English Dub Review: MIX “Meisei’s Ace”

Steeerike!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Like most baseball seasons, this series kicks off with what is mostly an introduction of our principal characters. We meet stepbrothers Tōma and Sōichirō Tachibana, Meisei high school’s first real hope at competing in a high school baseball tournament in thirty years. The school is super serious about getting their, too having also recruited coach (what we would call a general manager in the United States) Coach Kuroyanagi. We also meet the stepbrothers’ sister Otomi and everyone’s parents including father Eisuke Tachibana who is working on his second marriage to Mayumi.

In terms of the team, Toma or “Toe” for short, is an ace pitcher, a position that’s highly sought after on this team, however, by the end of the episode, it’s fairly clear that Toma’s gonna be your number one option. His stepbrother Soichiro is a catcher, and it appears as though he has the job by default. During the course of the episode while the coach works out and begins assembling his roster of players filling positions both in the outfield and infield. After a long first day of practice, the boys retreat home and we fade to black as we start to learn about Sōichirō and Otomi’s deceased father who was also a pitcher at the same school that these kids go to now.

Our Take

Baseball is a science…not a sport. As a result, I’ll be curious to see which way Mix goes in its delivery of a series that revolves around baseball. Right off the bat, the anime production does a good enough job at showcasing the various pitches that player can have at his disposal, however, one would think that most baseball teams don’t only work with an ace, but also have middle relief and closers as part of its roster which makes having multiple pitchers to choose from a good thing to have.

If we’re aiming for the more melodramatic cliched anime tone, I’m gonna be upset. Because baseball is dramatic enough, we don’t need ancillary and rudimentary high school shit clouding anything up. Hinomaru Sumo, Last Man, and Megalo Box are fantastic examples of effectively balancing sports with outside the ring commotion. Mix is gonna need to play ball if it’s gonna want to differentiate itself from the pack.