Anime Reviews (2000s): Taisho Baseball Girls – Complete Collection (2009)

“Taisho Baseball Girls” a short 12 episode series and the Blu-ray only features the series in Japanese dialogue, no English dub.  But still, I hope people give these anime series a chance, as it’s worth checking out! Especially if you love baseball!

Image courtesy of © 2009 Sentai Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Click here to purchase this Blu-ray on Amazon

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TITLE: Taisho Baseball Girls – Complete Collection

ANIME RELEASE DATE: 2009

DURATION: (Episodes 1-12) 300 Minutes

BLU-RAY INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition (1:33:1), Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, English subtitles

COMPANY: Sentai Filmworks

RATING: TV 14 D

Release Date: January 18, 2022

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Originally created by Kagurazaka Atsushi

Directed by Ikehata Takashi

Series Composition by Ikehata Takashi

Original Character Design: Kotaro, Koike Sadaji

Character Designs by Kamimoto Kanetoshi

Art Director: Kobayashi Shichiro

Music by Hattori Takayuki

Anime Production by J.C. Staff

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Featuring the following voice talent:

Itō Kanae  as Suzukawa Koume

Nakahara Mai  as Ogasawara Akiko

Fujimura Ayumi  as Owari Noriko

Kitamura  Eri as Tsukubae Shizuka

Ueda Kana  as Kawashima Noe

Noto Mamiko  as Sōya Yuki

Katou Masayuki  as Iwasaki  Sousuke

Hirohashi Ryou  as Ishigaki Tamaki

Goto Saori  as Kikusaka Kochou

Arai  Satomi as Curtland Anna

Hino  Satoshi as Kitani Saburō

Kawada Shinji  as Takahara Tomochika

Makino Yui  as Sakurami Kyouko

Kaida  Yuko as Tsukubae Tomoe

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The War To End All Wars was only the first World War, but the changes it made to the countries involved were staggering. In 1925, one year into the reign of Emperor Hirohito, Japan is re-inventing itself. The national pastime, baseball, however, remains exclusively the domain of males. Until an arrogant local player sneers that girls should become housewives rather than attending school, and teenage firebrands Koume and Akiko respond with the shocking move of forming their own baseball team! It’s as scandalous as the new sailor suit school uniforms, but in a nation in which almost anything now seems possible, it may just be the start of something greater than any nine girls can imagine!

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Back in 2007, the light novel series “Taisho Yakyu Musume” (Taisho Baseball Girls) was released.

Written by Kagurazaka Atsushi and illustrated by Koike Sadaji, four novels were released and it would lead to a drama CD, a manga series and an anime adaptation courtesy of J.C. Staff which was released in 2009.

While the “Taisho Baseball Girls” anime series was released by Sentai Filmworks back in 2010, the anime series has been re-released as a complete collection on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks.

The series revolves around baseball.  One of the most popular sports in Japan and this goes back to 1925, during a time when women were expected to be housewives and not to aspire to be anything more than that.

But for Ogasawara Akiko, she loves watch baseball and wants to create an all female baseball team and gets her friend, Suzukawa Koume to be part of group who wants to develop a girl’s baseball team.

But this is during the Taisho era, where women don’t have much rights and even for Suzukawa, this was during a time where Japanese women were wearing traditional Japanese outfits to school, while girls were now starting to opt for sailor uniforms, something that Suzukawa desires, but her parents, especially her father, a yoshoku restaurant owner, is against.

And with Suzukawa and even Ogasawara wanting to start a baseball team, it’s not easy.  Especially knowing how society expects women to not pursue such things, especially to run as its considered as vulgar.

But can these two girls find other female classmates to join their all-female baseball team and prove they can take on the boys baseball teams?

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VIDEO:

“Taisho Baseball Girls” is presented in 1080p High Definition.

This can be considered as one of the Sentai Films anime classics, even though released in 2009, it’s great to see this anime series return on Blu-ray as a full collection.

As for animation quality, as one can expect from TV series, there is a bit of softness but for the most part, this is a colorful anime series that looks very good in HD!

AUDIO & SUBTITLES:

As for lossless audio, “Taisho Baseball Girls” is presented only in Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 with English subtitles. The series is front channel driven but dialogue and music is clear. For those who want a more immersive soundtrack can easily switch their receiver for stereo on all channels.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

“Taisho Baseball Girls” features the clean opening and ending animations.

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As a person who loves baseball and even have traveled to Japan to watch many baseball games, it’s always fascinating to catch a Japanese anime series about baseball, but also rare to see it show the female side of baseball.

The series is no doubt a modern take on a very modern topic that has been a big part of the west of women fighting for their rights of equality.

As far as Japanese baseball goes, Japan would eventually have its first professional baseball league known as the Nihon Yakyu Renmei starting in 1936 until changing it in 1950 to the currently known name, Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).

For high school athletes, the National High School Baseball Championship  (known as the Zenkoku Koto Gakkyo Yakyu Senshuken Taikai) aka Summer Koshien would be established in 1915.

Back in the day, Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria would have teams competing in the tournament and to this day, continues to be the biggest high school baseball tournament.

And because I have also been to the high school baseball tournaments, “Taisho Baseball Girls” is fascinating to see early baseball be featured.

While the anime tries to balance of showcasing girls trying to build their baseball team, to grow as players and hone their skills, as mentioned earlier, it is no doubt a modern take of women’s rights for equality.

And this is where I applaud the original author Kagurazaka Atsushi because the Taisho era was a major era of Women’s suffrage in Japan.

To give context, in Japan, until 1922, the prohibition of women from political meetings were abolished that year thanks to women’s organizations.  Prior to that, women have been wanting the right for reforms in the patriarchal society oppressing women that dates back in the Meiji Restoration era of 1868.

Women wanted the right to join the workforce or right to education, aside from just being a wife/mother.  Politicians believed at the time that it was imperative that girls were prepared to become effective wives and mothers produce patriotic sons.

So, when watching this anime series, you get to see certain students react to their surroundings.

Suzukawa Koume is the catcher of the team, but at home, she works at her father’s shop who refuses for her to wear a sailor uniform (which she dreams of wearing) and wants her to be a proper woman working at the restaurant.

Ogasawara Akiko is from a wealthy family and expected to be a housewife.

And through these two individuals, their dreams of wanting some sort of equality, while still in school is through baseball.  And of course, this goes against many who believe baseball is a boy/man’s sport, no place for a girl.

In America, the first women’s baseball game was in 1875 in Springfield, Illinois.  The Japan’s Women’s Baseball Federation would start in 1950 and lasted until 1951.  But the next professional league wouldn’t happen until 2010.

For anime and manga, the biggest fight for gender equality in sports happened in 1972 with mangaka Mizushima Shinji creating “Yakyu-kyo no Uta” when the fictional team, the Tokyo Mets had a female pitcher, Mizuhara Yuki

When Mizushima did his research and asked professional baseball players of what profile of a female player might be able to outperform men, one player, Nomura had the idea that a single-inning breaking ball pitcher could have a chance.  And thus, the inspiration of giving Mizuhara Yuki her Dreamball pitch.

Of course, having a female baseball pitcher in the ’70s was no doubt looked at improbable but for a mangaka Mizushima, if the women’s 1500 freestyle swimming could be faster than the mens’ record from 1971-1978, it is possible for female athletes of outperforming men.

And going back to “Taisho Baseball Girls”, this series is the evolving of a female baseball team, shunned by the school and male athletes until the team had the opportunity to play one-on-one against the boys baseball teams.

So, it’s a very entertaining series!

Overall, “Taisho Baseball Girls” a short 12 episode series and the Blu-ray only features the series in Japanese dialogue, no English dub.  But still, I hope people give these anime series a chance, as it’s worth checking out! Especially if you love baseball!

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Click here to purchase this Blu-ray on Amazon

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