Cross Game

(by John Louise Cardillo)

Cross Game is a romantic comedy baseball manga series by Mitsuru Adachi that was serialized by Shogakukan in Weekly Shonen Sunday between May 11, 2005 and February 17, 2010. It received the 54th Shogakukan Manga Award for Shonen manga in 2009, and has been praised internationally as quietly brilliant and a great success. The series adapted as a 50-episode anime television series that aired on the TV Tokyo network from April 5, 2009 to March 28, 2010. Cross Game is the story of Ko Kitamura and the four neighboring Tsukishima sisters, Ichiyo, Wakaba, Aoba, and Momiji. Wakaba and Ko were born on the same day in the same hospital and are close enough that Wakaba treats Ko as her boyfriend, though nothing is officially declared, while Aoba, one year younger thatn them, hates how Ko is “taking” her sister away from her. After Wakaba dies, Ko and Aoba slowly grow closer as they strive to fulfill Wakaba’s final dream of seeing them play in the high school baseball championship in Koshien Stadium.

I discovered this anime during my elementary days but that time, I did not watch it because the graphics or animations are not that amazing unlike the other animes. I watched this anime series when I am in Grade 10 because I already watch most of the anime related to sports. When I am searching another sports to watch, I tried to watch the first episode of this anime, and I realized that the story is amazing so I decided to watch this anime until the last episode.

When I watch the first episode, I thought that the story is childish because they start the story during when the characters are all kids and just playing around but after some minutes, one of the characters died and I am completely shocked and I started to feel sad because of the plot. My most favorite character in this anime is Kitamura because he showed his love to his childhood friend who died fulfilling her last wish which to play in Koshien Stadium and became champion.

When I watched this anime, I learned many important things in life. First, I learned that the time we had spent with people we love like our family is very important. We need to cherish every moment because we do not know if they are still there tomorrow. I also learned the importance of team work. In this anime, because of the teamwork all the players, they fulfilled the final dream of the main character who died and also their dream.

This anime will probably be in my top 10 all the time. Watching this anime was worth it. The character development is really good and I really recommend you watch this anime. My overall rating is 9.8/10. From start to end I don’t think you will regret watching it.