Striking Out – ‘Cinderella Nine’ Episode 6 Review

This is a part of a collaboration review between myself and Irina (of I Drink And Watch Anime) with my parts represented by bold text and Irina’s in regular.

Back at it again with the baseball girls, only more of an emphasis on “drama” and “relationships” and “character building” than actual sports in this episode. I like how you added in “this episode”.

Basically, the girls have exams coming up which means studying is going to have to take priority over training. This is Tsubasa’s edict–something that Tomoe isn’t particularly happy with because she knows she can do both and as somewhat of the weakest link on the team needs to keep training so she can be better. I understand that Tsubasa has to focus on her studies since she’s likely to fail everything even without distractions but I wasn’t all that certain why it was applied across the board. Mind you skipping a few practices isn’t the end of the world either.

Tomoe finds a quiet place to train and bumps into Jinguji from the school they played their practice match against, Tomoe begs her to help her train and she obliges only for two of her teammates to see her and tattle on her to Tsubasa. The two have an argument and then stop talking to each other as a result. And I’ll admit, at first I kind of rolled my eyes at how abruptly and explosively Tsubasa reacted–almost like Tomoe was cheating on her or something. Well she was but Tsubasa was withholding the good stuff so…you know… a girl has needs.

But as the episode went on I kinda understood where the two of them were coming from–if nothing else this episode sold this ‘temporary’ bust up between the two girls and tied it to baseball surprisingly well. I’m sure you’ve seen something like this in other sports anime, Irina, how did you think they pulled it off? Um. Well I do understand both of their points of view o in that sense yes but their reactions were pure nonsense. Then again it could have been that time of the month or something. You remember Scorching Ping Pong Girls? That show had some early manufactured drama with the jealousy arc that was much more effective. I really liked that show. I should stop comparing these more sports anime to it.

I kinda wish someone slapped someone. The way Tsubasa was acting certainly made it felt like that was an option!

I kinda liked the character if Jinguji (I keep reading that as Jumanji–is that racist?) even though she came off as sort of snooty it kind of showed the difference between our girls and girls who are taking the baseball seriously–like career seriously. I also really like her. I hope they actually develop her but I feel like they won’t have time. Most of our team is still pretty 2 dimensional so we can’t be putting effort into secondary minor antagonists/support roles.

I’m going to bet we’re not going to get anywhere near nationals in the span of this season, just a hunch…

The other girls were mostly relegated to the sidelines (literally) and so this episode more was about two girls who were already best friends–reassessing their relationship in the shadow of a game that maybe doesn’t have a place for words like “best friend”. Though I’d argue that a lot of these girls aren’t taking it as serious as Tsubasa and Tomoe are so it seems kinda half-hearted. That said I did shed a tear when Tsubasa had her little breakdown and Tomoe went in for the big hug. Good emotion.

All-in-all, kind of a slow episode but it was pretty good. Anything else to add Irina? I had a tough time staying awake through it to be honest. The art was a little wonky now and then. I’ve been trying to find an “appropriate” or at least not “horribly insensitive and offensive” way to say that in some scenes the girls looked like they got spontaneous down syndrome because the proportions were completely off. I did not find a way. Matt you should probably censor this heavily. Is this what you had in mind? Probably not… lol

We are halfway through the season but I must say, it feels like not much has happened. I’m starting to agree with you when you say that the only reason to watch this show is because you have to for reason outside of your control. And if that isn’t a ringing endorsement, then I don’t know what is! Join us next week on Irina’s site for Episode 7!