It’s really a great time to be a sports anime fan – there are so many vastly different approaches towards the sport in focus for each series – with Haikyuu and Ace of Diamond there’s great focus on team dynamics over self-improvement, while in Ping Pong and baby Steps the reverse would be true. Unlike Ping Pong that focuses on multiple perspectives though, Baby Steps is entirely focused on our wonderful protagonist Ei-chan, and the (I can’t believe I’m saying this) baby steps he’s making towards pushing his limits and becoming a better player.
Last week had a heavy focus on Ei-chan’s improvements over the year, basically a training montage of sorts, and a recap as to how he’s been approaching tennis – never focusing on a single stroke, improving everything he can. It’s what he can do as a ‘methodical’ player, to be one with no weaknesses. But of course, every sports anime protagonist’s road to victory is never smooth, and something like having ‘no weaknesses’ seems nigh impossible, and this is further questioned by Miyagawa, Ei-chan’s next big rival match after Ei-chan manages to win his first two matches, which was another avenue for him to gain experience on the court.
As a tennis player myself I can understand just how painful tennis matches can be when you haven’t got the momentum and get all tense, it’s really incredibly difficult to pull yourself out of a stump, made especially worse when tennis happens to be a single player sport (let’s not talk about doubles here) and you can’t rely on anyone but yourself to make every moment on the court count. Baby Steps has great accuracy when it comes to portraying a sport as technical as tennis, and this episode was another instance when the writer proves that he knows the ins and outs of the sport, the players’ psyche. The anime could have kept things a bit more visually creative like they do in Haikyuu to really elevate the material to the next level but that’s really a minor gripe I have in general, when the anime is still, like the manga, a great character study for what it is.
Indeed, Ei-chan’s first match with Koshimizu Naruyuki was very fun to watch. Koshimizu’s basically been a self-proclaimed eternal rival to Ei-chan, but being Ei-chan, Ei-chan never realises this. He studies for the sake of his future, but there isn’t much beyond that. He doesn’t get competitive, so naturally he’s oblivious to the others that are racing to reach the top of their grade. It’s wholly different in tennis, which forces him to become someone that is constantly aware of his surroundings and the people in it. And yet, this new competitive side to Ei-chan still doesn’t make it seem like he’s really changed that much fundamentally as an individual. I really love and appreciate how seamless the changes in character are in Baby Steps, everything is natural, yet progressive. A change never feels jarring, and yet it’s there to remind us that a great amount of time has passed for our protagonist, and that he’s done a great deal to get to where he is.
Next week should prove to be very exciting. The story has been reaching an obvious roadblock for Ei-chan, he can’t get past the third round (because that’s where the seeded players start piling in) and this situation threatens Ei-chan’s progression in the Kanagawa junior circuit yet again. Even worse for Ei-chan (but great suspense fuel for us viewers!) is that Miyagawa is probably the friendliest rival he meets, and the game happening next week is sure to be a catalyst for change for Ei-chan and his game – there’s only so much you can do before you need to switch up your regime and progress further.