What They Say:
Baby Steps centers on an honor student named Eiichiro Maruo who becomes frustrated with his life and decides to join the tennis club. Despite lacking experience and physical strength, he utilizes his studious nature to develop a strategic approach to playing tennis. Taking notes of his opponents’ habits and tendencies, he is able to predict their next move before they even react. He also meets Natsu Takasaki, a beautiful girl with a passion for tennis. With her help, he aims to become a professional tennis player.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Spending its time focusing on the dynamic between Eiichiro and Natsu the last time around, mostly with the two of them playing against each other and exploring their own skills and strengths, Baby Steps provided a good way for them to engage with each other and come away with some good appreciation of each other without forcing an off-practice kind of “date” event for Eiichiro to get all caught up in his head about. We get a few episodes each season it seems where the two of them get closer, but the main focus is on the game itself and the paths of their lives in competing, practicing, and trying to go pro with it. So material like the last episode is a welcome way to blend both things together while also nudging each of them forward a bit as well.
With the match against Araya kicking off at the end of the previous episode, that gets underway in full here right from the start and it’s definitely strong with what it does as Araya is a powerful player. One that’s also quite vocal, which a lot of Eiichiro’s opponents haven’t been, which makes for a different kind of player. And Araya is really dominating here early on with some moves that Eiichiro really does struggle with. But Eiichiro has grown so much after his Florida time and other events that we see him reacting and coming back on the offensive, with better defense, faster and better than before. And seeing Eiichiro really working it as he does, confidently but also cautiously, works well since Araya is an unpredictable player in a lot of ways. It may not be the flashiest ways in some senses, but it’s a different kind of power that he brings to the court.
The match is a lot of fun to watch as they battle for the wins, and to see Eiichiro coping with the different style of play with the left-handed aspect. The commentary fills in some of the blanks in a way, but a lot can be sussed out just from paying attention and a little bit of logic. It’s really fun to see the way Araya rallies at times, with his outward methods, though it doesn’t get to Eiichiro as he’s just being analytical as best as he can be. What’s really fun with this though is that we get some good competition between them and their styles as it goes on and the intensity of the matches ramp up as they each make progress, scoring off of each other. And it’s one that feels like we see Eiichiro sweating outwardly more than he usually does, which just raises the intensity level of it all even more.
In Summary:
While I’m still not a huge fan of sports shows that take games across multiple episodes, Baby Steps has largely done it well because it is so singularly focused on the two players at hand, the dynamic of the matches and their respective strengths and weaknesses. It’s more strategy than anything else, wrapped up in some solid emotion and play. This match with Araya is a good one to balance both of their strengths, and the style of play, to make for an engaging matchup that will have a hard conclusion come in the next episode. They’re both driving each other forward, making their dynamic work well in elevating their play, all while keeping the viewer very engaged and entertained to see just where it is that it’ll all land.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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