Posted by: Alderis
« on: September 26, 2024, 02:41:21 AM »Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking back in on the team with a fresh episode of Big Windup!, as our boys prepare for the first round of the summer tournament. It certainly won’t be an easy trial; our luckless captain Hanai managed to draw an immediate matchup with last year’s champions, meaning no matter how hard our team practices, they’ll still be laboring under a substantial experience deficit, facing players who’ve bolstered their profound natural talents with superior facilities and an arduous long-term training regimen.
That’s all lousy news for our players, but certainly an easy pitch (pun slightly intended) for us in the stands. Big Windup!’s fundamental hook is navigating the complex intersection of athletic ability, group psychology, and competitive strategy, exploring how the mindset with which we approach the game can be just as consequential as our mechanical abilities. Stacking the deck against our players is an excellent way to push the limits of schemers like Abe and Momoe, so I’m eager to see how they grapple with this fresh misfortune. Let’s get to it!
Episode 12
“Big Windup!” is actually a uniquely appropriate title for this show, as it implies an exaggerated act of preparation, which is this story’s particular fascination
I assume Tsutomu Mizushima himself directed this OP, as it’s not really a stylistic divergence from the series proper, but more a total encapsulation of the series’ general directorial goals. Lots of wide open compositions emphasizing the scale of the field, partial body shots conveying the precise motions of moving the ball across the team, and plenty of focus on that overwhelming summer sky. It’s a montage that essentially details the warmup activities preceding every actual episode
“The Cheering Squad.” A concept that would normally not earn itself an episode title, but which is obviously more significant in a show that’s as much about the mental state of the players as their physical abilities. When your belief in victory is flagging, it helps to have a group that are loudly in your corner
We cut back to Mihashi in the second year of grade school, when a transfer between schools left him without friends. He’s basically been trained to always see himself as an interloper, an intruder within some established dynamic, a mindset that was both facilitated by and helped to encourage in turn his generally unobtrusive, apologetic demeanor
Late afternoon light sets a shroud of melancholy over the scene; an easy trick, but the end of the day is always a natural visual shorthand for a sense of other things ending as well
God, Mihashi really does look like a helpless baby bird with his diamond mouth and wide eyes. This expression naturally conveys how his old teammates must think of him – a helpless creature waiting to be hand-fed, incapable of taking responsibility for himself
From that point of isolation, he thinks back further to Kruger Villa, where he naturally made friends with people like our emergent cheer squad founder Hamada
It was actually Hamada who gave him his first glove, a clear affirmation of his acceptance into their group
Their day of practice begins at four in the goddamn morning, an absurdity conveyed through the morning dew still fogging up the streets as Hamada heads to practice. Jeez, even the cheer section has to wake up that early? Fiendish
Tajima is the first to greet him, with a very characteristic “oh hey, you showed up,” not even trying to conceal his skepticism
“I’m the person leading the cheer squad! Of course I know names and faces!” Hamada’s easy social confidence is visually contrasted against Mihashi nervously scrubbing a baseball, too anxious to greet his old friend
And of course, this pisses Abe off enough for him to just drag Mihashi over to Hamada. Understanding is one thing, total patience for Mihashi’s deal is quite another
Abe is constantly navigating genuine, almost unsolvable strategic problems, so seeing Mihashi mired in what he sees as self-inflicted challenges must be quite annoying
Hamada admits he’s a year older, and Tajima quickly asks “illness? Injury? Stupidity?” Bless this blunt idiot
“Oh, so you’re stupid!” Goddamnit Tajima
“The villa was all gone, so I pitched by myself. What about you, Hama-chan?” This question seems to put him on the backfoot. For Mihashi, not pitching at all was clearly out of the question, but perhaps Hamada simply let himself drift away from his passion
They begin warmup rituals with Shiga, continuing their meditation practice
“What if we could condition ourselves to relax when we’re in a pinch?” An excellent thought – if they’re going to be making the body’s ability to relax instinctual, obviously the condition for that instinct kicking in should be when they most need to calm down
It’s such a fun, compelling contrast from the usual approach to psychology in shonen or sports drama. “Pushing beyond your limits” or “believing in yourself” are nice phrases, but the body is a machine that can be trained and even manipulated, and your mental state is directly tied to all the other subsystems of that machine. Learn to properly regulate your emotions, and victory draws that much closer
“The beauty of conditioning is that you can associate things that seem totally unrelated.” Meaning the activation condition can be something totally convenient, something which requires no compromise regarding your physical engagement with the active play
Mizutani points out that our standard pressure conditioning is actually counter-productive, as we tend to freeze up when we most need to be limber and reactive
They’re basically demonstrating the HxH style nen training of baseball. Once you include this sort of player psychology as a mechanical variable in the drama, the resolution of that drama becomes significantly more grounded and coherent – players aren’t just suddenly discovering hidden reservoirs of determination, they’re executing tactical gambits that we’ve already seen them studying
“What item should we connect with relaxing?” They elect to make their condition “runner on third,” a naturally stress-inducing position. Like with a football field, the baseball pitch is a field of battle where territory can be actively claimed and secured on the way towards gaining points, with pauses in between to reset positioning. This means they should have time to relax in response to a runner claiming third
Momoe serves as their talisman, standing on third base as they commence relaxation exercises
This production’s wide-open compositions with an emphasis on the sky also fit naturally with these meditation sequences, where the focus is on quelling your riotous emotions and seeing yourself as an extension of the vast space around you
“That mental training… I joined in, but should I have?” Hamada still sees himself as an outsider, but if he wants the cheer squad to actually perform a useful function, he must see himself and be seen by the team as part of their overall collective organism, a comforting face on the sidelines. Like with so many of this show’s characters, his mental state is currently getting in the way of his tactical efficacy
Momoe notes that it is not the opposing cheerleaders or fans jeering, but their own fans looking disappointed that can most undercut the mental state of the players. Thus it is up to the cheer squad to counter any foolish, counterproductive expressions of disappointment from fans or parents
Momoe sees Hamada as something like the conductor of the crowd’s overall attitude, which is indeed an important role. Their team is not so strong that they can disregard the mood of the spectators and still hope to win
Nice breezy background track for this summer day, led by an energetic flute melody
Hitting practice demonstrates how they all bolster each other’s mentality – Tajima calls his hits all around the field, Hanai simply shouts “center deep” to keep up, and the rest of the players follow suit. The strength of one player can be an inspiration to the others, not just a source of self-doubt or resentment
The afternoon brings a new kind of training, as they work on their split-second play calling by having a perpetual runner on third dashing home
Some nice cuts of animation for their batting practice as we montage our way through summer training. I like how they’re building a sort of rhythm of exertion here, with the clangs of the bats and grunts of leaping for a ball matching the tempo of the backing track
Cutting back in after six weeks, it’s clear Hamada has been fully integrated into the group. We also get some nice incidental reflections on how Momoe keeps the group motivated, by varying through cooldown activities that actually make the practice seem like a kind of play
Only Hamada notes how Momoe is subtly manipulating her players
And Done
Thus our team builds themselves into fighting shape for the grand tournament! As I noted at the beginning, from the title on down, Big Windup! understands that the essence of victory is in preparation, and this episode offered a hefty serving of preparation in regards to both the physical and psychological playing field. It’s always fun seeing how frequently unconsidered aspects of the game can be turned to key tactical advantage, whether it’s learning to mitigate your natural stress responses, or actively managing the mood of the crowd such as to promote a more optimistic player mindset. There are just so many variables to manipulate here, and Big Windup! is determined to illuminate all of them, demonstrating the sprawling tactical complexity of the larger baseball metagame. And of course, with all these variables so clearly defined, the actual execution of play will be that much more weighted and satisfying to follow, like a distinct variation on chess we’ve been given all the tools to master. I’m eager to see it play out!
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Source: Big Windup! – Episode 12