When a sports team in the verge of scoring, have you ever experienced the tension and excitement within that stadium? In an anime or manga, we often see how the players managed to win or even lose a game, but how about the fans and even the staff within that stadium? What do they do to support their team? Catch Me at the Ballpark! is the story of all the people from a baseball stadium.
Adapted from a manga created by Tatsuro Suga, Catch Me at the Ballpark! (Japanese title: Ballpark de Tsukamaete!) tells a different story from the rest of the sports anime. Rather than focusing on the player, Catch Me at the Ballpark! focuses on the story from the dedicated fans, salaryman, staff, and even the mascot of a ballpark (An abbreviation of “Baseball Park”, a term commonly used to refer a baseball stadium). This is an approach that we rarely see in a sports series, but is it worth watching?
Cycle of Support Within the Stadium
At first, it tells a simple “boy meet girl” story, where an overworked salaryman went into a baseball game to watch his favourite team and he met a new uriko (beer vendor girl) who needed to get her first beer sale. This story later became a series of small stories from the perspective of the fans who attend a baseball match. It can be very mundane, like the moment where we see a missing child helped by stadium security, to a story of a fan wanting to support their athlete by buying their special card pack until it sells out.
From heart-warming to sad stories, the anime managed to show everything from a ballpark attendee’s perspective. It is a great take on this genre, showing that there’s more than just the game on the field. Here, we can see the fans as people. Losing is not always the result that they want to have, but it doesn’t always mean the end. It just means we need to be better in the next match. Seeing that affect both the athlete to the audience really is a good sight to see over a while.
You rarely get this kind of take in recent seasonal anime. Even if you managed to find something similar, it might not “hit” you the same in terms of the characterisation. A good story doesn’t need a good background or a special power that lets the MC be overpowered. A good stories just need a good, proper pacing and understanding of the character. Without a solid character, you can’t relate at all.
A Rom-Com to a Heart-Warming Story
When I first watched the anime, I thought that the story would focus more on the relationship between Ruriko and Koutarou. But seems like that was not the case. The anime managed to tell more stories of each of the characters, from an athlete’s wife who wants to see his husband shine to a story of a cafeteria cashier who wanted to be a beer vendor girl instead. Overall, this is just a memorable regular story that you could see and feel anywhere.
Unfortunately, it has its own drawback, which is that for a 12-episode anime, you would not be able to dig deep into everyone’s story, nor even get attached to them. But that is fine, because you don’t need to really like everyone, you just need to see that they’re just people like us. They laughed, cried, and cheered together as an individual. However, that doesn’t mean that there’s no character development at all.
It’s even more than that, the anime managed to make a good narrative and only let it out on certain episodes, which gives us a good pace and a bit of momentum to understand every person and the stadium on its own. At least for me, one of the stories here is quite memorable and would at least let you feel some tears coming out of you.
Animation: Not Great, But Not Bad
As a viewer who is more familiar with isekai or narou anime, it was a fresh look to watch aside from the regular harem and boring visuals. This anime provides just an “okay” visual, not good but also not bad at all. The visual feels like any classic sports anime. It doesn’t really focus on the detail, but focuses on the surroundings and the interaction between people. More detail can be seen more often whenever the anime switches its attention to the baseball game itself, then the animation suddenly becomes good to see, as everything feels smooth and quick.
It might not be my usual cute-moe stuff that I like from a fantasy or rom-com anime, but it gets its job done simply by showcasing regular people, the fans who attend the baseball game, with a simple visual. This also makes everyone in the stadium feels equal, whether it’s the main character, supporting characters, or non-voiced characters.
