Baby Steps Episode 15: Attacking His Weakness

This week’s match is classic Baby Steps – Ei-chan once again facing off an opponent much stronger and much more experienced in the game than he is, understanding that what he has on hand isn’t enough to defeat Araya. It’s another episode that heavily focuses on the mental fortitude and psychological aspect of tennis, despite Araya being a speed and power opponent with ‘simple attack patterns’ that make it seem like Ei-chan’s planning will make victory be in sight.

Even before the match, we see players playing mind games with each other – as Araya’s burning obsession to finally defeat Takuma leads to Araya telling Takuma that he’ll quit going pro once and for all should he fail to beat Takuma in the finals – and Takuma actually decides to give Ei-chan a couple of pointers to help Ei-chan understand Araya’s weaknesses, though the reason for assisting Ei-chan is never made clear.

The match set itself up to be a traditional sports match of pure strength versus that of working with certain clear strategies in mind, though it turned out to be anything but. Ei-chan was able to establish the tempo and owned the first game, but Araya easily counters this (not physically, not yet anyways) by breaking up the tempo Ei-chan worked so hard to build and arguing with the umpire, though once again whether that was intentional or not we may never know. He easily regains momentum and completely crushes Ei-chan, dominating the first set, though Ei-chan himself manages to see the attack patterns Araya uses and tries to work them to his advantage. Try as he may though, but Araya’s sheer force knocks Ei-chan right out of the park, and even with well-devised plans just to win ONE point Araya easily makes up for it by returning counter shots that are near impossible for Ei-chan to hit.

Honestly though, as good as the narrative is the visuals of the show are starting irritate me. Baby Steps is all about Ei-chan overcoming his weakness using whatever is in his arsenal. The games are clearly high stakes, and there is a lot of thought put into each and every match, but the problem is that of the animation not doing a good enough job to handle the weight of the narrative. There have been no clear attempts to help make the matches more visually interesting, and the series itself looks like bland and unforgettable.

It’s a damn shame that we couldn’t get a better director or studio to helm this project, because Baby Steps is often heavily focused on repetition (which isn’t a bad thing, narrative-wise) but it doesn’t have anything on the visual aspect to shake things up for the viewer and feels too flat as an adaptation. There is no attempt at using lighting, unique camera angles, establishing concepts of space, creating tension through various directional cues (not even the traditional claustrophobic-style closeups seen in more traditional series like Noragami)…it doesn’t give Baby Steps the push it needs to necessitate this animated adaptation in the first place. I’m sticking around for the story still, but I have a general feeling that near the end all the matches are going to feel the same just because there isn’t much thought put into differentiating them visually.