, often shortened to just , is a baseball manga series by Asa Higuchi, serialized in the monthly seinen Afternoon magazine since 2003. It has been adapted into a TV anime series, animated by A-1 Pictures, which premiered in Japan
on TBS
. It received its international television premiere on Animax's English language networks in Asia, Animax Asia.
The manga series won the prestigious
Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for
best creative work in 2006. In 2007, it won the
Kodansha Manga Award for general
manga.
Story
The series, set in
Saitama, follows
the story of Ren Mihashi. Mihashi was the previous ace
pitcher in his middle school's baseball team, but it
seems that he only got the position because his grandfather was the
owner of the school. His teammates (especially the team's
catcher) hated him, and they always lost their
games. Mihashi is thoroughly convinced that he is a lousy baseball
pitcher and he graduates to high school with extremely low
self-esteem. He then transfers to Nishiura high school with plans
of quitting baseball, because he does not believe he is good enough
to succeed at baseball. However, he is dragged into Nishiura's
baseball team by their coach. Assisted by his new teammates (and
especially the catcher, Takaya Abe), he grows in stature,
confidence and skill, helping his team excel with his own
abilities.
Development
While growing up in
Saitama, Asa
Higuchi became familiar with baseball by reading the manga
Dokaben. When she was in high school, the story of a
local baseball team wound up inspiring her to come up with the idea
for her own baseball manga. In the original version, Mihashi never
spoke and characters like Momoe, Kanou and Haruna didn't exist yet.
Following
that, she collected data on high school baseball for over 10 years
in order to create the manga, and she worked with the school she
had attended, Urawanishi High School
, in the year prior to the serialization. In
fact, Urawanishi seems to have been the design for the school that
the Nishiura boys attend. The two names are similar as well.
Five months prior to the serialization of Ōkiku Furikabutte in
Afternoon, Higuchi published a one shot in the magazine titled "The
Basic of Basics". The story was centered around the characters of
the Musashino Dai Ichi school, who would show up in the series
itself.
Anime
The series
is adapted into a TV anime series, animated by A-1 Pictures, which
premiered in Japan on TBS from April 2007. It also aired during
the same month across several of TBS's affiliated TV networks,
including MBS
, BS-i and CBC
. One month later, the series also aired on
the Japanese
Animax. The series was also
subsequently aired in
English
across Animax's
English language
networks in
Southeast Asia and
South Asia.
Staff
- Original Work: Asa Higuchi's Ōkiku Furikabutte
(serialized in the monthly Afternoon magazine)
- Director: Tsutomu Mizushima
- Series Composition: Yōsuke
Kuroda
- Character Design and Chief Animation Director: Takahiko
Yoshida
- Action Animation Director: Jun'ichirō Taniguchi
- Accessories Design: Takuya Suzuki
- Art Director: Yukihiro Shibuya
- Color Design: Miyuki Satō
- Photography Director: Ei Rōhei
- Editing: Shigeru Nishiyama
- Sound Director: Hiromi Kikuda
- Mixer: Riyō Yamada (Sound Team)
- Sound Effects: Tomozaku Mitsui (Sound Box)
- Music: Shirō Hamaguchi,
Akifumi Tada
- Production: A-1 Pictures
Theme songs
- Opening theme
- *Performance: Base Ball Bear
- 2nd opening theme
- *Performance: Ikimono-gakari
- Ending theme
- *Performance: Kozue Takada
- 2nd ending theme
- *Performance: SunSet Swish
Episodes
Reception
Big Windup! has achieved both critical and commercial
success. In 2007, it won the
Kodansha Manga Award for general manga,
and the 11th volume of the manga was the best selling manga volume
in its week of release, and sold over 400,000 copies in its first
three weeks of release.
References
External links
Wikis
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