What’s it about? The ballpark is a place beloved by those who come there, from the fans to the vendors to the security guards. Ruriko is a newbie beer-seller, but she manages to form a rapport with her first-ever regular, worn-down salaryman Murata.
In the deep and vast world of hobby anime, I’m honestly surprised it’s taken this long to get an anime about the daily goings-on at a ballpark. It’s a perfectly sensible pairing—if you’ve ever been to a baseball game, you know it’s an all-day affair. A stadium is basically its own little ecosystem, and going to a game is as much about walking around as it is about the actual game.
Catch Me at the Ballpark! is on the right path at capturing the vibe, though it’s let down by mediocre direction that would fit right in with an overpriced stadium beer. As someone who grew up in a house of baseball fans (give it up for the losing-est team to ever do it! Go Rockies!), I’m able to fill in my own memories of the baseball experience—something I suspect will be true for a lot of Japanese viewers as well, given the sport’s popularity. The script is definitely leaning hard on using nostalgia painting a picture of warmth and community, courtesy of Zombieland Saga series composer Murakoshi Shigeru, which is a little cheesy but in a way that could settle into a cozy after-work show.
Unfortunately, unlike those bombastic zombie idols, the visuals aren’t doing much to elevate the script. Series director Kitamura Jun’ichi and character designer Iida Fumio are both new at their respective positions, and there’s a pervasive clumsiness as a result. The characters have rounded, unmemorable features, which jar with the boxy frames given to male characters—the baseball players might as well be walking refrigerators. The boarding also rarely diverts from just plonking the camera down on a two-shot and waiting for dialogue to carry the scene. It’s not aggressively bad, but it lacks a sense of dynamism that’s worsened by the uneven pacing. The episode is made up of three shorts, and while the first two seem like a budding rom-com between Ruriko and Murata, the second half is dedicated to a very different ensemble vibe.
On the subject of the will-they-won’t-they, I’m of two minds. Years in service work have given me an instinctive distrust of romances that start with a man meeting a woman at her job, because the industry inherently depends on making oneself a product in order to live. That means, especially for femmes, doing a lot of emotional labor for the customer that’s often perceived as (or even plays on) flirtation. I’ve heard more horror stories than I can count from people who can’t tell a creepy customer to fuck off, because they’ll be the ones to get in trouble if they place a boundary—either through discipline, or because without tips their paycheck is $5 an hour. There’s no walking away from the situation, either. You’re trapped on the clock, and the customer is in control of the situation. This is especially true in Japan, where “customer abuse” is an even more egregious problem.
All that said, I should be clear that Ballpark is doing an extremely mild form of this trope—Murata is flustered by Ririko but actively tries to keep himself grounded about her comments being part of the sales pitch, and while her design looks younger than his (an eternally irksome hangover of the moe boom), they’re both clearly working adults. They’re not exactly sparkling with chemistry, but Fairouz Ai is clearly having fun playing a gyaru and Murata seems like a perfectly alright if slightly milquetoast dude. Still, the attempts at romance felt more like a distraction from the thing that I’m actually here for: nitty-gritty details on how hard it is to carry around kegs of beer on your back and execute a quality pour on a miserably hot day. Woo me with factoids!
If you’re a baseball fan or especially fond of hobby shows, this might be worth watching three episodes of to see if it finds its feet. For everyone else, there’s probably enough other promising titles to completely fill out a busy viewing schedule. Do definitely check out the ending sequence though, because 100% of the animation sauce is over there.
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