BEST SPORT DRAMA!!

Episode 01:

Aniya stands near the bench during a baseball match, impassively telling himself that he and his team are one more step closer to their dreams, but just as he thinks this, one of his friends hoists the bat and aims a direct hit on the pitcher’s head, knocking the opponent out unconscious. With this in mind, Aniya notes that their dreams are all at once crushed, while at the same time his teammates rush into the field to stop the other side from bashing each other up. From then on, the baseball team was picked on by others and harshly bullied, until they decided to become delinquents themselves. In order for the school not to look bad, the principal decided to not expel them but instead wait for them to drop out of school on their own. For this to happen, he hires a new teacher called Kawato, who makes a speech about fulfilling dreams when he first arrives.

*insert dramatic effect*

Apparently, Kawato resigned from his previous school in order to prevent a certain student, Nikogawa, from dropping out. However, the student resorted to violence and Kawato had to defend himself, but accidentally knocks the student out of the window. Nikogawa went to hospital and took him an entire month to recover. Kawato learns about the baseball team and about the incident that occurred a while ago. He also finds out that they’re skipping classes by hanging out in the baseball club room. When he hears Mikoshiba’s dream to play baseball with everyone and laugh together at graduation, Kawato decides to resume the baseball club. The group, however, think this is a ridiculous idea. In the end, Kawato manages to get Mikoshiba and Sekikawa to join the team, only afterwards learning about the principal’s true reason for employing him.

Episode 02:

Kawato continues to try and convince the others into joining the baseball team but Wakana lies and tells him that in fact, he and his four friends (forgot their name – my bad) had never wanted to play baseball, when, in fact, it was soccer. This surprises Kawato and he runs off to ask the adviser of the soccer team to allow those four to join. He does after a short while of thinking, but tells Kawato that he has to weed the field. Kawato does so and asks the four to help him, but they never turn up and explain that they know he’s going to get fired by the principal if he doesn’t assemble enough baseball members by the next game. This, of course, is just a misinterpretation since Kawato promised the principal that he’d resign if he doesn’t assemble enough team members by the next game, but the principal then has to allow the club to open because he was about to cancel it.

The average room. Also known as “paradise.”

Wakana becomes worried since he’s happy that someone believes so much in him, but he doesn’t realize this is happiness and can’t show it properly, so he becomes agitated in front of others instead. At night he goes to school only to see Kawato pulling up all the weeds. The next morning, the adviser for the soccer team, along with the adviser for track and fields, tells Kawato that they weren’t going to let those four delinquents join anyway, and calls them trash. Aniya and Wakana overhear this and are about to attack the teachers when Kawato stands up for them. He tells them off for smoking and calling those students delinquents. Wakana interferes in the conversation and the two teachers walk off, leaving him alone with Kawato. He tells him that he never wanted to play soccer in the first place and asked him why he went so far as to fulfill their dreams. Kawato only smiles and explains that it’s because they’re his students. In the end, Wakana and the other four join the baseball team.

Impression:

Let me say one thing: HOW BLOOD AWESOME IS IT?! Like, really. I was telling Hinano to watch this since I thought it’d be nice to read what she thought of it before actually watching it myself, but she doesn’t like sport drama … so I watched the show anyway. And I know TokiDoki might check this out too, hopefully. This is definitely one of the best dramas I’ve seen yet, although I really haven’t finished any of the dramas I’ve followed since I usually get bored of them. The only ones I’ve ever managed to complete was Nobuta wo Produce and the K-drama Sassy Girl. Hana Yori Dango was fun at first, but becomes too tiring to watch later on, and the same goes to Hana Kimi. And Kurosagi was just a repeat over and over again.

Aniya!! He’s aggro 24-7, but smiles on rare occasions. He’s also always yelling things out like Kawato.

The idiot pair! I don’t know their names, but they look up the nurse’s skirt during their daily routine and record the colour of her underwear.

Shinjo has real issues. Okay, he does look cool … kinda … but he bashes his friends up, except for Aniya. He’s gay for Aniya.

But ROOKIES? ROOKIES is the best. Well … so far, with the three episodes, it is. And it’s probably the only sport drama I’ve seen … and Kawato reminds me a lot of the teacher from Seito Shokun! although this guy is less annoying. Now, before I move on, let me warn you that I’ll be mentioning a lot of the things I just love about ROOKIES.

First of all, the cute relationship between Mikoshiba and Sekikawa (by golly, I even remember their names!) is just extremely adorable and makes me realize how important friendship really is. It’s more of Sekikawa sticking out for Mikoshiba, while he’s the one who truly loves baseball and is the first to open up to Kawato. This drama doesn’t exactly involve romantic issues (even if it does, I don’t think they’d introduce it so early on), but there is some strong bond between Aniya and his childhood friend, whose name I cannot seem to remember but it starts with Y. I also love how the gang are so close, yet aren’t at the same time since they are divided into their own little groups, except Shinjo and Aniya seem to be off on their own most of the time.

Ahh, good ol’ Wakana. He’s such an awesome guy for a friend, always sticking up for others. He’s really funny too.

Sekikawa! He seems to be the only one who doesn’t judge others unfairly and does whatever he believes is right.

I have no idea who this guy is, but he’s one of the four guys that joins the team in episode 2. He looks like a yakuza.

I also love the “nyaa~” guy because of his stupidity, especially when he mistook “increase” for “jump.” The episodes are so enticing and despite the endings not being much of a cliff-hanger, I get this urge to watch the next episode and find out what happens. There are definitely a lot of “fulfilling dreams” and friendship and bullying themes going on. Even though Kawato constantly repeats the same shit several times in one episode, I must admit that it’s beginning to wear on me and now I’d like to know what my dream is. At first, Shinjo is a real pain in the butt but he becomes quite likable later on, especially when he’s really nice and sweet towards Aniya’s childhood friend.

Don’t this guy’s name either, but I love the dreadlocks. He doesn’t seem to be really important, but he’s also one of the four guys.

One of my favourite! But I don’t even know his name. He usually ends his sentences with “nyaa~~” like a cat. He likes girls.

My favourite out of all the characters — Mikoshiba! He’s really adorable and he’s so good at crying too! He’s like the little brother

There are also two “dumb-dumbs” in this series and they’re really something. They’re hilarious characters who are really idiotic and their roles in the show may be somewhat typical (nearly all sport dramas have two or one idiots), I really love them I hate the principal but it’s quite obvious that he’s soon going to realize that what he’s doing is wrong. I already watched episode 3 and I can spoil it for you right now – Aniya ends up joining the team, and Shinjo appears to be the next one after he has some talk with Aniya’s childhood friend. I haven’t read the manga for this drama and really don’t plan to because I don’t like the images. I’m hoping that my summaries can be this short from now on if I ever decide to blog dramas, because they are quite long. I mean, seriously, the first episode is 2 whole hours!

I’ll admit, they don’t appear that good-looking at first, but you’ll eventually get used to it.

And yes, midnightrose, we should watch this drama next time for the Yukan Club at school, although I don’t know how to transport this “more than 1GB file of episode 1” to school.

Toodles~~!

PS. I don’t know for sure how many episodes this drama will run for but I do know that the producers plan on stretching it throughout the entire season, plus there are 22 volumes for the manga.