H2

In a world where Touch and Cross Game exists, H2 is arguably the weakest out of the three. H2, Touch, and Cross Game, are works of Adachi Mitsuru, a man who has a bad habit of using the same character designs, character types, and story set ups during his long career. However, despite the rehashing of his work, I find H2, Touch, and Cross Game all endearing and innocent pieces of anime. I think Cross Game is the absolute perfection of all his years of work, but H2 stands on its own, while it lasts.

Yes once again it's about high school baseball, yes it's about ... another overpowered pitcher and his struggling team, and yes it's all about getting to that mother effing Koshien, Japan's nationwide high school baseball finals. This time around its Hiro and Noda's battery that take center stage as they help their newly established baseball team out of the rut.

Now here's the problem, despite the 41 episode count, H2 in my opinion wastes a lot of time, roughly the first 10 episodes or so of not so great character building and generally dilly-dallying around. With Hiro's broken shoulder and Noda's broken back, their doctor instructs them to never play the game again or risk permanent damage. So the two are practically drifting for 10 episodes doing much of nothing and the story not progressing at all. For a while Hiro is just getting bullied by the soccer club with the story at a stand still until his very first baseball game.

When the story does finally get into gear, things are great, fantastic even. The victories wholly satisfying, the losses saddening but hopeful. The baseball side of the story is great and equally the romance is sweet and innocent. I love it, devoid of any modern anime cliches, just a bunch of baseball loving teens discovering and growing into their love interests.

And ultimately here's the major problem. It's unfinished. All ongoing storylines, whether baseball or romance are just unresolved. Not sure of the circumstances, but I can just assume it caught up to the manga at some point and just had to end abruptly. So sad.

i actually enjoyed this very much.
facts, developments, thoughts, emotions are brought to the audience in a very unique way. mainly through the dialogues the viewer could grasp quite a rich world around this baseball boys and their girls. these dialogues are far from being mainstreamed. open, doubting, unclear - freely, the protagonists are communicating. together with the excellent use of some other rather complex literary methods, like leaving the important unsaid, using details to unfold the complete a.o.; and the clever split of the medias to create wrong predictions or also intend contradictions between the heard and the shown, the told and the ... thought; this show could entertain on a very fine level at all. often was served a nice sense of humour even using smartly still the silliest stereotypes.
the way how its told opens the possibility to enrich it in your own way. unfortunately to open such possibilities is not a guaranty and the loss of decidedness and clearness may discomfort the laisy-minded.

clear recommendation!!

Worst romance story I've seen, great baseball story. Watch this anime if you enjoy sports anime, do NOT watch this for the romance/character progression.

This anime was a great baseball story, and I'm not a baseball fan. I loved cross game so decided to give this a try. This is like cross game, except imo all the good romance from cross games is thrown out the window.

*Spoilers* On why romance/characters are bad:
Aside from baseball and trying to get to the tournament, the main conflict is Hiro's unricipricated love for his childhood friend Haruka, whom he set up with his other childhood friend Hideo. Haruka ... didn't notice Hiro at the time since he was short, but she liked Hideo purely off his looks. So fast forward to a time when Hiro is now tall and she's getting all these mixed feelings. This is a good premise imo, but executed horribly. Haruka and Hiro obviuosly have much more depth, and have a good dynamic between the two. Haruka and her boyfriend Hideo are like 2 fake dolls trying to impress eachother constantly, and not showing their true selves. It's annoying as hell to see their relationship because they're simply the most boring couple I've ever seen. Then a new girl comes in that starts liking Hiro, and of course Hiraka is all jealous and eyeing her. Hiro is basically totally ignorant of her the whole anime. One guy focusing on one girl for like 12 years while she has a boyfriend the whole time is honestly pathetic.
The anime won't end the romance conclusively, but the manga does. How it ends is awful. It should've ended 2 ways. Either hiro gives up his childhood love and focuses on the girl in front of him that didn't judge him based off appearances right away, or he confesses to his childhood friend and goes for her, and she realizes she's a better fit for him instead of Hideo. Instead he really does neither and basically says he's on the fence between hiraka and the other girl. So he lets hiraka decide. Hiraka chooses hideo, which is soooo stupid. Hiraka was actually an interesting character with hiro around, she laughed cried did random funny stuff and said funny things. With hideo she's a f**** robot, and so is Hideo. The anime made this clear! And Hiro knows so much more about her personality, what fits her, her dreams etc. Hideo is one of the most shallow characters I've ever seen.
Awful awful character progression. There was 0.