One Outs

Toua Tokuchi is a prodigy when it comes to both baseball and gambling. Pitching nothing but mediocre fastballs, he has made a name for himself by attaining 499 consecutive victories in the game of One Outs: a one-on-one showdown between a pitcher and a batter. Despite his remarkable abilities, however, Tokuchi sees the sport as nothing more than a way to make some quick money.

When Hiromichi Kojima, a legendary hitter for the struggling Saikyou Saitama Lycaons, witnesses Tokuchi's skills firsthand, he realizes that the man might be exactly what the team needs to get out of their slump. Determined to recruit Tokuchi no matter what, Kojima places his own career on the line and defeats Tokuchi at his own specialty—One Outs.

Forced to become a Lycaon, Tokuchi soon finds himself at odds with the team's owner, Tsuneo Saikawa. After Saikawa refuses to give him a reasonable salary, Tokuchi proposes a special contract: pitching an out will earn him five million yen, but giving up a run will cost him fifty million. With every game having the potential to either make or break him, Tokuchi must outwit all who stand in his way.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tokuchi, Toua Main

Hagiwara, Masato Japanese

Ideguchi, Satoshi Main

Yamaguchi, Kappei Japanese

Kojima, Hiromichi Main

Isobe, Tsutomu Japanese

Takami, Itsuki Supporting

Matsukaze, Masaya Japanese

Big Mama Supporting

Fujita, Toshiko Japanese

Johnson, Dennis Supporting

Kusunoki, Taiten Japanese

Kawanaka, Junichi Supporting

Terashima, Takuma Japanese

Saikawa, Tsuneo Supporting

Utsumi, Kenji Japanese

Oikawa, Mitsuo Supporting

Furukawa, Toshio Japanese

Nishimura, Kyousuke Supporting

Tokumoto, Yukitoshi Japanese

Tamura, Manabu Producer

Nakatani, Toshio Producer

Mita, Keiji Producer

Satou, Yuuzou Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Dec 23, 2024

PixelB

Recommended

I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I love this show. This was my first rewatch after initially watching it many years ago. It's clear why that's the case. It's one of a kind in a few ways.

First of all, let's talk about the animation style. It's definitely kind of old, kind of cheap, but you know, pretty average for the time. So why is it unique? I'm afraid that even the mediocre animation style will never be replicated in modern times. That's because people really think that slapping crappy low polygon CGI models of infielders and outfielders on the field is more cost effective than ... just doing what this show did: reusing animation frames and doing a lot of close ups. Think about it: despite the show having a lot of closeups of people picking up the ball, catching it, or hitting the ball, there's not a lot of high fidelity scenes where a player is running with a detailed background. That's okay! The show had pretty average budget so they decided to storyboard more closeups while still maintaining the feel of a baseball game and having the viewer understand the action involved. Nowadays, if an animation studio wants something cheap, they'll just try to recreate a high quality scene with no budget and the result is some crappy CGI rigs running on a field with a poorly animated and reused running sequence of the main character in the scene. Unfortunately, hiring people in Indonesia to poorly animate 3D models is much cheaper than actually trying to storyboard with what you got. This show, despite having relatively bad budget, made the most of it, used good storyboarding and animation to still tell a good story.

Second of all, and of course, the more important and less technical is the fact that it's a psychological baseball anime. Everyone knows that when you play baseball, the mind games between the battery and the person battery is crucial in determining the outcome of a duel. This show definitely capitalizes on that. What if you had a main character who could literally read the minds of the person he's facing? Well, the batter would never hit the ball. And that's Tokuchi. Bordering complete mind-reading levels of ability, Tokuchi is able to pitch balls effectively with 120 mph fastballs with no breaking balls to professional Nippon Professional Baseball players and get strikeouts because he can predict exactly what the batter is thinking and pitch accordingly. But that's also super unfun to watch. How is Tokuchi different from Echizen from Prince of Tennis, for example? Echizen effortlessly wins official games no matter how the tides are against him, similar to Tokuchi? Well, the difference here is that Tokuchi is playing a team game, and everyone is out there to get him. It's not just a game of baseball, it's a battle of wits against hostile agents that want to maliciously harm Tokuchi. It's about abusing baseball rules and mechanics on both sides to try to get the better of each other. Tokuchi has to listen to the manager? Well, how can we convince a manager who got bribed to not screw over Tokuchi? Similarly, how does Tokuchi use his extremely smart wits to manipulate his own teammates, the enemy team, and other people to meet the conditions of certain obscure baseball rules that come into effect that benefit Tokuchi in the end? It's very fun in that you get to learn a lot more about how baseball can be manipulated, even in official games, and because of how Tokuchi is always on his toes because anyone can try to screw him over. It's definitely not a battle shouenen where Tokuchi perfects his craft and becomes friends with his catcher while he's at it. No, it's about a degenerate gambler that's highly intelligent, in a highly unfavorable contract and situation, unbeatable in orthodox terms, but still has use his wits in order to outsmart the people around him.

What about the people around him? How are the characters? I love them! Again, it's not a traditional baseball show. Why bother characterizing each baseball player on the team? It's not high school baseball either. There's many substitutions being made, and it isn't feasible to characterize a whole cast of Nippon Professional Baseball players. Instead, you have just a select few characters that you know and love. You got Kojima, one of the main characters. He's the star batter of a terrible team, Lycaons, and he's desperate to win. He's in awe in how he got defeated by Tokuchi and recruits him to the team. Tokuchi the pitcher needs no introduction. The catcher Ideguchi is in a similar boat with Kojima, being one of the few players that is deeply in awe of Tokuchi's skill and you can say that these are the characters in Tokuchi's camp. They'll basically follow every order of his and they are his loyal allies. Fujita and Imai are regular professional baseball players on the Lycaons, they represent the naive majority that are subject to manipulation. Not to say they're bad characters, I actually love them too! They're fun to watch as they joke around and comment on the state of things without knowing too much. Finally, we have the Owner of the baseball team himself.

You can say that the Owner is one of the cornerstones of the story. He's hilariously evil. You can say that his only personality is that he's a rich CEO that uses underhanded methods to gain money. Basically, the typical CEO in real life. He doesn't care about the fact that the team he owns sucks. It brings profit margins. He just sucks out all the money he can while putting as little money as possible to make profit. It kind of reminds me of insurance companies in the USA denying essential healthcare claims because it cuts into their profits. Oh capitalism! Tokuchi is described as a gambler. He only cares about the outcome: win or loss. Ultimately, with a similar drive to the Owner, Tokuchi wants to win money and he'll do underhanded methods to do so. However, there are a few major distinctions. Tokuchi uses all his cards in his disposal to win, but he's actually talented. After all, he's OP and can read minds. He's literally the best baseball player and gambler ever. The Owner is a typical money grubbing CEO. He isn't particularly talented at anything, doesn't contribute anything to the team, and even if he had the drive to create a team that would win the championships, he'd probably fail at it. He's narrowminded enough to never consider that he made a mistake in his decisions to deal with Tokuchi, and he goes through every illegal and underhanded method in order to prove that he was correct. He literally risks bankruptcy just to prove that he is smarter than Tokuchi. Secondly, and you can say the most important distinction though, is that Tokuchi honors his promises. Tokuchi did verbally promise Kojima that he would help him with the championships. That is to say, there's nothing but trust in a verbal promise that binds Tokuchi to the Lycaons. Tokuchi could have easily backed out of his agreement with Kojima, but due to his own stubbornness and also gracefulness of taking a loss, Tokuchi actually follows through anyway. If the owner was the one making this promise, I'd have to get it legally binding for it to be worth anything. After all, he'd probably just back out saying that he never said such a thing. Overall, the dynamic between Tokuchi and the owner is one of the most fun things to watch. and It's obviously easy to keep the viewer engaged because Tokuchi is the "underdog" while the Owner with all his power is trying to crush Tokuchi down however he can.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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May 10, 2020

Necrochromatic

Mixed Feelings

Funny

STORY: 6/10
ART: 8/10
SOUND: 5/10
CHARACTER: 4/10
ENJOYMENT 8/10
OVERALL: 6/10

The anime is good but the story is too messed up. The one outs game, why the owner can't moved on and revised the freaking contract, the slugfest arc where they intentionally made fouls, and the cheating arc. The art I think is very good. Props to Madhoouse. The opening is good that it makes you wanna stay and listen to it first but the background and the ending is not too good for me I guess. The character development for the supporting is lacking to emphasize that the MC is too OP and he's gonna save the day. ... I did enjoy the show though and I like the antics that the anime brings.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 22, 2022

jaliscojackson

Not Recommended

Funny

DISCLAIMER: I wrote this when I was maybe 15 or 16, and while I still think One Outs is repetitive and boring, I think a lot of my criticisms here are unfair. Still, I will not be taking this review down because I like it when One Outs fans come to the comments in my profile and act like there's something here worth debating about. Why don't you go to war for an anime that's actually worth something? Anyways, please enjoy this juvenile rant.


Shit.

I cannot express to you my level of disbelief at the fact that so many people gave this show a rating above ... 6. This show has to be the most stinking pile of shit I have ever seen in my favourite genre of anime: sports. And I know what people are going to say. "Oh but dude, this isn't a typical sports anime! You just don't understand baseball! You just don't understand Tokuchi Toua's intelligence!" This is false. You would have to be a mentally impaired slug to not understand Tokuchi Toua's intelligence after watching this series. In fact, that's basically the only thing that you take away from this series, besides a pretty decent OP and ED.


Characters:

There are none. No, wait, that's incorrect. There is one. One character. His name is Tokuchi Toua. He is the only person in the whole show. He is the only person in the entire world with a mind that is capable of functioning. Yes that was me exaggerating. But not really. The only reason any other character exists is to highlight Tokuchi Toua's godlike, incomparable intelligence. So let's give the cast a name. I propose, "Tokuchi Toua and His Bunch of Braindead Bitches." Because everyone is his braindead bitch. Not just the players on the team, but the manager, the owner, the players on the other team, and maybe even his parents for all the fuck I know. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if they at least gave us some backstory, some insight into Tokuchi's past that lets us see what made him this way. Anything that shaped his personality. But NO! God forbid we get a backstory on the only character worth caring about! Let's get backstories on characters that disappear after 3 episodes! Like that cheating manager! Or that shitty catcher! You know, they tell us that he's been playing One Outs his whole life, but they don't explain how he knows so fucking much about baseball. I'm just left to assume, but I won't dwell on that because it's not a very big complaint of mine. Hold up, did I mention that Tokuchi Toua is the perfect human being? That he is perfect in every sense of the word and nothing he does is incorrect? Because that's exactly how it seems. At the very beginning they tell us that, "despite his slow pitches, he still wins because he plays with other people's minds!" Which is fine, until you realize that he can, indeed, pitch fast. Fast enough to get the fastest baseball runner in the world out. He was hiding that trick all along. No mind games needed here. No weird tactics. Nothing. So yeah TL;DR, Tokuchi Toua is the everything and everybody else is either his bitch, an evil cunt, or both.


Music:

Usually one of my favourite parts about an anime but fuck. There's nothing here. I like the OP and ED, but besides that all there is is a bunch of bland, forgettable, funk tracks. And some atmospheric stuff I guess. Shit.


Story:

Interesting premise, I'll give it that. It starts off really strong, and basically has me hooked up until about episode 10-12, where I realize that every game they play is the same shit. The same predictable outcomes. I'll admit it is entertaining to watch the process by which Tokuchi arrives to victory, but if you don't know much about baseball and if you don't like sports/psychological anime, then I don't think you would enjoy this anime past the 8 episode mark.


Themes:

Not even the most basic and easy themes to explore are even hinted at in this anime. The theme of teamwork and unity to achieve a certain goal or purpose, the theme of never giving up regardless of how the odds are against you. These are all themes that are prevalent in sports anime, and I'm not saying all anime should follow genre conventions, but if you're going to choose between following a convention and not doing anything at all, I'd usually say go the conventional route. Teamwork can't be explored because they chose to replace characters with the cast of, "Tokuchi Toua's tools to triumph." In case you haven't noticed, I love alliteration.


TL;DR don't watch unless you absolutely adore baseball or psychological anime. And even then don't expect much.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: One Outs Episode 14 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Torisunanohokori - Jan 13, 2009	74 replies	by defaulticus »» Dec 21, 1:19 PM
	Poll: One Outs Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 ) otaku228 - Dec 3, 2008	98 replies	by defaulticus »» Dec 18, 10:54 PM
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