If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to be doing some cramming for my tennis match…
Last week on Baby Steps, Eiichirou was entered into the Junior Tournament.
Summary of Baby Steps Episode 5
- Eiichirou’s first match against the tournament’s 5th seed, Oobayashi, starts unexpectedly with Eiichirou winning a game due to his advanced returning techniques, but the match takes a turn for the worse as Eiichirou is revealed to be lacking in all other areas in his tennis technique. These flaws are quickly exploited by Oobayashi, who wins five games in a row, making the score 5-1. Seeing that he’ll lose the match if he loses another game, Eiichirou takes the opportunity to keep the match running as long as he can to practice on his form.
My Take
- After 4 episodes, something finally happens and picks up the pace! Right when I thought the entire series would just be Eiichirou awkwardly hitting a tennis ball against a wall, he surprises me by playing against a human being. Big step up, I’d say!
Oh, great. With all of you guys here, I’m sure to feel good about myself
- Since Eiichirou finally gets to play against a live human being instead of a wall, it begs the question, “In the past 4 months he’s been playing, why did he not play a real match between any of the club’s members?” And for that matter, why didn’t he practice with Natsu? He obviously likes her quite a bit, and it would have been a good way to both practice and get to know her more. It’s a win-win situation that was lost out on.
- Anyway, the match surprisingly doesn’t go how anybody would have expected. In the first game, Eiichirou is on the receiving side, and since his benchmark for what a serve should look like is Takuma fast and unforgiving serve, he perceives all other serves quicker and it becomes much easier to return them. That’s all good, but it turns out he’s lacking in two crucial areas; his serve and using his own force to propel the ball. Seeing this, his opponent quickly exploits his weaknesses and adjusts his own playing style. That’s neat because I didn’t think anybody would show any sort of development or deviation in their style except for Eiichirou.
- So… cliffhanger time! However… again, this was a cliffhanger done right. After Eiichirou was getting killed in the match, he started to use it as a way to improve his form, and actually fared a good chance against his opponent before the episode ended. Knowing this show, Eiichirou is going to monumentally mess up at the beginning of the next episode, lose the match, then look around awkwardly. I’ll actually be shocked if that doesn’t happen.
- Even though Baby Steps is getting back on track, that doesn’t mean that everything in the series is all hunky-dory now. The presence of an actual plot rather than a drawn-out character arc for Eiichirou is nice, but that doesn’t mean that Eiichirou is a better character than he was at the beginning of the series. I admit, I do like how he represents the audience that doesn’t know anything about tennis, but his tendencies to freak-out all the time and second-guess himself do get a bit irritating. It’s the biggest gripe I have now that the series has found some footing.
- I do have to admire how this show goes to great lengths to teach the audience about tennis, though. Since I already know almost everything there is to know about tennis, I wouldn’t know how effective it is at teaching somebody who has no prior knowledge, but it seems to go over the basics pretty well.
He means business, dude! Back out while you can!!
- After a slow start, episode 5 restored my waning faith in this series. Now if the series can consist of more matches and relationships over wall-practicing, then I’d say that it’s a series that more people should know about. As it stands right now… well, we’ll just have to wait and see.