Sure. Do what you want. I don’t care anymore
Last week on Baby Steps, Eiichirou started his third round match against Miyagawa, ending the episode with a 4-4 tie.
Summary of Baby Steps Episode 11
- Picking up from episode 10, Eiichirou and Miyagawa are still engaged in their third round match with the score tied. After a lot of back-and-forths between the two, they eventually tie and have to go into a tiebreaker. The rules of the tiebreaker state that the first player to score two points in a row wins the match. After a long battle, Eiichirou finally wins after Miyagawa tries a risky, last-ditch move that doesn’t work out for him in the end.
My Take
- Eiichirou wins the match! Good for him, but bad for us because we all knew he’d win. Not only that, but we had to watch two whole episodes just to see it happen. Here’s a hint to all aspiring writers/novelists/screenwriters/etc. out there; false suspense sucks, and you shouldn’t ever strive to be this unoriginal or predictable.
Fat chance, he’s going up against a main character who’s on a very lucky streak
- This episode continues where the last one left off. When I say that, I mean that it continues almost where the last episode left off. You see, the first minute or so of this episode was the ending from the last episode. I’ve noticed that a lot of episodes in this series do that. Some would say that it serves as a good recap, and I get where you’re coming from with that. However, I don’t think it is a good way to get the viewer up to speed, especially when you take so much content from last week and shamelessly splice it in as a way to cut down on the original content. It’s something that can work if done properly, but the people behind this show must be new to the technique.
- The match dragged on, and on, and on, and on… and on. I actually expected it to be close, but I didn’t expect it to end with a tiebreaker. I didn’t expect them to delve into that territory, but it was nice that they mentioned the rules. Still, that made the show extra boring. We all knew Eiichirou would win, so why flesh it out for so long?
- I know that still images are used quite often in anime, but this show takes the cake. Every other scene is spliced together with a still image, and sometimes, the same image is reused two or three times in the episode. I’ve always been an extremely observant person, and I seriously get using this technique to save a bit of money on animation, especially when animation isn’t necessary, but when it’s relied upon so much (especially in an anime about a dynamic sport such as tennis), I can’t help but get annoyed. It might seem like a trivial complaint, but it hurts the aesthetics and presentation of the show when it’s used to this degree.
- The biggest sin is that the whole episode just felt like filler. It seemed so desperate to meet the time limit, but there just wasn’t nearly enough content. That’s why we see repeats from the last episode, flashbacks we’ve already seen, and way too much dialogue from Natsu, Takuma, and the coach, as well as internal dialogue from Eiichirou and Miyagawa. I know that stuff like this is typical for a sports anime, but that doesn’t mean it has to be.
- Reluctantly, I say that the one aspect I did like about this episode was surprising: I liked how this episode taught the audience about tennis. I know, I went on a tirade last week about this very same topic, but in this episode, the topics of tiebreakers and break-points were discussed. I liked it because these topics weren’t previously discussed in the series, so this was the first time the audience gets to know these specific areas of the game. What’s more, they were actually pretty good explanations. So… I applaud the writing and presentation on that front. Again, reluctantly.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen
- Needless to say, this episode was bland, boring, and just downright uninteresting. Honestly, I’m more mad at this show because it had a great deal of potential, yet it was all thrown out the window. Because of that, I’m not going to continue recapping this show anymore. The quality just kept going down, and I don’t feel like rehashing my negative views every week, especially because they almost always are about the same aspects of the show. I’m going to continue watching the series, but it’s not good enough for me to waste my time complaining about on this blog.
Series Recap
Because I’ve decided to stop blogging this show, I’m going to sum up my thoughts on episodes 1-11. Instead of writing an insightful, witty review on these episodes, I’ve decided to cut the crap and get right to the point and post some straight-to-the-point bullet points on how this show could have been improved upon. Here are nine ways Baby Steps could have been better:
1. A stronger main character. Eiichirou is such a poor main character. He is literally “Mr. Perfect” in pretty much every way. Everyone likes him, he gets good grades, he learns things quickly… so where’s the struggle he goes through? How can flawed individuals like us all (YES, everybody is flawed) relate to this guy? How can we get invested in anything he does when we know that it’ll all work out for him in the end? There’s no payoff to that investment. Give him real hoops to jump through.
2. Better music. To some, this is just a small problem. To me, this can help make or break a series. Most anime I watch, the music is just generic, upbeat sounding music that was composed out of two whole jam sessions, and Baby Steps is no different. Obviously, the people behind the music of this series don’t care at all about the music they make, and can’t make music other than generic happy guitar driven music. No feeling, no suspense, no mood, just generic garbage. Get real composers.
3. More interactions between characters. All these characters are made to interact with each other, yet all they do is comment about tennis during matches. There was a time where Natsu and Eiichirou had some great chemistry because they actually talked to each other about real issues. Despite those wonderful, albeit seldom scenes, these characters couldn’t talk normally to each other even if their lives depended on it. Make these characters feel real.
4. Have tennis matches that don’t consist entirely of internal dialogue. This essentially equates to characters doing nothing more than talking to themselves for 20 minutes. Yeah, popular opinion dictates that all sports anime ends up doing this, but that doesn’t mean that every addition to the genre has to follow suit. Just shut up and play the damn game.
5. A faster pace. I know the series is called “Baby Steps”, but the pace that’s set in this show is even more tedious than that title would imply. We see him pick up a tennis racket for the first time all the way to him winning his first match, and every grueling detail in between. Most of this isn’t necessary, and just distracts from any real substance. Pick up the pace and make things happen!
6. Art that isn’t generic. When I say that, I meant that this series is just boring to even look at. The backgrounds looked lifeless and dull. People need to have a style that’s unique. Make it look refreshing. Also, make your characters look cool and don’t give them hair like Eiichirou’s train wreck of a hairstyle. Make your show stand out!
7. Make the characters just as important as the sport they’re playing. By that, I mean that the entire focus of this series is tennis, and the characters are just there to play the game. They lack so much personality, and every ounce of personality they have relates to tennis in some way or form. It would have been much more interesting to see these tennis stars act like normal high school students instead of obsessive players. Let the characters elevate the sport instead of the sport elevating the characters.
8. Less English phrases. I might get some hate for this, but I don’t understand why English is seen as so “cool” in anime. It seems that every time Natsu said anything, she was speaking some random English phrase. These honestly made me laugh because they came out of nowhere. Most English speakers don’t throw in random Japanese phrases, and it shouldn’t work the other way around.
9. Less filler. Dialogue is amazing, and it’s literally any storyteller’s best friend… but it has to be meaningful. GET. TO. THE. POINT.
If all these were applied, Baby Steps would be a much more interesting show to me. I don’t know how many people would agree with me, but that’s just the way I feel. I wanted to like this show, but there are way too many problems with it that I can’t get over.
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Ben
20 year old university student studying economics by day, snooty anime blogger by night! I have high standards for anime, but I also keep an open mind when it comes to shows outside my comfort area, which usually includes dialogue-heavy drama. Always happy to have a discussion.Latest posts by Ben (see all)
- What Ben Learned From Watching Heaven’s Memo Pad, Part III (Episodes 7-12) - June 20, 2014
- Notes of Baby Steps Episode 11 + Series Recap - June 19, 2014
- What Ben Learned From Watching Heaven’s Memo Pad, Part II (Episodes 2-6) - June 14, 2014
- Notes of Baby Steps Episode 10 - June 12, 2014
- What Ben Learned From Watching Heaven’s Memo Pad, Part I - June 6, 2014