Big Windup! Part 1 DVD Set (Episodes 1-13)
FUNimation Productions
Release Date: 9/18/2009
SRP: $59.98
Creators: Asa Higuchi (manga). Tsutomu Mizushima (director)
Format: 2-disc (300 min.); Color; NTSC; Subtitled; Widescreen
Age Rating: TV14
ICv2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Though sports manga and anime are huge in Japan, they have never made much of an impression here in the States, but it will be a shame if American kids, especially those who love baseball, don’t get a chance to see Big Windup!.  Perhaps with all the Japanese players currently plying their trade in the majors, Americans will lose some of their sports chauvinism and accept the fact that they can both enjoy and learn something from an anime such as Big Windup!, which is based on the Tezuka and Kodansha award-winning manga created by Asa Higuchi and contains all kinds of inside baseball lore and tips for playing the game better.

Big Windup! concerns the trials and tribulations of pitcher Ren Mihashi, who believes that he only obtained his prized position because his grandfather owned the private baseball-mad academy where he played.  Blamed by fellow teammates for their losing season, Ren transfers to a public high school where he is dragooned into pitching for the freshman team by the busty female coach (who like manga-ka Higuchi is a determined female making her way in a male-dominated profession).  With his self-esteem lower than a snake’s belly, Ren is a whiny, unlikable wimp until the catcher on his new team (Takaya Abe) realizes that Ren’s superb control can make him a successful pitcher even though he lacks an overpowering fastball.  Ren and Abe develop trust in each other when they go to a pre-season baseball camp in the countryside where the entire team learns valuable lessons culminating in a practice game against Ren’s old team that is presented in great detail over four full episodes.  

Aniplex’s Big Windup! anime does an excellent job of capturing the nuances of the pitching motion with fluid animation and the inside baseball accuracy of Higuchi’s original manga, which benefited from her ten-year study of high school baseball in Japan.  Big Windup! is the perfect anime to recommend to boys who love sports (judging from the first 7 episodes, the TV14 rating is based primarily on language).  Andrew Rye, who wrote the English adaptation, has done a great job of translating the dialog into the contemporary American sports vernacular and FUNimation wisely left the stirring opening (“Dramatic” by Base Ball Bear) and closing (“Medaka no Mita Niji” by Kozue Takada)  theme songs in place.

- Tom Flinn