First of all, let's talk about the animation style. It's definitely kind of old, kind of cheap, but you know, pretty average for the time. So why is it unique? I'm afraid that even the mediocre animation style will never be replicated in modern times. That's because people really think that slapping crappy low polygon CGI models of infielders and outfielders on the field is more cost effective than just doing what this show did: reusing animation frames and doing a lot of close ups. Think about it: despite the show having a lot of closeups of people picking up the ball, catching it, or hitting the ball, there's not a lot of high fidelity scenes where a player is running with a detailed background. That's okay! The show had pretty average budget so they decided to storyboard more closeups while still maintaining the feel of a baseball game and having the viewer understand the action involved. Nowadays, if an animation studio wants something cheap, they'll just try to recreate a high quality scene with no budget and the result is some crappy CGI rigs running on a field with a poorly animated and reused running sequence of the main character in the scene. Unfortunately, hiring people in Indonesia to poorly animate 3D models is much cheaper than actually trying to storyboard with what you got. This show, despite having relatively bad budget, made the most of it, used good storyboarding and animation to still tell a good story.
Second of all, and of course, the more important and less technical is the fact that it's a psychological baseball anime. Everyone knows that when you play baseball, the mind games between the battery and the person battery is crucial in determining the outcome of a duel. This show definitely capitalizes on that. What if you had a main character who could literally read the minds of the person he's facing? Well, the batter would never hit the ball. And that's Tokuchi. Bordering complete mind-reading levels of ability, Tokuchi is able to pitch balls effectively with 120 mph fastballs with no breaking balls to professional Nippon Professional Baseball players and get strikeouts because he can predict exactly what the batter is thinking and pitch accordingly. But that's also super unfun to watch. How is Tokuchi different from Echizen from Prince of Tennis, for example? Echizen effortlessly wins official games no matter how the tides are against him, similar to Tokuchi? Well, the difference here is that Tokuchi is playing a team game, and everyone is out there to get him. It's not just a game of baseball, it's a battle of wits against hostile agents that want to maliciously harm Tokuchi. It's about abusing baseball rules and mechanics on both sides to try to get the better of each other. Tokuchi has to listen to the manager? Well, how can we convince a manager who got bribed to not screw over Tokuchi? Similarly, how does Tokuchi use his extremely smart wits to manipulate his own teammates, the enemy team, and other people to meet the conditions of certain obscure baseball rules that come into effect that benefit Tokuchi in the end? It's very fun in that you get to learn a lot more about how baseball can be manipulated, even in official games, and because of how Tokuchi is always on his toes because anyone can try to screw him over. It's definitely not a battle shouenen where Tokuchi perfects his craft and becomes friends with his catcher while he's at it. No, it's about a degenerate gambler that's highly intelligent, in a highly unfavorable contract and situation, unbeatable in orthodox terms, but still has use his wits in order to outsmart the people around him.
What about the people around him? How are the characters? I love them! Again, it's not a traditional baseball show. Why bother characterizing each baseball player on the team? It's not high school baseball either. There's many substitutions being made, and it isn't feasible to characterize a whole cast of Nippon Professional Baseball players. Instead, you have just a select few characters that you know and love. You got Kojima, one of the main characters. He's the star batter of a terrible team, Lycaons, and he's desperate to win. He's in awe in how he got defeated by Tokuchi and recruits him to the team. Tokuchi the pitcher needs no introduction. The catcher Ideguchi is in a similar boat with Kojima, being one of the few players that is deeply in awe of Tokuchi's skill and you can say that these are the characters in Tokuchi's camp. They'll basically follow every order of his and they are his loyal allies. Fujita and Imai are regular professional baseball players on the Lycaons, they represent the naive majority that are subject to manipulation. Not to say they're bad characters, I actually love them too! They're fun to watch as they joke around and comment on the state of things without knowing too much. Finally, we have the Owner of the baseball team himself.
You can say that the Owner is one of the cornerstones of the story. He's hilariously evil. You can say that his only personality is that he's a rich CEO that uses underhanded methods to gain money. Basically, the typical CEO in real life. He doesn't care about the fact that the team he owns sucks. It brings profit margins. He just sucks out all the money he can while putting as little money as possible to make profit. It kind of reminds me of insurance companies in the USA denying essential healthcare claims because it cuts into their profits. Oh capitalism! Tokuchi is described as a gambler. He only cares about the outcome: win or loss. Ultimately, with a similar drive to the Owner, Tokuchi wants to win money and he'll do underhanded methods to do so. However, there are a few major distinctions. Tokuchi uses all his cards in his disposal to win, but he's actually talented. After all, he's OP and can read minds. He's literally the best baseball player and gambler ever. The Owner is a typical money grubbing CEO. He isn't particularly talented at anything, doesn't contribute anything to the team, and even if he had the drive to create a team that would win the championships, he'd probably fail at it. He's narrowminded enough to never consider that he made a mistake in his decisions to deal with Tokuchi, and he goes through every illegal and underhanded method in order to prove that he was correct. He literally risks bankruptcy just to prove that he is smarter than Tokuchi. Secondly, and you can say the most important distinction though, is that Tokuchi honors his promises. Tokuchi did verbally promise Kojima that he would help him with the championships. That is to say, there's nothing but trust in a verbal promise that binds Tokuchi to the Lycaons. Tokuchi could have easily backed out of his agreement with Kojima, but due to his own stubbornness and also gracefulness of taking a loss, Tokuchi actually follows through anyway. If the owner was the one making this promise, I'd have to get it legally binding for it to be worth anything. After all, he'd probably just back out saying that he never said such a thing. Overall, the dynamic between Tokuchi and the owner is one of the most fun things to watch. and It's obviously easy to keep the viewer engaged because Tokuchi is the "underdog" while the Owner with all his power is trying to crush Tokuchi down however he can.
