Oct 13 2010 11:35 AM Really good show. From beginning to end the show was fantastic. Great plot and especially character development. Although it's sad that we'll never see ETU's future and how Tatsumi turns the whole league and team upside down, the way the series was planned out was arguably satisfying.
Studio DEEN had really outdone themselves. Although the facial expressions in many scenes could have been better, this is the highest quality work I've seen from them since the days of Higurashi, and not to mention that this show didn't even air in 720p, but looked as if it was produced as such.
Music was great. All originals, decent seiyuus all around that matched individual character personalities. Speaking of characters, the incredible amount of character development in this series is jaw-dropping. One would think that they would have to speed through the league stuff as a priority, but instead it was the other way around and may the story much more interesting and not your generic type of sports anime.
Enjoyment? Thoroughly from beginning to end. Very few sports titles rival this series, with of course series like Cross Game and Touch ranking leagues above it. However, the series as a stand alone was unique. Although I was a bit annoyed by how long some matches took, particularly the Osaka one, the series occasionally felt as if it was on the scale of Legend of the Galactic Heroes where the series dives into the little bits of strategy planned out by Tatsumi....the whole "plans within plans" making it psychologically interesting.
All in all, I was really hoping to see this series go all the way with ETU becoming the champs. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like that's ever happening. Regardless, a good end to the series. Although no the most satisfying, I'll take it.
Preliminary Score: 8/10 Final Score: 8/10 
