Baby Steps 2nd Season

After having decided to play tennis at the professional level, Eiichirou Maruo now needs to convince his parents to support his decision. To do so, he makes a wager: if he cannot win the All-Japan Junior Tennis Tournament, he will give up on his dream. However, he will need to improve his skills quickly if he wants to qualify for the tournament and have any chance of defeating the best players in the country. For this reason, his new coach Ryuuhei Aoi suggests that Eiichirou travel abroad to train at the Florida Tennis Academy.

Baby Steps 2nd Season takes the action to America as Eiichirou begins his two-week training program, getting a taste of what tennis is like outside of Japan. With this exciting experience awaiting him, Eiichirou hopes that his training will get him closer to his goal of becoming a professional player.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Maruo, Eiichirou Main

Murata, Taishi Japanese

Takasaki, Natsu Main

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Ike, Souji Supporting

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Egawa, Takuma Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Nabae, Yuu Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Fukazawa, Yukichi Supporting

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Miyagawa, Takuya Supporting

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

O'Brian, Marcia Supporting

Han, Megumi Japanese

Oobayashi, Ryou Supporting

Maeno, Tomoaki Japanese

Miura Supporting

Kusunoki, Taiten Japanese

Murata, Masahiko Director

Takakuwa, Hajime Sound Director

Fukutomi, Hiroshi Episode Director, Storyboard

Hata, Yoshito Episode Director

Reviews

Oct 17, 2015

ittou_shura

Recommended

"I used to think Maruo was the insecure type who isn't capable of having big dreams. But that's not right. He's the type to have countless smaller dreams that he can achieve perfectly, one by one. They may be small individually, but as they keep coming true, they quickly become one huge dream."

Baby Steps is a realistic, mentally engaging sports anime. It's well paced and subtle in its delivery of drama and romance, preferring to focus on the physical and mental aspects of playing tennis. The show has a good use of inner-monologues to display realistic and intriguing thought processes of each character throughout the ... matches.

This second season of Baby Steps introduces slightly older and more mature characters. They start to think about their futures more seriously, whether that be going to University or pursuing tennis as a career. Consequently, the outcomes of the matches carry a greater sense of risk which makes them even more exciting to watch.

Baby Steps is very good at making us empathise with Maruo's feelings of excitement and determination; especially in those matches when his future depends on whether he wins or loses. Even when we already know what the outcome should be for the story to continue, the tension is kept high as in the past, Maruo has not been an automatic "plot-armour" type of character. He has lost many times, but he learns from each failure.

The pacing of the story is arguably a little on the slower side, but I feel this reflects Maruo's patient, strategic playing style. Of course, his skills have improved quite a bit since season 1 (he even learns some new shots) and he's getting one step closer to playing at the professional level.

One might think his progression is too fast to be realistic, but there do exist prodigies who are natural at their sport, even becoming pro after starting relatively late. And when you consider Maruo's rare work ethic and unusually good eyesight, it's certainly not impossible. Baby Steps does an excellent job of balancing a fun, exciting story with enough realistic elements to keep fans of the sport happy.

My favorite thing about this show, which I feel is unique compared to other sports anime I've seen, is the way the psychological aspects of the sport are explored in a surprising amount of depth. Anyone who's played tennis competitively or recreationally will recognise how your mental state plays a big part in how well you perform. With the margin for error so small in tennis, a slight shift in your mindset even on a subconscious level can make the difference between your shots going in or out.

This season also explores a concept called "the zone". I believe the author of the manga has thoroughly researched tennis psychology to describe this as accurately as possible, because it matches surprisingly well with my own experiences as a racket sports player. The zone is an ultimate state of mind where one is so focused that they are completely unaware of anything else. They are focused only on the present moment without worrying about what will happen, or has happened in the past. The result being, the player's best physical and mental performance is achieved.

Of course the show also deals with the physical and technical ability of our main character, which improves even more from the first season. One of the only things I was disappointed with in the first season was a lack of focus on the serve; considered one of the most important shots in the game, but very difficult to master. This season does address it, as Maruo tries to strengthen his body and improve the efficiency of his movement to improve his serve drastically.

One minor criticism I have of this season was the lack of general training scenes compared with season 1.

And if I'm being ultra-critical, I noticed one or two technical errors such as players serving to the wrong service box at the start of a game. It's a minor thing that would hardly be noticeable, but it does bring into question the lack of attention to detail by the animators/director.

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Production values:

Art - Much fewer mistakes compared with season 1, for the character designs, though there are still a few derp faces present on a few frames.

Animation - Improved over season 1, though it could be a lot smoother and fewer still frames. However, during important matches the animation quality is significantly boosted which really adds to the entertainment value.

Sound - A few new OSTs are added since season 1 which sometimes adds a some more excitement to the matches.
However, most of the time we have the same video-game-bgm type of soundtrack which isn't very noticeable. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it does it's job well of being "background" music.

The opening song is the same catchy tune from season 1 ("Believe in yourself" by Mao Abe) but now the song is timed perfectly to more dynamic visuals that really gets you pumped to watch the show.

For the ED, I didn't care much for the song, but has nice visuals.
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Finally, the romance that was hinted at towards the end of the first season has more development in this season. It's still not enough to distract from the main story line but it manages to be more satisfying than even a lot of romance-genre shows.

A big difference between this show and other sports anime it has no "drama" in the genres. This actually is part of why I love this show. There are no over exaggerated reactions, crying, etc. The emotions of the characters are subtly portrayed which helps you empathise with them better and keep a sense of realism.

In conclusion, I fully recommend Baby Steps to anyone, even if you're not a fan of sports anime in general. It has intelligent strategies, realistic development, like-able characters and even a touch of romance so there's something for everyone to enjoy.

Side note: You don't need to have any prior knowledge of tennis to enjoy this anime. (Just remember to start from season 1)

Story: 10/10
Art: 8/10
Sound: 9/10
Character: 10/10
Enjoyment: 10/10

Overall rating: 10/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Sep 20, 2015

Justlike1984

Recommended

I've only done review for poor shows so now here's a good one. After the experiencing the incredibly strange and very disappointing Prince of Tennis, I was hesitant to pick up another tennis series. But after marathoning a slightly slow but promising first season, I continue into the even better second season of Baby Steps

Story and Characters:
Maruo Eiichiro continues on his path to professional tennis, having only just started playing 2 years previously. Maruo goes to THE LAND OF THE FREE, to do some training and improve. The show keeps things interesting and continues to show how he grows and improves at the sport. In ... this aspect it may be the best sports anime. It details Maruo's training regimen and the numerous hours he spends while being believable. Along with that it shows different strategies and techniques needed to win matches, making viewers interested in the show and the sport itself.

This importantly comes together so that at no point does Maruo have a strange or illogical jump in skill and neither does it make his opponents look weak. You continue to see just how difficult MC's training is and how hard he works with weight training, jogging, drills, and all the other crap no one wants to do. The show doesn't preaching about working hard though. Maruo works in the most effective way possible. MC then goes onward to reach the All Japan Junior tournament, competing to be the best young player in Japan and eventually go pro

All the players represent different playing styles and personalities that are interesting and believable. In sports and shonen anime at times characters can be ridiculous exaggerations of certain personalities and archetypes found in real life but that isn't the case here.

A few things I did like was after MC played someone who used various "dirty" tricks, the lesson at the end wasn't that you can't use tricks to win, you have to use them in the right way. In the end the player need to use the tricks to back his tennis, rather than making them the center of the play.

Animation:
The animation does it's job. Though there are sports anime with better animation at certain moments, Baby Steps never has issues with poor animation or episodes where time and money is clearly being saved for later. That being said this is a case of you'll find the best of the animation in the OP.

Overall: 8/10
Everything makes it truly interesting to see how far the MC can go. Though matches don't create the same excitement and some other sports anime, they're still interesting and moments in between are never dull

Season 2 steps up from last season and I eagerly await a third. Baby Steps is one of the best sports anime out and it's well worth watching

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 27, 2016

MAND4

Mixed Feelings

Baby Steps oftentimes gets praised for being one of the most realistic sport anime out there. This point stems from the fact that all the moves MC pulls out are thought out and explained in a rather elaborate manner, and we see everyone, not just main character, struggle to get better match after match. Yet, everyone seems to forget that Eichiro - as talented and as gifted as he may be - has only been playing tennis for so long. If you wish to thread the line of realism, it's impossible for him to beat people who have been playing tennis their whole lives.

On ... the flip side, Baby Steps definitely is amusing. To be honest, it's really kind of like a shounen battle manga translated into sports, with a dash of well-done romance (if you'd believe it, I consider it to be the most realistic aspect of this manga). Rivals come and go, stronger ones appear, random new-moves MC thinks up on a spot work, and he often wins battles that seem far out of his reach. It's not a bad anime, just calling it realistic is quite a stretch.

Story is slow paced. And I mean slow paced. It may not seem so at the beginning, but the longer you keep watching it, the more you realize that not many things are happening. Sure, it's not the slowest paced sports anime out there, but it's not the fastest either. This takes a huge, huge spike if you get into manga where 1 match can drag on for 20+ chapters which mostly consist of monologue - and the same case is with the anime itself.

During matches, audience is being fed exposition like no tomorrow. Main character literally explains everything that's going on as if everyone in the audience is a machine incapable of grasping a simple concept of "oh, he's trained for his whole life that's why he's better". Anime tries to shrug it off on his personality, as Eichiro is a rather anal person, but it's a large stretch and I often found myself skipping scenes as they literally recap what happened 2 minutes ago. This alone stagnates the story in a large way, and slows it down too much. Some people call it realism, but, what it actually is, is just dragging the shit out. Another weird part is that anime will sometimes have huge time skips (for three months as an example) so it makes me wonder why not just balance the pace. Such large contrasts in storytelling only serve to bring the overall quality down, and were the first signs, at least to me, that this won't be as fun of a ride as I had hoped.

Another point that I need to drill on is monologue: it's insane. If you think that Your Lie In April has a lot of monologues, you haven't seen a damn thing. Monologues usually go this way:

1. Ei-chan is in trouble and/or is being completely ran over by his opponent
2. He initiates a severe dose of monologue waging his options and the success rate of each
3. His chosen option flat out works or he says something along the lines of "well, I didn't score the point but that move shook my opponent so it was worth it".

It. Never. Changes. Absolutely never. Yes, problems and options may differ, and sometimes the outcome itself is unexpected, but that doesn't change the fact that the pattern is noticeable the moment you start thinking about it. It's not rare for writers to fall into a trap of explaining things in the same manner, but this is just literally acing it home.

Within the story you'll find your standard sports drama; unfortunately, this is not a good thing. Why? Because it's the same shit you've seen everywhere. Zero-to-hero stories can be done well, but if you follow every aspect of it, you simply make it predictable. I never had any trouble figuring out whether Ei-chan will win or not. As the matter of fact, I predicted every single match in 2nd season with 100% accuracy, something that hasn't happened even in Diamond no Ace, the epitome of cliche sports anime. This trend continued on in the manga, basically nullifying a large portion of what makes sports drama exciting: being unable to predict the outcome.

Story is by far the weakest aspect of this anime (and manga as well) and drags it down by quite a large margin, just making you think "what could have been".

On the flip note, production values are higher. Art itself is colorful and crisp and, while it isn't really spectacular by any means, it's more than enough to hold the show itself on a higher note. Animation can be hit and miss; oftentimes, you'll simply see stills of shots rather than the animation itself, but it has some decent moments. Don't expect nothing on the level of KnB or DnA because, remember, this sport story is realistic.

Music itself is passable. Opening song is catch and good though, simply showcasing just how bland the soundtrack is. Voice acting is fairly decent and there's a huge cast so you'll probably find a performance or two you'll like more than others. Overall, nothing spectacular, but definitely on-par with today's standards.

Now we come to the characters, the thing that makes this anime realistic supposedly. Nope. Again, I'll repeat myself: no matter how talented he is, he should NOT be able to compete on national level after mere 2 years of training. Not only is the tennis one of the hardest sports to pick up as you get older, but he actually doesn't even have innate talent from it. They shrug it off on "working his body beyond its capacity", but if that's all it took in real life, everyone could be a great athlete. Don't get me wrong though: Ei-chan is a good character outside of tennis, but I have a feeling this manga would have been far better if it focused on a sport that's solely about thinking, as this would be far more realistic.

With side characters ... as expected of sport stories, there's a bucket load of them. From the ones that get forgotten to the ones that stay all the way through. You have Nat-chan, probably one of the best female leads I've seen in a while. There's nothing exceptional about her character, but it was executed so well that you can't help but somehow feel entranced by her. She's "go with the flow" type of a person and, even though I usually have a hard time connecting to people like that, I found myself drawn to her far more than any other character in the entire series. The romance between the two MC's is definitely slow (as in, real slow) but as it's just a side thing, it was actually a breath of refreshing air whenever it came up, and it didn't drag on for as long as I thought it would. Props for that.

I won't discuss any others because then it would take me 10 pages to cover them all. Just know that there's a huge cast of diverse characters and even though sometimes you'll be thinking "ugh, freaking backstory; I don't care, just go back to the fucking match already, Jesus", I found myself liking more characters than I disliked, so that's a good thing.

Overall, if you're into sports anime, you will enjoy Baby Steps. It's a relatively easy going watch but, again, if you're expecting true realism, you won't find it here. You'll realize this rather quickly, but it shouldn't really deter your enjoyment of the series too much.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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