Last Inning + others
PostPosted:Wed Feb 01, 2017 9:55 pm
Japanese sports manga is filled with the all the crazy stuff, so I decided to check out Last Inning which is hailed as the 'totally normal sports manga', and, well, I guess there's a reason why nobody actually follow these things. Beyond reading the exciting detail of 3 bottom of the lineup guy uneventfully getting force out/strike out, there's still no guaranteed that anything normal actually make sense. Last Inning is about this weak high school team that hired a shady salesman as their coach and he's supposed to use his shady tactics to help them win. That's actually not a bad premise, except I'm pretty convinced the author still has no idea how the sports actually works even though there are no super power here. The last two innings in their elimination game went like this:
Top of 7th, the team is down 3-1. The 7/8/9 guys went 3 up 3 down (this takes an entire chapter). The obligatory clueless blonde panics, and the coach does his evil laugh and says he's got the opponent exactly where he wanted them, because now he's got the top of the order coming up the next inning. I know this stuff is actually pretty old so Sabermetrics probably wasn't a thing back then, but keep in mind this is supposed to be realistic high school baseball manga representing a traditionally very weak baseball team. There are only 4 guys on the entire team that can actually hit the ball (batters 1-4) and the bottom of the order are literally guys to fill out the roster. The implication is that the other team could've purposely let a bunch of guys who pretty much can't even hit a ball get on base on purpose and then try to make the third out on their guys that can actually hit the ball so that it breaks up the batting order. However, I've never heard of anybody ever advocating that as a thing. Maybe people back then didn't quite know getting an out is super important, but I've never heard of any strategy advocating letting your opponent's weakest batters on base on purpose.
Meanwhile, the opposing coach starts panicking because his opponents looks like they're still in the fight, because after all, in an elimination game, normally teams behind 3-1 with the heart of their battling order just mail it in when your pitcher actually gets tired (because this is supposed to be like real baseball).
Then, at top of 8th, with runners in 1st and 2nd with no out, the #3 battle singles to center, and the guy at second tries to run home was thrown out by a mile. The blonde panics again and says if only the runner stopped at third they'd have bases loaded with no outs and their super awesome guy batting next. The coach does his evil laugh and says that he told the guy to run home on purpose knowing he'd get thrown out by a mile, because he wants to instill fear into the opponent's hearts while simultaneously trick them into thinking they have a chance at winning. Otherwise, they might walk the cleanup batter and then the fact that they had mostly scrubs after him would be exposed. Never mind that the cleanup batter would be up with no outs and bases loaded in this case, and I'm pretty sure only Barry Bonds has been walked in such a situation in recent baseball history. In fact, if this guy is this good, it seems like walking him with 1 out to load the bases is certainly better than walking him with no outs and the bases already loaded.
I also checked out a tennis manga called Baby Steps (I think that's the name) that's supposed to be the realistic tennis manga, and I saw some part about how the main character plays some guy and he notices that the opponent makes a certain expression before hitting the ball hard and uses this to his advantage. I mean, I get that in Prince of Tennis, since the guys are channeling enough energy to destroy a small building, maybe it is obvious that before they do their super moves you can see them charging up and plan accordingly. But here we're talking about a guy just hitting a hard forehand. Even ignoring why you'd have such eyesight to be able to immediately see all this and then react on time, it makes no sense for there to be a tell on just hitting a hard forehand. While this manga isn't actually terrible, it seems like when you don't have super powers you actually have to come up with even dumber things to add drama or to show why the main character is awesome. Well, Slam Dunk never needed that, but Slam Dunk is probably never going to be surpassed as a sports manga.
Other stuff of interest:
Helck - Just when all hope seems lost, it turns out all Vamirio needed was one of her pet catgirls who happens to be weak enough to not accidentally wipe out the human race. So far, it looks like the sum total of the human race while fighting at the human's spawn point (pretty much all human can respawn indefinitely in this world) is enough to damage Vamirio's robe, though it might just be that her robe was getting in the way anyway. Incomprehensibly, the humans speak of Vamirio as if she's just a talented mage, because in the human race it's pretty common to see a mage that can effortlessly destroy the entire human race with a single fireball.
High Score Girl/Grand Blue - I lump them together because they're both kind of the heartwarming slice of life stuff, and neither seems to be going anywhere. It's not that this is bad, but it'd be good if there's a purpose of some sorts. It's the same problem I have with Yotsuba in that literally nothing actually happens in terms of progression.
Acmagame - The recent games where they just stop using the devil abilities that have nothing to do with the game is actually kind of interesting. It's never going to be anything great but it works pretty well as cheap entertainment.
Top of 7th, the team is down 3-1. The 7/8/9 guys went 3 up 3 down (this takes an entire chapter). The obligatory clueless blonde panics, and the coach does his evil laugh and says he's got the opponent exactly where he wanted them, because now he's got the top of the order coming up the next inning. I know this stuff is actually pretty old so Sabermetrics probably wasn't a thing back then, but keep in mind this is supposed to be realistic high school baseball manga representing a traditionally very weak baseball team. There are only 4 guys on the entire team that can actually hit the ball (batters 1-4) and the bottom of the order are literally guys to fill out the roster. The implication is that the other team could've purposely let a bunch of guys who pretty much can't even hit a ball get on base on purpose and then try to make the third out on their guys that can actually hit the ball so that it breaks up the batting order. However, I've never heard of anybody ever advocating that as a thing. Maybe people back then didn't quite know getting an out is super important, but I've never heard of any strategy advocating letting your opponent's weakest batters on base on purpose.
Meanwhile, the opposing coach starts panicking because his opponents looks like they're still in the fight, because after all, in an elimination game, normally teams behind 3-1 with the heart of their battling order just mail it in when your pitcher actually gets tired (because this is supposed to be like real baseball).
Then, at top of 8th, with runners in 1st and 2nd with no out, the #3 battle singles to center, and the guy at second tries to run home was thrown out by a mile. The blonde panics again and says if only the runner stopped at third they'd have bases loaded with no outs and their super awesome guy batting next. The coach does his evil laugh and says that he told the guy to run home on purpose knowing he'd get thrown out by a mile, because he wants to instill fear into the opponent's hearts while simultaneously trick them into thinking they have a chance at winning. Otherwise, they might walk the cleanup batter and then the fact that they had mostly scrubs after him would be exposed. Never mind that the cleanup batter would be up with no outs and bases loaded in this case, and I'm pretty sure only Barry Bonds has been walked in such a situation in recent baseball history. In fact, if this guy is this good, it seems like walking him with 1 out to load the bases is certainly better than walking him with no outs and the bases already loaded.
I also checked out a tennis manga called Baby Steps (I think that's the name) that's supposed to be the realistic tennis manga, and I saw some part about how the main character plays some guy and he notices that the opponent makes a certain expression before hitting the ball hard and uses this to his advantage. I mean, I get that in Prince of Tennis, since the guys are channeling enough energy to destroy a small building, maybe it is obvious that before they do their super moves you can see them charging up and plan accordingly. But here we're talking about a guy just hitting a hard forehand. Even ignoring why you'd have such eyesight to be able to immediately see all this and then react on time, it makes no sense for there to be a tell on just hitting a hard forehand. While this manga isn't actually terrible, it seems like when you don't have super powers you actually have to come up with even dumber things to add drama or to show why the main character is awesome. Well, Slam Dunk never needed that, but Slam Dunk is probably never going to be surpassed as a sports manga.
Other stuff of interest:
Helck - Just when all hope seems lost, it turns out all Vamirio needed was one of her pet catgirls who happens to be weak enough to not accidentally wipe out the human race. So far, it looks like the sum total of the human race while fighting at the human's spawn point (pretty much all human can respawn indefinitely in this world) is enough to damage Vamirio's robe, though it might just be that her robe was getting in the way anyway. Incomprehensibly, the humans speak of Vamirio as if she's just a talented mage, because in the human race it's pretty common to see a mage that can effortlessly destroy the entire human race with a single fireball.
High Score Girl/Grand Blue - I lump them together because they're both kind of the heartwarming slice of life stuff, and neither seems to be going anywhere. It's not that this is bad, but it'd be good if there's a purpose of some sorts. It's the same problem I have with Yotsuba in that literally nothing actually happens in terms of progression.
Acmagame - The recent games where they just stop using the devil abilities that have nothing to do with the game is actually kind of interesting. It's never going to be anything great but it works pretty well as cheap entertainment.