting as well.<\/p>\n The premiere\u00a0 was\u2026 not bad, I guess? I did like the old-school look and feel, and while the premise is quite the chestnut in this sort of work it started off interestingly enough. The MacGuffin of the piece are androids called \u201cAmicus\u201d, one of whom \u2013 who acts as a partner to a human detective \u2013 has been detained by Scotland Yard in a series of attacks on humans. That should be impossible thanks to the usual robotics prime directive stuff, but the victims all seem sure. The android in question here is called Harold<\/a>, and his partner Echika<\/a> \u2013 historically a robot-hater apparently \u2013 comes to his defense.<\/p>\n The teasing banter between Harold and Echika had its moments, and the \u201cMoon\u201d tabloid<\/a> gave me a good chuckle.\u00a0 I did find myself start to drift in the B-part, however. The format her is very typical detective story in the sci-fi mold, and if those sorts of shows are going to succeed it has to be either because the mysteries are engaging or the characters are. Either or even both might wind up being true with Your Forma<\/em>, but at this point I\u2019m not ready to bet the ranch on it.<\/p>\n
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