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We join Goro a few years after the first six episodes.  He’s now nine years old and playing in the Little League team that showed interest in him as a five-year-old.  Speaking of which, doesn’t the coach remind you of Hank Hill?

Anyways, along with the leap forward in time, the tone of the show changes quite a bit as well.  Whereas the first six episodes (which I thought were great) were more of a character/relationship story between Goro, his father, and his nursery teacher, after the time change it becomes more or less a typical shounen sports series.  Goro himself has grown into something of a baseball version of Naruto – confident, loud, ambitious.  He has a lot of traits that I can see people disliking – for example, he is the standard overpowered main character with immense talent above everyone else.  There is one scene where Goro hits a home run with a broken arm against a skilled pitcher.   I know there are a lot of people who simply hate that kind of character type, so take this as a warning.

Then there’s the actual baseball matches.  There hasn’t really been a full match with much weight to it yet, but nothing here comes close to the captivating way that Ookiku Furikabutte dealt with it’s detailed and slow-paced – yet captivating – matches.  There’s also the fact that those matches were much more of a team effort than Major.  Here, while other characters are certainly given their time to shine, in the end it’s all mostly about Goro.

Final Thoughts? The first six episodes I could recommend to anyone, but this branch of the story I could see people disliking depending on their tastes.  I’m not particularly a fan of some of the tropes found here either, but it’s still enjoyable.  Not particularly unique or memorable as far as baseball series go, but enjoyable nonetheless.  I guess I’ve been a spoiled with Touch, Cross Game and Ookiku Furikabutte!