Tamayomi is not an anime about cute girls doing cute things. Its a sports anime that just happens to include cute girls and thats an important distinction. A CGDCT anime is less about whatever theyre doing and more about the characters their relationships to each other and how damn cute they are. You care about the protagonists relationship to her childhood friend more than you care that theyre playing survival games or cooking beno or whatever. A sports anime on the other hand will focus more on the game itself. The characters arent sidelines but its presented in a way that should provide the viewer a greater appreciation for the sport. Tamayomi surprisingly does that. Tamayomi follows the relationship between Yomi and Tamaki childhood friends who are reunited by their shared love of baseball and restart their high schools baseball team which was disbanded due to some odd controversy that I honestly dont remember. The cast of characters is vast they do need to fill an entire field with them but theres only a few who matter at any given time. They play baseball and thats really all there is to know. The biggest flaw of Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls is that the animation is bad. Any characters who arent important to the scene or entire scenes that arent as important to the episode are done in CG. Not good CG either but on par with MMD videos. When the characters are actually drawn they are inconsistent with odd angles and offputting proportions. Most of the time and energy seemed to have been spent on specific scenes and closeups of thighs and biceps. Its a shame that the show looks bad because the content can be so good. So how does Tamayomi increase your appreciation of baseball? My experiences with baseball are minimal. My brother played on a team and I sat on the sidelines reading a book while whatever was happening on the field happened. I cared very little for the sport. Tamayomi gives a very indepth look at the relationship between a pitcher and a catcher. The decision tree that a catcher has to go through in order to suggest a pitch is summarized repeatedly as are many other strategies that a layman like myself would have never known. Where a batter should hit the ball in contrast to the fielders when to bunt when to throw a ball vs. a strike. Its all there albeit never explained but only shown in a way that doesnt impact the shows pacing. Thats not to say there arent other anime that do this better. Im sure there are. But as a viewer who was baited into the show on the premise of cute girls and instead found an appreciation for baseball Im pleasantly surprised. Overall Id recommend it with caveats like most every other anime out there. Ignore the animation quality ignore the fact that theres really no good music outside of the OP and ED ignore the fact that its pure yuribait and maybe you can enjoy the show as much as I did.
85 /100
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