FUNimation Entertainment has announced that it has acquired the 26-episode baseball-themed Big Windup! anime series (known in Japan as Ookiku Furikabutte) from Kodansha Ltd.  The anime series, which was produced by A-1 Pictures, aired in Japan in 2007 and is based on the 10-volume (and on-going) seinen manga series by Asa Higuchi.  Higuchi’s manga, which appears in Kodansha’s Afternoon anthology, won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2006 and the Kodansha Manga Award in 2007. 

In spite of its prestigious awards no American publisher has yet acquired the Ookiku Furikabutte manga.  Manga-ka Asa Higuchi first learned about baseball from the Dokaben manga, but she spent 10 years researching high school baseball and she brings a shojoesque interest in character development to the typically shonen sports manga genre.  Ren Mihashi, the hero of Ookiku Furikabutte, is totally lacking in self-confidence because he believes that family connections got him the prize role of pitcher on his middle school baseball team.  When he gets to high school he is reluctant to try out for the team, but eventually he blossoms as a player thanks to the help of his teammates, especially his catcher Takaya Abe. 

According to John Oppliger at AnimeNation the Big Windup! anime series was “popular among Japanese female viewers,” but (like most sports-related anime series) “made very minimal inroads into the American fan community.”  The Big Windup! anime series was directed by Tsutomu Mizushima, who also helmed the Kodansha-based xxxHOLIC anime series released by FUNimation.  FUNimation has licensed a number of anime series based on Kodansha properties (see “FUNimation Nabs Mamotte! Lollipop”).