20 Best Baseball Anime! Is there any work that surpasses Touch, Major, and Diamond A?

We have selected 20 of the most famous baseball-themed anime to share with you!
We’ve compiled a history of baseball anime spanning more than 50 years, from still-popular current works such as “Major” and “Dia no A” to yesteryear legends such as “Touch” and “Dokaben”!

Major

A baseball anime that aired for six seasons on NHK from 2004-2010.
Based on a 78-volume hit manga serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday from 1994 to 2010.

It is the longest baseball anime in history, depicting the checkered baseball life of Goro Shigeno.
Although there are many attractive characters in this work, the symbol of this work is Goro, the main character, and his honest life style, both good and bad, has been loved by many readers and gained popularity, even though he is sometimes called “damn”.

The TV series ended one step before the last episode of the original story, but the episode was later made into a video in the OAD accompanying the special edition of the book.

Major second

This is a sequel to Major, which started serialization on Sunday in 2015.
The story features Goro’s son, Daigo Shigeno, and has also been adapted into an anime by NHK.
The first series aired in 2018, and the second series in 2020.

While Goro, the protagonist of the previous series, was a talented baseball player, his son Daigo is not as talented and has the opposite personality.
As a result, the direction of the work is also very different from the previous work, especially in the junior high school version, where the girls’ baseball aspect becomes more intense and non-baseball elements (such as girls’ sex scenes and romantic comedy development) become more prominent.

The character designs of the anime have been drastically changed since the second series, and it seems to be quite popular.

Diamond A

A baseball manga that began serialization in Weekly Shonen Magazine in 2006.
The first part was completed in 2015, and the second part “Diamond A act II” has been serialized since the same year.
The anime started in 2013 and has already aired its third season.

It is a high school baseball story that depicts the rapid progress of Seido High School, to which the main character Sawamura Eijun belongs, as they struggle to make it to the Koshien Tournament.
The style of the story is a combination of “sporen” and modern baseball, and it is also very professional, incorporating MLB trends.
It is also very popular among women, and as it is now one of Magazine’s signature works, it is likely that the anime will continue to develop.

Big Windup!

An anime adaptation of a baseball manga that began serialization in Monthly Afternoon in 2003 and continues to this day.
The first season was aired in 2007, and the second season in 2010.
This is the work of director Tsutomu Mizushima, and the anime that led to A-1 Pictures’ rapid growth.

The main character is a high school pitcher, Ren Mihashi, who plays a high school baseball game.
Although it is standard to have a pitcher as the protagonist, he is very different from past baseball anime in that his pitching speed is slow and his control is his strong point.
The story also focuses on the relationships between the teammates, and is characterized by the fact that it has a large number of female fans, which was unusual for baseball manga of the time.

As a side note, the original story is also famous for its slow progress, and even now, 17 years after the start of the series, the first year has not ended.

Battery

A baseball anime based on a novel by Atsuko Asano.
It is one of the few works that broke the jinx that “novels about sports are hard to sell.

It is one of the few works that broke the jinx that “novels based on sports are hard to sell,” because it focuses on the relationship between the main character, Takumi Harada, an arrogant pitcher, and his wife, Gou Nagakura, a battery.
If “Oofuri” was the first baseball anime to focus on female audiences, this work could be said to be the first baseball work to focus on female audiences.

Taisho Baseball Girls

A baseball work based on a light novel.
It was broadcast in 2009 and was well received.

The story takes place at the end of the Taisho Era (1912-1926), a time when women were unusually active in society.
In order to overturn the value system that women should stay in the home, the girls devote themselves to baseball and enjoy their youth.
It is the most famous TV anime that deals with women’s baseball in earnest, and even now, more than 10 years after it was broadcast, it still boasts a certain level of popularity.

Tamayomi

Kirara’s first baseball anime, based on a manga serialized in Manga Time Kirara Forward.
It was broadcasted in 2020.

It is a high school baseball story set in a world where women’s baseball is recognized as a major sport, slightly different from reality.
It’s a Kirara work, and there are only female characters, so people tend to think it’s an extension of everyday life, but it’s a spore-oriented story, and the description of baseball is very professional.
On the other hand, there is a lot of yuri in this story, so yuri fans can also enjoy it.

Cinderella Nine

A baseball anime based on the smart phone game app known as Hachinai.
It was broadcasted in 2019.

It is a coming-of-age story that deals with girls’ baseball, as per the concept of “youth, high school girls, and high school baseball.
The anime is set up differently from the game, focusing on the main character Tsubasa Arihara and other main characters, and depicts the formation of the girls’ baseball club and their journey to the tournament.
During the broadcast of the series, there was a lot of criticism about the artwork, but it was highly acclaimed as a coming-of-age story, and it was rerun.

Touch

A baseball anime that was broadcasted from 1985 to 1987 and became a social phenomenon.
The original work was serialized in Sunday magazine in the 1980s, and is a masterpiece by Adachi Mitsuru, a leading baseball manga artist.
It is an adolescent romantic comedy based on a love triangle between the main character Tatsuya Uesugi, who attends Meisei Gakuen, his twin brother Kazuya, who was a pitching prodigy, and his childhood friend Minami Asakura.

At the time, it was common for anime to be broadcasted in the golden slot, and this Touch was also broadcasted on Sundays at 7pm.
The viewership rating was over 20% for 97 episodes out of 101.
The average rating was 25.6%, and the highest was 32.9%, the same level as Hanzawa Naoki today.

H2

This is another one of Adachi’s masterpieces.
It was serialized in Sunday magazine in the 1990s, and was made into an anime from 1995 to 1996.
This time, it is a coming-of-age romantic comedy that depicts a four-way relationship between two men and two women, with the main character being Hiro Kunimi, a super high school-grade pitcher.

Compared to Touch, the description of baseball has become more authentic, and the rakugo-like dialogue of Adachi’s style has finally reached its peak, and the overall quality of the work is said to be the best among Adachi’s works. However, the anime was not as good as Touch and ended in less than a year.
The original is talked about by baseball fans every summer, but the anime is rarely talked about.

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