Big Windup!

There are a lot of TV shows out there that get a ton of attention, and they are really good. For example, Seinfeld had a lot of attention, mainly when it reached the middle of the series. There are also really good shows that don’t get a lot of attention, one of those that I discovered this past year is Big Windup!, it is an anime TV series that was released in Japan back in 2007 in a season of 26 episodes. It is about a High School Baseball team, mainly about one character, Ren Mihashi, who is one pitcher with a lot of bad luck in the past, he was the ace pitcher back in Junior High because his grandfather was the owner of the school, so he was made the ace pitcher, and his teammates didn’t like that so they wouldn’t help him or encourage him, he doesn’t have a lot of self-confidence, so he leaves the school and wants to quit baseball altogether, but he ends up meeting the new formed team at Nishiura High, and the catcher Takaya Abe who is willing to work with Mihashi and give him the confidence boost he needs to win. Mihashi actually is a really good pitcher, he can control his pitches and has a variety of different pitches, and Abe is able to know what he needs to throw to strike out the other team. It is a really great show, great characters, and I honestly have learned a lot about Baseball. Funimation picked it up back in 2008, and they started releasing it last year, they started off by putting episodes of the show on Hulu and their own website, and YouTube, at least the first 7 episodes. Then they released the series in two DVD sets, one in August and then the next in September. They are releasing a second season of the show in Japan this Spring, unfortunately, Funimation won’t be picking that one up because it wasn’t very successful here in DVD sales, which is too bad. Who knows, maybe people will find the series, and it will get licensed over here one day. However, you can watch the first four episodes of the series for free online here.