Haruka Kiyomine and Kei Kaname were once recognized as the most formidable pitcher-catcher duo in middle school baseball. Known as the "General," Kaname paired his expert strategies with Kiyomine's explosive pitches, crushing the dreams of many starry-eyed players who hoped to one day make it to the big leagues.
High school freshman Tarou Yamada is one such former player. Having given up on competing, he enrolls in Kotesashi High School—a completely average public school with no baseball team to speak of—where he discovers that his new classmates are the legendary pair who once destroyed his dreams. Adding to this shocking revelation, he learns that amnesia has reduced the once level-headed General to a vulgar class clown. Having lost all interest in baseball, Kaname dragged a disappointed Kiyomine to Kotesashi simply because the school was close to where they live.
As Kotesashi forms a fledgling baseball club, Yamada meets other players he once admired who also left baseball behind. While they might be unwilling now, Yamada believes that if he can convince such talented athletes to start playing again, it might be possible to achieve their dreams and win the national championship—as long as they can put up with Kaname's incessant joking.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
sarybelle
Oblivion Battery is a hidden gem of the Spring anime season. It gives you everything you want out of a sports anime: the hype and excitement, the friendship and teamwork, the growth and character development, and on top of that it’s genuinely laugh out loud hilarious. This anime is not Ace of Diamond (which some people seem to be disappointed about for some reason). It doesn’t have a super original or unique plot. But it doesn’t matter because it does the plot very well. The humor is very teenage boy-ish, but it doesn’t cross the line of being TOO over the top and the comedyis great.
With Mappa on the animation, Mrs. Green Apple on the opening, and an insanely talented voice acting staff, including Mamoru Miyano who steals the show, Oblivion Battery is a fun, easy, enjoyable watch.
Wrosgar
Watch episode 11. Overall a good enough show. If you're into sports anime and a team coming together, there's a good chance you may like it - only if you overlook one of the main characters being overly obnoxious and almost had me stopping multiple times. Whether you give the shot a shot or not, watch episode 11. Even if you give up part way through, or if you don't watch it at all. Watch episode 11. I think most people can grasp any missing info based on context in the episode, so no concern about being lost. But the overall animation and production level of thatone single episode soars through the roof and as a standalone is a 10/10 episode. It's absolutely fantastic, and highly recommend anyone and everyone to watch that single episode if you appreciate high quality animation, standout cinematography, good use of sound, and solid pacing, you'll love this episode. It's seriously one of the best I've seen all year.
Do yourself a favor, and watch episode 11.
KANLen09
Oblivion Battery - It's a game of baseball...with more attitude to offer? If there's one genre in the AniManga space that proves a hard task to nail, it would be the sports genre, regardless of its source origin. And believe me, I've tried a fair few sports shows over the past few years, from the likes of soccer/football (i.e. Ao Ashi, Blue Lock) to niche ones like Spring 2021's Shakunetsu Kabaddi, and I definitely have mixed feelings so far. It's less often than most that studios are given a once-in-a-blue-moon rein to produce something out of their ballpark, and this season, it would have to bethe infamous studio MAPPA being assigned to yet another sports show, the last being Masafumi Nishida's Summer 2021 show of Re-Main that focuses on water polo (which was mediocre to fine). 3 years later, the studio is back with yet another sports show. The difference this time, is the adaptation of mangaka Eko Mikawa's Boukyaku Battery a.k.a Oblivion Battery, which offers more than just its main baseball theme...with an injection of humour here and there?
"Nipple hair!!!" - Kei Kaname, VAed by Mamoru Miyano
The TL;DR of such a story or plot as Boukyaku Battery would be: a group of misfits and quitters who compensate for the morale of the baseball team in their own quirks and features, so much so that they're all connected by the white whisps of a thrown baseball at a rather fast speed, with the sport being the circumstance that connects their humanity together in a weird, but cohesive way to break out of their life-stagnating rut. You literally have an unbeatable power duo, an ordinary young man, as well as a pair of frenemies, all of whom joined a public school with little to no recognition, much less an active baseball club to begin with. And with some tenacity, through the POV of the Average Joe, circumstances begin to unravel and bond the misfits together in one form or another, despite everyone being fearful of the Oblivion Battery duo's name being a reference to what to expect in the series.
The love of baseball, and a make-and-break decision. Both Kei Kaname and Haruka Kiyomine are the feared Battery duo, being a fearsome catcher-pitcher tour de force to be reckoned with...when they get all serious. In retrospect, the Oblivion part refers to Kei suffering from amnesia, acting all joker-like with his cringey "Nipple Hair" repeated gag comedy, and Haruka just not giving a damn care about him, which only matters when they're on the pitch. Enter Taro Yamada, the Average Joe, who's the 1st-year newbie in their public school, Kotesashi High School. As you would expect, all 1st-years are coerced to join a club to make full use of their years in school, and Taro, chancing upon the famed battery duo, opts them together to form a new baseball club to reignite the fun of baseball. Little did he know that he would have to deal with Kei's relentless gags and the amnesiac forgetfulness of how to play the sport, alongside Haruka who only gives the silent treatment and talks when it matters. The baseball club only gets going once Shunpei Chihaya and Aoi Todo, once-baseball regulars who are not only morally defeated by the Oblivion Battery duo, but their own circumstances as well, join the rag-tag club, and as they say: "Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible."
The characters easily steal the show for the series. It's not just the incapability of people to excel at their greatest, but it's all learning about how to overcome the high walls, even if help is and isn't existent, for it is all in the psychological mind if they choose to believe that they can do it to begin with. More often than not, I can understand if Kei's comedy gag of jokes gets old and repetitive easily, but surprisingly enough, that same amnesiac personality also serves as a great facade between his serious and not-so-serious moments. Like I've said, it's all in the mind, and if you choose to believe that you can do it despite the circumstances, you will go far, alongside Kotesashi High's baseball club members, where struggles are part-and-parcel of life. It's why "Opposites Attract", and it's how a psychologically challenged team like Kei, Haruka, Taro, Shunpei, and Aoi, can still go the distance if they try their damnest.
It would not be surprising to see a studio like MAPPA take on the mantle of yet another sports show after Re-Main, considering that they actually produced the ONA special for Weekly Shonen Jump's Anime Festa back in 2020. Little did we know, that this was the sequence of events to come when the anime was greenlit in August 2023, even though the series is directed by MAPPA's B-tier team of debut director Masato Nakazono alongside Tsuyoshi Iida for assistance. Still, even with the lesser-known shows, the studio does give its all to the show's production through stellar animation to give it some flex, even if it feels rather stiff at times.
The music, I would say, is pretty excellent, given its composition by both Tomoki Kikuya and Hiroko Yamasaki. Especially for the former, who also composed the music sensation that was Fall 2022's Bocchi the Rock!, as well as his 2017 hits of Spring's Eromanga-sensei, as well as Fall's Blend S alongside Imouto sae Ireba Ii. a.k.a A Sister's All You Need, to name a few. Tomoki Kikuya is a very talented musician who knows how to string all the show's moments with his musical craftsmanship. As for the theme songs, it's a killer combination with Mrs. Green Apple's OP and Macaroni Empitsu's ED, though I prefer much of the stylized childlike drawing of the latter in the visuals, as well as the solid ED song that's one of my favourites this season.
If you're going to watch Boukyaku Battery a.k.a Oblivion Battery, let me give you some advice: don't think of it as a grand stage of a show, like Blue Lock. It's actually more reminiscent of MAPPA's other work, Re-Main, where its characters will lead the show in its own narrative of character growth and overcoming all obstacles, though the execution can be hit or miss. Still, you can't go wrong with this series, and it wouldn't actually hurt to try watching it at least once through for a decent time.
PixelB
Oblivion Battery is a largely character-driven show that also has a great deal of focus on baseball. The balancing act generally tilts toward character development, but I never considered baseball a throwaway theme in this show. First of all, I want to say that this show is extremely smart with the introduction of the baseball team. It feels so....genuine. Realistic. Now, I'm not going to say that a premise that chance coincidences of genius players coming to a nameless public school alongside Kei, an amnesia-ridden former genius catcher is realistic, but if you suspend your disbelief of the setting of the show, you'll come to realizethat the rest of the pieces fall together like a perfectly built puzzle.
I love the way characters get brought into the team. It's with purpose, and not with an irrelevant surface-level connection of baseball that connects each core character. I'll get the obvious one out of the way when talking about Haruka and Kei. Haruka is extremely dependent, almost obsessive about Kei being his catcher, going to a nameless school with Kei, and not even trying to convince Kei to go to a private school with an extremely talented baseball team scholarship. he seemingly defers to Kei at every step, but also is stubborn about his pitching, practicing every minute he gets, but also throwing away his high school career just to play with his catcher. Normally, Haruka would be worried about the future, wondering how their relationship would play out, and maybe try to bring back his old friend back before he got amnesia. However, Kei never thinks that way. He merely thinks of his best friend as his best friend. It goes past anything: Kei is Kei. I could drone on and on, but it's a unique relationship with dynamics I won't be going too deep in this review.
Next are the rest of the cast of baseball players. I'll ignore Taro since he's a pretty basic captain-like character. However, I really like Aoi and Shunpei's character design and background. Again, when we talk about grassroots clubs trying to recruit members, it's generally just the main characters begging over and over again for them to join. This may seem like the case for this show as well, but you'll end up realizing that it's not as simple as you think.
I won't go too deep into either character since there would be pretty massive spoilers, but I just love the fact that both characters are depicted as adolescent kids. There's no stupid drama to heighten tensions. There's not going to be an accident that scars another person for life or something. It's almost all inner introspection. It's coming of age. It's facing problems that you shoved to the back of your mind because you couldn't initially solve them. Sometimes, characters need help from others. Sometimes, help comes in the form of a healthy environment and examining yourself. Overall, I just absolutely love the connection that Aoi and Shunpei both suffered immensely from the battery duo of Kei and Haruka, but instead of escaping again, they try to confront their problems.
Finally, I want to talk about the actual character interactions. It's genuine! I love it. It captures the crude humor that high school kids go through. I love Shunpei and Aoi's back-and-forth arguments. I like Kei's boke. I like Aoi's tsukommi. And I like Haruka's strictness with himself and the gap he creates when he acts immature at times. I do agree that Kei's quite over the top. However, I think that's just what you have to accept: Kei's a character that had amnesia and as a result, regressed into child-like behavior. A former genius character, will he ever regain his former intellect? You don't know, but one thing's for certain, he's going to be lazy, childish, and do stupid one-liners constantly.
Since this show is dependent on characters, the slice-of-life scenes are that much more numerous, and that much more important. Diving into the character interactions both on the mound and off the field is a treat and also serves to solidify each character. If you can't stand Kei or any of the other characters, this show might not be for you. On the other hand, if you think the characters are great and dialogue fun, you're in for a good time.
I'll talk about less important stuff about comparing to other baseball anime here:
Compared to other shows like Diamond no Ace, this show shows less detail into the aspect of baseball and doubles down on characters. Diamond no Ace has such extreme details into each player's habits and does play-by-play for nearly every important game. This show, while still emphasizing player habits and strategy, nearly never does play-by-play and instead focuses on the character's feelings at the moment. You'll never see this show talk strategy about Kei giving Haruka signs for pitching (at least yet) or the specific batting habits of opponents. Yet at the same time, it's not like Cross Game where baseball might as well be a fleeting background, as this show still focuses a lot on the game itself. It's just varying levels of detail. Ookiku Furikabutte, on the other hand, does as good of a job when it comes to play by plays, but staggers immensely on character interaction and development. While crude humor surfaces up here and there, it does feel a lot more artificial and even more immature than Kei sometimes. It does feel like surface-level imitation. On the other hand, characters in Ookiku Furikabutte just bring up extremely odd topics at times, almost like author-self insert dialogue rather than actual high school freshmen kids talking. This happens many times. So yes, I think while Oblivion Battery clearly won't get to the level of detail that shows like Diamond no Ace provides, that's perfectly fine because the scope of the show is completely different.
Jozuwa-_-
To anyone who dislikes the "It gets good later on" kind of show, this might not be for you. But for anyone who has enough patience to watch half of the show before deciding whether it is for them or not, this might be worth a try. I say that because in my opinion, the show only became interesting when it's telling the backstories of the main characters, and that only started during the 6th episode. The 2 MCs have not been interesting so far. Kaname has been doing nothing but forced and redundant "comical" bits for the most part, which now became so tired and irritating.But his character did get a development relating to his Amnesia before the season ended so, that at least gave him a little pump of interest. Kiyomine on the other hand still doesn't have any personality other than being obsessed and teasing a BL with Kaname.
They did utilize the other character, Toudou, for the baseball and serious aspects of the show, seemingly presenting him as the most mature and leader-like among the crew. His character arc was the first part of the story that made the show interesting for me.
Chihaya also had his character arc spot before the season ended. It wasn't too strong and was more of a first hurdle for him to overcome, but the point of the backstory was quite helpful to give him a motivation going forward.
Yamada the POV character has become less of an irritating embodiment of a narrator and finally started taking part during the baseball games and some of the character events. That's an improvement from when he was still mostly like a ghost that speaks from time to time.
The "2D" gamer dude... I don't think we got much from him yet-- his introduction episode was fairly fun though, to be fair.
Frankly, if this had bad animation, I would've dropped it already. But since it's visually pleasing, it wasn't hard to keep watching, which is why I managed to see its much more interesting latter half. With that being said, I do see a bit of possibility that this could turn into an interesting Baseball-themed Anime when the MCs finally get into some competition/tournament arcs. They've already setup some rival characters to look forward to, and some challenges for the characters to overcome. The only problem would be if the 2 MCs, Kaname and Kiyomine, remain stuck with a romantic angle even during serious arcs. IMO, if they don't get any more motivation other than them wanting to play with each other's "balls", then the writer(s) might as well focus on the other characters as the main ones.
TL;DR: You want some Baseball action in Anime? You got it!.... during the last 3 episodes, that is. (I'm not counting the practice match against Teitoku-- that was more of a plot setup.). If you don't mind going through some character-building that would PROBABLY lead somewhere then it might be worth checking out. Otherwise, just watch the Major series.
WARNING: Toudou's older sister is flaming hot!!!
joyxxse
Unexpectedly good. It is indeed the hidden gem of the season. Didn't have high expectations as there was not a lot of hype around it. First episode might make it seem like your average sports anime, but it gets a lot better in the last few episodes. The comedy might not appeal to everyone and quite of lot of them don't come across well the same after translation. These 12 episodes only adapt first few arcs of the manga, which acts more like an introduction of characters and their backstory, so makes sense if some think it's not very exciting. P.S. Episode 11 is superb!!!!
symiel
It's a good sports anime. Not revolutionary, but solid. The problem was the first 3 episodes that almost got me to drop this series. Oblivion Battery didn't make the greatest first impression. It starts out pretty slow and one of the main characters (Kei) seems really annoying. Thankfully, as more cast is introduced, focus on his antics is somewhat dialed back and it becomes bearable, even endearing in a way. Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome, but at this point his flagship joke "nipple hair" gets a chuckle out of me. Story: It's simple and fairly standard - an underdog public high school team aims for Koushien. What setsit apart is Kei’s amnesia, which is not my favorite plot device, but the premise of an elite player becoming an amateur again is interesting enough. It remains to be seen how stark differences between pre- and post-amnesia Kei’s personality will be resolved.
The show also knows when it should get more serious - characters’ backstories aren’t played for jokes.
Characters:
The cast is enjoyable and their interactions are funny. Some characters are kinda tropey - Chihaya is a smart and sassy four-eyes and Todo is a hotheaded brawn over brains guy. There’s also Tsuchiya the otaku.
Kiyomine seems bland, but the story hasn't properly focused on him yet, so it might change. His relationship with pre-amnesia Kei seems interesting, but we haven’t seen much of it in this season. Yamada is a likable everyman that glues together the team. Post-amnesia Kei has a cringy sense of humor, but has a heart in the right place.
Animation&Art:
It’s visually appealing, definitely not low-budget and it’s showing. The characters’ faces sometimes remind me of “Making Charlie Kirk’s face smaller” memes though.
It’s also got known VAs (Yuki Kaji, my beloved).
Enjoyment: 9/10
Obviously the least objective part of the review. Sports anime are my comfort shows, so if they aren’t doing anything especially bad, I’m going to like them. It was one of the shows I waited for the most every week. What I want from this genre is to see protagonists put in effort and develop friendships along the way and this anime delivers this.
Tablekun
Boukyaku Battery is a solid anime for baseball enjoyers, unquestionably. Myself, being a catcher in my high school days, can relate to the pitcher/catcher dynamic, and so I quite enjoyed the series. The show does have a troubled plot, and almost feels like a slice of life. It does present enough growth of the characters and the team, so I had no problem watching week to week. For a MAPPA show, I expected a bit more production value. It is good in some scenes, but cheap looking in the majority. Animation 7/10 - Some scenes present as "MAPPA", but they arefew and far between.
Sound 7/10
- Nice OP/ED, good sound design.
Story 2/10
- Rather simple premise, not very deep on the issue of amnesia. More of a team building arc.
Characters 8/10
- I enjoy the characters, both mains and supporting cast, also the rival teams are interesting. I also liked mini arcs where the players are overcoming their barriers.
Enjoyment 8/10
- I really enjoyed it, when I first decided to watch it, I didn't expect to watch it beyond the first ep, but it hooked me unexpectedly.
This may not be most people's cup of tea, there isn't much here, but I expect a lot of baseball fans would enjoy it. Give it a chance, if that is the case.
