This is a day I’ve been totally waiting for: Ookiku Furikabutte has been licensed, and thankfully by Funimation. This is my absolute favorite anime of the past year or so and is an incredible story. I’ve watched it several times on fansubs and talked about it to everyone I know.

It’s about High School baseball. I for one really couldn’t care less about baseball in general, but this anime really made me want to understand and get into the strategies of the game. The best thing, however, is the development of the characters—I feel like every one of them is real and three-dimensional. It’s essentially the story of how a talented pitcher with no self-confidence (Mihashi Ren) and an equally talented but somewhat arrogant catcher (Abe Takaya) form a partnership that brings their school’s fledgling baseball team success.

No, it’s not one of those sports anime where all the players have super-human abilities or over-the-top personalities; the thing that makes this series so special is that the characters are realistic complete with challenges and insecurities. I just can’t say how amazing I think it is!

And I say “thankfully” when it comes to Funimation, because as I’ve said before they are the only anime company I have faith in anymore—they’re the only ones I think care about the fans any longer. I know they’ll do a first-class job and I can only hope they’ll get it out quickly, ‘cause I can’t wait! They’ve titled it Big Windup! in English.

For more info, check out the announcement on Anime News Network:
Funimation Acquires Big Windup! Baseball TV Anime

There was also a nice article about the series in Issue #96 (May/June 2008) of Protoculture Addicts magazine, available at your local bookstore like Borders or Barnes & Noble.

THANK YOU Funimation!!!