Taishou Yakyuu Musume - Episode 12 (Completed)

After giving us a glimpse of some of the early innings of their all-important match against Asaka last episode, the climax to Taishou Yakyuu Musume naturally also focuses itself fully on the remainder of the big game.

Despite their positive early start to the match, by the time we left them at the end of the last episode Asaka had figured out a way to see through Akiko's "magical" balls, and with this knowledge in tow they soon make the most of their new-found advantage to jump into the lead. This in turn leads to a spirited fightback from the Ouka-kai girls despite an injury to one of their players amongst other things, and as they reach the last couple of innings even Koume's Dad has swallowed his pride and made it to the field to cheer on his daughter.


From this point forth, the rest of the episode can really be summed up as "Awwwww", between Koume's Dad giving his support and Akiko's betrothed finally apologising for his insulting and sexist behaviour which kicked off this whole series. Thankfully the climax to the game isn't entirely sugar-coated, choosing instead to defer to the likely reality at least a little, but that doesn't make it any less sweet somehow.

I imagine that if you're a big fan of baseball you might have found yourself more than a little frustrated at the relative lack of actual baseball within Taishou Yakyuu Musume, but as somehow who wasn't watching the series for that primarily it has to be said that this show managed to exceed my expectations quite readily. Sure, this isn't the kind of anime you'll remember and talk about with your friends many years from now, but as entertainment goes it was great fun to watch, with a decent bunch of characters in an interesting period setting, good animation and a pretty good vein of humour running through it when required. Come this episode, you couldn't help but cheer on the girls (even the occasionally bitchy Akiko), and that fact alone is probably proof positive that Taishou Yakyuu Musume achieved its goal - we learned to love these girls and support their endeavours, and to be honest that's all that matters for a show like this.