Anime: Princess Nine: Kisaragi Joshikou Yakyuubu 4l2p6d

Definitely an interesting series, one of the best sports anime because its emphasis is more on the characters and plot outside of the sport than on sport itself.

Although this anime has already some years on its back, the animation is still nice. All characters look pretty and the backgrounds have been paid attention to. But the most important thing, its movements and fast scenes are really well made. Baseball movements and tactics are realistic, except of the Lightning Ball. Still it's much more realistic than most other sports animes.

The music is ok. I liked the opening, Princess 9 by Miki Nagasawa who also did the voice of Ryou. But after a while this music piece was overused. It was played in most important scenes, in a lot of scenes I wished they would've used another more fitting tune. The ending, ionate Days, was done by Mami Kingetsu - Ryou's rival Izumi. It was slow and a nice finish for every episode. And it also was overused after a while. The remaining background music was nothing out of ordinary. Fitting themes for battles (baseball games) and some other tunes. Some important key scenes were shown without any music, in my opinion it would've been better if they used some instead of leaving it blank like that. The seiyuus did all a solid job, nothing outstanding, but also nothing negative about their work to say.

The story is already known from other sports animes, though this time it's about baseball. Still it manages to interest one because the spots aspect only gives the background for the anime. Most of the time there aren't any games played, it's more about the characters and a lot of drama/romance elements, scandals, love-hate-relationships, dark backgrounds of the characters, teamwork/teamplay and some more things which makes the anime interesting and the viewer care for the characters and their way to achieve their dreams.

Unlike other sports animes in Princess Nine all team play a great part in the story. While Ryou as the main character and Izumi as her rival are given the most screen-time and development, the other seven girls have their parts too. They all had development, some things were cutted a bit short (a bit more insight on some girls and most of the other characters involved in the series) but that's understandable since the anime has only 26 episodes for developing 9 characters and let them play some games. Ryou was of course the star of the show and I liked her the most, but I was also surprised about Izumi. I expected her to be more of a bitch, but in fact she was really nice and well developed, much better than counterparts of her in other similar animes.

I watched the whole anime in one run (all 26 episodes in one night), that should show how much I did like it. ;)
It starts pretty interesting and the way the story unfolds keeps the viewer interested. Concentrating more on the story and characters and less on the sports aspect it stands out in this genre. A bit variation in the music and a better end were what I was missing. Still, although I didn't like it that much/was disappointed a lot, the end is pretty unpredictable and I think a lot of people will like it that way.

If you don't like sports animes because they are unrealistic you should try this one, because it's quite realistic compared to most other. In my opinion it's together with Hikaru no Go and Whistle one of the best animes in this genre.

Although it isn't great, it's still a pretty nice series to watch and enjoy.

The series centralizes on Ryo, a girl with an awesome pitch in baseball. She is supposed to be an even match with the prodigy of the boys team, which makes her an astonishing pitcher.

The series goes off to gather some more people, and most of the time they improvise because there aren't that many people who can play baseball. So they recruit a former Tennis-player, a Club-fighter, an ex-judo player and a few others, creating the most weird team ever, being lead by an alcoholic coach.
However, the series doesn't evolve in playing games, it's all about the teamwork and teamplay, scandals and love-hate-relationships, leaving less and less space for actually playing games.

The only drawback I found was that not all characters get to develop properly. So there was almost no good story involving the redhead, nor was there a nice story involving the girl with glasses, even though they're pretty good .

But still, even though the characters are quite cliche, the story quite the same, this series is quite worth watching. I really enjoyed it over the night and I'd probably rewatch it sometime, so it's good enough to keep :D

Note the voice of the girl with the 2 pigtails; it's kinda cranky, which makes it pretty funny to hear, as if she has been yelling for an entire year and almost losing her voice ;)
Also, the ending of this series is nice. It's not too cliche and not too anticipated.

A very good sports anime. It does not transcend its genre but it is the best I have seen so far.

Very enjoyable, not too cliche and very compelling characters. The story keeps on rolling, giving most of the characters room to breathe and live.

As a contrast to many other sports series the sole focus is not on playing and defeating and rising, but building a team and having fun and, as almost always with the Japanese, trying your best.

A real joyride with a high fun and entertainment value.