Let me start off by congratulating myself for being able to post this week’s Baby Steps on time after my horrible track record for the past few weeks :’-)
Anyways, this week’s episode, as well as last week’s were brilliant, and it’s in these two episodes that Baby Steps really begins to show its viewers what it is all about. Baby Steps is not about ridiculously talented players battling it out against each other, neither is it really an underdog story, but it’s truly an exploration of tennis as a sport and how the sport can bring out the best in us, or, the characters, in Baby Steps. Take this as the true beginning of Ei-chan’s journey of self-discovery and improvement, the past 6 episodes were just a warm-up, and the real meat of the story is finally underway!
Yes, Baby Steps does approach the genre in a radically different way from any other sports anime airing now or in the past seasons (and I love me some diversity in a genre I adore so much). It doesn’t opt for the more character or team-based approach like Haikyuu and Ace of Diamond respectively, and finds itself somewhere in the middle ground, with a bit of a philosophical spin to it, though we won’t get there just yet!
This week is also the week where Coach Miura steps up and begins his role in the story, and I’ll tell you he’s a huge part of Ei-chan’s journey forward, and he’s a really fantastic character. As a student and also a teacher (part-time, but that’s not the point!), I think most of us come to a point in schooling/teaching that we understand that the profession is never really just about imparting knowledge to your student, but understanding your student – what works best for them, what are their motivations, how do they work, and so on. Coach Miura exhibits this very important trait, and picks out a very specific regime for both Ei-chan as well as his other students, like Takuma. It’s thanks to Miura that Ei-chan was not only able to really pinpoint what he needs to improve on in such a short time, but also teach him the difference between ‘theory’ and ‘reality’, and that things often never work out the way you’d like. Clearly there is a difference between how people perceive this truth though. It was seen between Ei-chan and Takuma – Takuma saw that as the limit to his abilities, that he had such a long way to go that it wouldn’t really matter if he bothered to continue taking steps forward. Ei-chan on the other hand saw it from a more positive light, and despite the ambiguity in his future ahead, he chooses to just do what he can to see if he could begin to envision the light up ahead.
How will Ei-chan act upon this new found knowledge?