Reviews for Princess Nine

Story: Ok with out giving any spoilers this show is basically about a group of girls that were braught together to form an a girls baseball team and enter into the baseball tournament which only has boy baseball teams, this may not sound interesting at first thats understandable since i know many people arent into sport themed or sport based shows but this one is different. This show tells us the story of how the all girls baseball team overcomes different problems and shows the true power of woman/girls unlike those fantasy style shows where the girls always have something in them from the pastor dont exceptional training. Here its based on their atitude and what they believe in as a girl. Of course theres romance in there to but i think the main focus of the story is the group of girls as a whole.

Art: I'd have to say the art isnt something to fancy and isnt something to plain. its just nice and fits nicely with the show.

Sound: The voice actors and the characters i personally think matched perfectly with each other.

Character: You see quite a bit of character development through out the minor characters each with an episode or more introducing them and showing their own problems that they receive help from their friends. There is one character how ever, the main character of the show you really see her and her emotions come into play expecially when one event occurs to her and her attitude takes a complete turn of course you would have to watch the show to have a look at what event im talking about. The romance between the boy and the girl isnt as in depth as some anime's are but you can see their relationship grow and change through the show but as i said before its mainly focused more on the development between team members.

Enjoyment: I really liked this show expecially the idea of what boys can do girls can to and shows the true power of girls when we work together true we may be weak when we're alone but thats why this one is amazing as even when their alone they still have the determination and attitude.

Overall: This was a good show story was amazing as far as i can tell i would recommend every girl to atleast try this show even if its the first few episodes.

This one proved quite the mixed bag throughout its run for me. Princess Nine is a sports drama about a baseball team of girls trying to overcome adversity and prejudice to be acknowledged as equals to the boys when they try to get involved in the national tournament to take part in competition at Koshien Stadium. Much of the series focuses around the team coming together and dealing with a number of obstacles that halt their efforts at competing in the Koshien tournament such as the school principal, tensions between some of the teammates and scandal. The series does give focus to the personalities andbackgrounds of each of the girls, many of whom fulfill a specific character type yet are likeable for the most part. The first half is actually rather solid in its developments with the girls teaming up, training and learning to be a cohesive team despite their differing personalities and dealing with those trying to thwart their formation.

While having a likeable cast though, Princess Nine does have some pretty significant issues. The series apparently dug into shoujo anime cliches in setting up its plot, the biggest hurting the series being its melodrama and romantic predicaments for its second half. Princess Nine has a big habit of greatly exaggerating on a number of the dilemmas faced by the characters throughout the title's run, which tend to get rather overbearing at points. The romantic developments on the love triangle that are focused on in the second half prove to be the biggest setback to the use of melodrama in this series as it has no major relevance to the main plot on the girl's baseball team and is rather bland due to the exaggerated dramatics that the series pulls with the whole thing, which even lead them to affect the girls at points during their baseball games and take away from that aspect to the plot. Also, the Koshien tournament's depiction in the anime is rather underwhelming with only one or two episodes devoted per game on ir and much of the romantic melodrama dominating the storyline by that point.

In terms of presentation, Princess Nine sports standard quality visuals with reasonable detail and subdued color tones on character designs and scenery. The animation has its rough moments with character designs usually getting off-model and reused animated frames coming from a number of baseball scenes. The soundtrack consists of dramatic and upbeat tracks that do their part at trying to enhance the melodrama of the series, but are rather forgettable and don't match up to the epic scale they attempt to portray.

While the girls among the team are a likeable bunch and get some solid developments, Princess Nine's melodrama and romantic developments get way too much emphasis as the series presses on, eventually getting to a point where they are more prominent than the struggles of the girls being recognized as well as the boys' teams. While having its solid moments, I don't think I'm hopping back to this series anytime soon.

Princess Nine is a great anime. Overall, it focuses more on romance than sports, so if you were looking for a really sportsy anime, this might not be your thing. But, it has Sailor Moon-like romance that makes up for that loss. I picked up this anime because I was browsing on Crunchyroll, in the mood for a sports anime. I was instantly hooked. I totally recommend. Its got to be in my top 20 favorite anime. I kept watching at the start of this anime because of the opening and the art style. But the story gets better and better.

Some people consider this anime to be just another sports anime. In actuality, Princess 9 is very likely the worst sports anime to ever have been made. I had my reservations when looking at the cover, but figuring it was probably just made in the late 80's, I picked it up. My estimation was roughly a decade off. The great character designs attempt to hide this fact, but unfortunately my sympathy vanished when the story began to circle the drain. The series begins promisingly enough, the first 8 or so episodes are decent, and in fact the last few are too. The fact thati don't remember the middle of the series is indicative of its poor quality.

I personally am not a fan of anime that cut every possible corner and have repetitive filler episodes, though most people seem to like them. If you are one of them I recommend you buy this series right away, surely there is no shortage of people trying to get rid of their copy.

If you insist on watching the anime, I would suggest that you watch the first disc and the last disc, then seal it away so it can wait in anticipation for its next victim.

One of the best villains is in this anime... After finishing the 26 episodes you realize this is a whole different anime then you first believe. What makes this so great, it's the secret story within the anime. At first glance it looks like an all female baseball team overcoming sexism and playing against male baseball teams but Hiroki proves it truly is a man's world. From episode one and forward it present itself to be that of a feminist driven anime fighting for women's right and they can compete with the boys. After finishing the series those cringy scenes were actually satire.From over the top president of the school feminist to speeches about there being not difference between a girl and a boy when it comes to baseball it was all satire.

The whole show present the females to be overly emotional. The female baseball team was only started because the president of the school saw the daughter of her first loved play baseball. After being married to another man she still can't get over him.

Hiroki is the saving grace of this anime. He had knowledge their was going to be a female baseball team from the beginning and start to work quickly on Ryou(MC) saying he is her boyfriend. He later has his childhood friend Izumi with a promising tennis career join the female baseball team too. What a great villain Hiroki is, he manipulated these girls to win. Toying and stringing along these girls from episode one and that love confession to get Ryou to throw those predictable pitches, masterful. This is not a show about a girl baseball team it's about one man's ambition. An almost 10/10 anime because of Hiroki. I have to admit I was scared when Ryou said Hiroki was the enemy I was like SHE KNOWS but she was being cute and talking about in baseball term. Truly a unique way to go about it and there was a little foreshadowing in episode 13 where the girl manipulated the opposite sex.

I like a good sports anime from time to time. I realized I hadn't watched many of Baseball anime and at the same time, I stumbled across this. With only a little over 7,000 people having it on their list and a short run manga that seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth, this show turned out to be the very definition of a hidden gem. The story is of a chairwoman deciding to start a baseball (not softball) team at her all girls school and have the team compete against the dudes. A problem with this is that she only has apitcher that she found in a street league. The early part of the show is focused around building this team with a hodgepodge of girls from other sports and walks of life. If you watch the intro or outro, then its not a surprise who they pick up. Keep in mind that this is a 90s shojo. So on top of training this ragtag team and battling the school authority, there is also a lot of romance drama. and sometimes normal drama. The story is full of 90s tropes and cliches, but they seem to work fine.

Another thing this show has going for it is some great 90s animation and artwork. All of the main character girls are well designed. The only guy that has an interesting character is the coach. When it comes to the Sports part of the show there is a lot of reused animation and/or quick cuts. However, there are also some good animated batting and diving catches.

The sound design is very good. The OP and ED are nice bookends to every episode. The two songs are reused a lot during the show. There's also some good orchestral music whenever the MC pitcher throws a ball. It really adds to the intensity. The baseball sfx are all fine, nothing much to say. The last thing is that THE DUB IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE SUB. I cannot stress this enough. Crunchyroll has both and I watched a couple eps. of each and the the characters were much better defined in the dub.

The Main characters are good. From the coach, to the manager, to the players; there's not a bad one in the bunch. The side characters and Mr.Love Interest can get a bit generic though.

While I enjoyed its sports side, this show is more about what happens off the field. The romance can get a little tiring and some of the drama surrounding the girls being allowed to play can seem like a drawn out formality. However, the bond between the teammates carries the show effectively enough, that watching never seemed like a chore.

Overall, I will tell the void that this show should be watched as clearly no one knows about this show. I was worried that because it wasn't popular and didn't get a second season, that it would have an unsatisfying ending. While the ending is a bit abrupt, most of the stories and plot lines were wrapped up by the end.

Princess Nine was in a word, underwhelming. The sports anime genre consisting of literal hundreds of animes really only has 16 true "sports" animes focusing on girls, and Princess Nine was my first one. In terms of idea, the plot of Princess Nine was pretty solid. I was ready to start cheering for a girl's baseball team taking on boys; however it was the execution that failed for me. Personally, I look for two things in a sports anime: coming out of the anime with more knowledge about the sport than I came in with and seeing a strong team dynamic. Princess Nine reallydidn't do either in my opinion. Because the school needed to recruit players, the team only all comes together in episode ten or so which leaves that much less time for developing their team dynamic. Though even with all the girls together, Princess Nine seems to enjoy focusing on anything but baseball. A love triangle begins to form in the very beginning and manages to drag itself all the way to the end of 26 episodes miraculously adding absolutely nothing to the plot that whole time. It involves two of the best players from the team and only develops tension and negativity between the two which really bummed me out because it affects their performance in the games as well as their teammates. Not only that, but I look forward to seeing teammates help pick each other up, get to know each other, and encourage one another, but those two stay negative for nearly the entire anime.

In addition, not many relationships between the team were built, there was the pitcher and fourth batter, a brief development of the pitcher and catcher, and a couple of the fielders becoming friends, but other than that, the team continued to feel a little bit disconnected for me. Thus, because of that I felt I was really only cheering on one person at a time rather than the entirety of the team, and this was pretty much solely because of the love triangle! Trying to develop 9 characters in 26 episodes is pretty challenging because of the time you have to work with, and therefore some picking and choosing inevitably has to happen with who the writers want to develop. And they picked one of those to be the guy in the love triangle.

I honestly am really frustrated with the love triangle because it just took so much time away from the team and baseball in general which makes no sense considering everyone including the guy involved in it PLAYS BASEBALL. I really didn't learn much about the sport at all because of that unnecessary subplot, and the girls on the team seemed to just suddenly know how to play it--one was recruited from track and field, but once she joined the baseball team, she was an expert. The anime really didn't show the girls spending a lot of time improving and that's because they really didn't get to play baseball that much!

Despite all this, the team was likable and they did have a few scenes that showed some real deal practicing. I also didn't dislike anyone, and if given more time, they probably could've formed some really cool relationships. I liked the eclectic mix of players Princess Nine had going on I just wish they'd been given a little more love.

The anime was made in the 90s, and the art reflects that, but the character designs are quite good in that each girl looks individual and not simply the same as everyone else but with different hair. The animation did reuse a lot frames when they were playing baseball, but besides that, it was pretty solid.

Its soundtrack was nothing to complain about but also wasn't anything I'd choose to listen to in my free time.

Enjoyment wise Princess Nine was a roller coaster for me. I really loved seeing the girls goof around with each other or pull each other up when they made a mistake and got down about it. When they really started to play some baseball I got into it and really had a good time cheering for the pitcher and the batters, but a lot of the time the games ended quite quickly and the plot went right back to the love triangle causing those enjoyable team instances to actually be sort of rare.

When the anime focused on the love triangle I really didn't feel like watching and just got frustrated. Not only that, but those struggles from the triangle poured into some of the baseball games affecting the girl's performance, and I don't understand the reason for that. What's the point on having the girls improve if they're just going to start to suck because of a boy who adds nothing to the anime besides problems for the team? There were so many other places to take his character to make him more likable as well as more beneficial. He and his baseball team could've become the girl's rivals and they could've pushed each other to get better or he could've been their batting coach since he's such a "genius batter" or he could've even teamed up with the girl's current manager and become a much more positive influence.

That being said, Princess Nine had great potential and showcased instances of team dynamics and relationships between the girls, but the pointless inclusion of a love triangle took too much time away from the main plot as well as the actual baseball and prevents it from being a great anime.

I once suggested this show to a baseball fan and after a couple days he sent me a message saying something along the lines of "I started watching this to see baseball, why do I care so much about the characters?!" My response was that it's because it's a good anime. So, to clarify why this is so biased: This was my first real obscure anime. I'd grown up watching Dragon Ball once in a while and had watched Cowboy Bebop, but I never truly veered too far off the beaten path. Then, doing research for what was essentially the set-up for a joke, I neededto find an older anime about girls' baseball. This is what came up. So I used the name, referenced a character and thought I was done. But I wasn't. I find out that this show was on Youtube (which, now that I understand the anime industry better, I shouldn't have done that). I watch through the entire show. While not my point of no return into becoming a weeb, it was absolutely a starting point that led me to want to find more anime.

With that out of the way, you can understand why it's hard for me to talk about this show objectively. The criticisms about the love triangle is valid and I would absolutely agree that the guys kind of have no real personality (Hiroki is the most dull love interest I've ever seen). The girls however, are full of it.

My favorite character is and will always be Seira Morimura, the speed demon second baseman with the maximum amount of attitude. If anything, I would've loved to have seen so much more of her. In terms of the best developed character, Izumi is really all you need to look towards. The show's protagonist may technically be Ryo, it's Izumi's story for most of it. Each girl has something to prove and each really does get to have their own moment to shine (except maybe Hikaru). It's hard to introduce 9 characters and get you to recognize and care about each of them, but Princess Nine delivers in that sense.

I'm unsure of who to suggest this for as I found it on a sheer whim, but it's just a close favorite of mine. After watching more anime, I've definitely found anime that I've loved so much more, but you never really forget your first.

WARNING: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BASICALLY ALL OF PRINCESS NINE. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED, DO NOT READ THIS. Princess Nine comes in just below my favorite sports anime of all time, Ping Pong the Animation. What puts it above more popular titles such as Haikyuu or Kuroko no Basuke? Simply put, girls. Obviously a huge part of the show has to revolve around the fact that it's a girl's baseball team, not softball team, but the extent to which Princess Nine capitalizes on its all-female protagonists is amazing. Princess Nine highlights and then conquers the patriarchal perspective on sports in general that women areinherently worse.

Before you call me a bra burner, let me clarify something— yes, it is true that women will tend to be worse at sports and be less physically strong because of biological constraints and societal pressures, but this does not mean that a best-of-the-century female baseball player cannot go toe-to-toe with male baseball players.

The underlying conflict of the show, particularly throughout the first half, is not Ryo versus her opponents or herself or anything like that, but overwhelming individual talent versus biological and societal differences between men and women. The Kisaragi Joshikou baseball team is comprised of multiple girls who possess amazing talent worthy of rivaling many of the top male baseball players, and at their head is Ryo, whose ability is equaled only by her pitcher-of-the-century father, and it is their struggle against the patriarchy (smash the patriarchy!) that lies as the backdrop to its narrative.

When they are given the opportunity to participate in Koshien, this conflict largely becomes relegated to the background as we are hit with a level of inter-character drama that I can't say I've seen in any other sports anime to such an extent, but which really makes me question how much Princess Nine truly is a "sports anime" in the way we think about. With the first nine episodes of Princess Nine going without actually seeing a baseball game, and beyond that only showing four baseball games across about six of the twenty-six episodes, Princess Nine makes its clear priority the romance and drama over the sport itself, something that comes both as a welcome relief since so many sports anime concentrate so purely on the sport, and as a hindrance to the gravity of the games themselves, since they are built up so little as to make their ultimate outcomes seem, at times, predictable and/or unrealistic. It is a wonder that the impairment of the Kisaragi Joshikou baseball team being all girls is not enough already, and that they have the time between practicing to have so much drama at all. The combination of these two makes Princess Nine seem, at times, a bit too "anime" in its presentation of the overall story, but this is largely unnoticeable by the effectiveness of the drama that is taking the place of the sports.

This kind of storytelling, which balances being undeniably about a sport with being overwhelmingly not just presentation of that sport, is incredibly distinct— if it has been done before to the extent it is done here, I have not seen it, and generally I'm a huge sucker on gender commentary stuff sooo you know go that.

Speaking of being a huge tsundere toward feminism because I totally am a liberal cuck while pretending to not be one, I have zero issue with the arc of Ryo and Izumi playing worse because they are lovesick at the ending. This is because, A. People are lovesick in real life, regardless of gender, so it's believable, B. It's kind of awesome to see a sports competition come to a head with romance, because this wouldn't be possible without there being an openly same-gender relationship or having a female team competing against a male team on even ground. It's fucking great.

Being done on the subject of freshmen in high school, it isn't surprising that Princess Nine is largely a coming of age story. Izumi's ultimate decision at the end to give up her pretend-relationship with Hiroki and to admit defeat in the battlefield of romance to Ryo, is a powerful demonstration of character development, maturity, and the strengthening of her friendship and rivalry with Ryo. She, ultimately, is nearly as much a main character to Princess Nine as Ryo is, largely because her character growth is so intricate in contrast with Ryo's fairly common arc of becoming strong without any man to help her and just becoming strong in general really. Because her and Ryo's screen time overwhelm those of the other girls, it would already be difficult to fault the show for making the other teammates so cliché and seemingly unsuited to baseball.

However, giving them their own spotlight, I have only criticism to give. After all, how is it remotely possible that an aspiring fashion model with no pension for physical fitness could, even after a couple months of intensive training, come close to the aptitude that the best baseball teams in the nation have? How is it possible that a girl whose time is largely spent pursuing academics and who has repeatedly been turned away from baseball by her father, can still be one of the best catchers on the team? I'll believe that Mao got good because we saw her training at catching really fucking hard, but it seems all Yoko had to do to prove herself as a worthy teammate was take baseball seriously for one moment. For that matter, though, I think it would've been nice to see everybody, Ryo included, training a little harder than they did. Izumi seems to be the one putting in the most effort in training and it was also shown that she was an extremely fast learner and already physically fit, so how did she ultimately end up as just a heavy slugger and not by far and away the best hitter on the team?

There was a storytelling technique I saw here that was never precisely predictable, but extremely awesome to pick up on. Whenever one conflict is happening, another is, always. They come in pairs and they come strong. When the press come at Kisaragi Joshikou and Ryo because of her father's scandal, she ends up hospitalized too. Both the conflict with Kisaragi and Ryo are happening at once. When Ryo and Izumi are hung up on Hiroki, Koharu also struggles with her father's poor health. This is constant throughout the show, and something I may try to use myself.

A " charming mediocrity" best describes my opinion of Princess Nine, there are many tropes and just things the show doesn't do that well, that calling this show 'good' is a bit of a stretch to me. But despite this I did find it somewhat charming, whilst there isn't much particularly good with this series, I did enjoy my time with it. Princess Nine is pretty much about forming a female baseball team, in a league where only men are allowed, to overturn the rules and prove that women can compete on equal ground with men. It doesn't solely focus on this in fact there areonly three baseball games in the 26 episode run, the rest is either focused on training, recruiting (for the first half), on a romance sub plot, or on trying to stop the school counsellors, parent association, baseball association etc for not allowing a girls team to play in the baseball league.

The problem with this show is none of the aspects were done that well, the baseball isn't really in depth and most of the game isn't about tough opponents but just a mental issue the pitcher has, its okay to do this sometimes but all the games is that the girl's team could be winning if they were playing their best but something is stopping them. I want to point out the first official baseball game match for being particular bad, if the point of your show is to show that woman can be on equal ground, having the female team seduce the men's team because they don't think they can compete on equal footing is missing the point.

Despite it not being very developed I did enjoy watching the baseball game's unfold, it was just kind of fun, it was predictable and filled with tropes and certainly not anything new, but enjoyable none the less. I would of liked it if this anime had more baseball focused episodes, more on the opponents team, more on our main heroine's team and just more on baseball in general; I think that would have improved Princess Nine quite a bit.

The romance plot kind of went on for too long, various misunderstandings made it kind of annoying at points, I sort of liked the couple but the love triangle did go on for way too long and various misunderstandings which prolonged the drama only served to annoy me.

The various associations stopping the girls did too, it made sense that somebody would try and stop them, their against the norm, but having four or five upsets of them not being able to play, because some group is trying to stop them just got annoying, it just felt like filler from the actual content, as you never believed any of these groups would actually stop the team from playing, as them playing was the entire point of the show.

I probably enjoyed the recruiting arc the most travelling across Japan or searching the school to find other girls suitable for the team, they even go to a remote fisher village to find a girl capable of the 'wave motion swing' it was a bit silly but the character introductions were nice enough which make up most of the first half.

The characters to carry on this train of thought, you could probably guess what I'm going to say, some of them are tropey, the MC's naivety, the rival, and some of the cast aren't anything you haven't seen before in another show due to their common personalities. All the characters do have some sort of issue they have to contend with so its not like there is nothing to them, but they don't feel that changed and there still isn't that much to them at the end of the day. Despite the non distinctive and tropey cast, none of them are dislikable or annoying (well most of them at least) and most of them felt charming due to the tropes, they're not good, but they are not annoying or dislikable either.

The sound and animation is fine the OST is a bit repetitive but it does its job the opening and ending aren't terrible but okay. Their isn't a lot of action in terms of animation, but its fine it representative of its time and consistent.

I actually kind of liked the dub it was a bit cheesy and silly but that also had its own appeal.

Overall this show is mediocre to me, there is nothing exceptional here, but despite that I enjoyed most of it and found it charming, even though it was predictable and tropey, knowing what you are going to get has its appeal as well, and it was an easy watch. This show isn't good and nor would I recommend it, it has a blend of romance and sports and it ends up doing neither of them that well, there are better anime for both of these things. I only watched this show due to the random button on Crunchyroll. My time didn't feel wasted and that is about all I can give to Princess Nine.

For a better Baseball anime I would suggest Ace of Diamond, its a bit long but focuses a lot more on the baseball element of the show.

Truly an underrated masterpiece, Princess Nine has elements of classic anime while displaying a decent animation for its year (come on, we're talking about 1998 here), great soundtrack (sometimes in more emotional episodes, the music made me tear up, and I never once skipped the opening theme) and above all, great plotline (ot has a bit of romance, but that's not the main point) and really likeable characters. If you like sports anime, don't hold back on watching this one because it's oldschool anime, I promise you it's excellent! There are too few sports anime with girl protagonists out there (which is a pity), and thisone is the good stuff.

五つの単語批評❕ Wonderful characters, boring love-triangle. Footnote: I'm surprised to see so many negative reviews of an anime I enjoyed quite a bit. Princess Nine is certainly no masterwork, but it features some really great character drama, intense action scenes, and a cast you really want to see succeed. Two gripes: (1) The boy drama is pretty bad, and the climax in the final episode is very nearly derailed by insisting said boy drama take the spotlight instead of the MUCH more interesting rivalry. (2) It's too short. Much of the run-time is spent gathering and training the team, so, by the time we get to actual baseball, there aren'tenough episodes left, and we're left rushing through what seems like a season's worth of material in a few episodes.

Beyond that, Nine is just plain fantastic. The art gleefully bends and warps a baseball in all kinds of unnatural ways to communicate the intensity each moment I've never been so entertained by a little white sphere! Every major character visibly grows throughout the series, and they also contribute to the team both as players and as personalities. It's an ensemble cast in the very best sense of the word: These characters need one another, and - when they pull together - amazing things can happen.

Also, screw the boy drama, Ryo and Izumi just need to kiss already!

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS Why does this review contain spoilers? As I thought about how to go about my review, I realized simply telling the reviewer that the series falls apart in the second half doesn't really cut it in regards to helping people figure out whether they want to pick up this series based on my review, though for some people - the ones who aren't fond of spoilers, that is actually enough of an explanation, that while it does start well enough in story and character it starts falling apart in the second half. Those who want a bit more depth before deciding to pickthis series up, well - here it goes.

The series does start off well enough, with characters who are quite enjoyable and growing through their own arcs. There isn't any real filler to the show, as each plot point is a plot point one would expect to be covered by any Sports series, though in the same regard the lack of games being shown is one of this shows major weaknesses as was the ending.

The best way to put it is that the drama created by the romance plot ended up really taking away from the story towards the end, but makes the daughter of the woman who put the team together look petty beyond belief. I also found myself majorly concerned with the fact, as one of the few Anime of the sports genre to feature a female cast and focus on female athletes that the ending effectively becomes cheapened by the probably unintentional message that girls will always let their romantic drama get in the way of succeeding, for that ultimately is why the team loses - the romance drama prevented the girls team from playing to their fullest.

This message might have been rectified if they had allowed our favorite alien doll girl to reach the ball, which would have also completed her arc out by showing she is able to do things without her alien friend, but instead it's just out of her reach. They could still have the significance of the guy the pitcher is head over heals for being the only one to hit her lightning ball without also having the significance of girls ultimately not being as good as the boys because of their inability to get past the drama or reach past their physical limitations to a new level, which is actually the exact opposite message the show was trying to present.

Which is exactly why I felt the need to put the spoilers I did in my review. There is a VERY specific message to this Anime, that girls can do exactly what the boys can only for this message to be trampled upon in the very last minute. Okay, so I get the fact the pitcher is expected to bring the team to a certain goal by the end of three years, and if there were sequel series this would definitely have been achieved. The problem is, the kind of ending that shows up in this series is exactly the kind of ending which will result in no sequels, by trumping the message.

This isn't to say the Anime wasn't enjoyable. I enjoyed all of the character arcs except for the love triangle, but this includes the rather weird and out there alien doll girl arc. All the characters are lovable, except for the daughter of the woman putting the team together - she almost became likable with how she tried hiding her true intentions, but there was no hiding her true intentions for her final faux pa. This faux pa makes two of the characters which were otherwise likable perhaps not so likable.

Hmmmmmm...... Hmmmm....... Hmm..... I really wanted to like this one... I really did. But hoo boy, that ending.... I really didn't like that whole final arc..... but especially that ending.... man..... Ok, so... Princess Nine is a story about a girls baseball team trying to be accepted into a boy's only baseball league. There's a lot of themes and topics of sexism and breaking down old "traditions" for the sake of equal opportunity and representation. That's all fine and good. But here's the thing. Representation alone doesn't cut it for stories like this. If its BAD representation of an all-female cast, you're not accomplishing your missionof telling a story about female empowerment or eliminating sexism from the world. If anything, you're only adding to it. Like, do I really need to spell it out for you? The girls aren't being taken seriously and are being told that they aren't strong enough to compete against boys. So your solution then is to have the girls... flirt with their first ever opponents so that they get too flustered and distracted and end up losing the game because they were too busy thinking about boobies the entire time? Really!? THAT'S how their first ever game goes!? Well surely the future games will be better handled, right? What's that? Oh, they... they don't get to play again until the tournament at the end of the show... where, aside from the first and last match, we only get to see a montage of them playing against other teams... ok...

Let me clarify in which there is a lot to love about this series. Despite wishing there were more times where we actually got to watch them compete against other teams, the practice sessions and character interactions were often really enjoyable. The cast is for the most part pretty great. I loved learning about their individual backstories, and the camaraderie between them all as they find their place and potential within this new group was really heartwarming to see. It also goes surprisingly dark places that I really wasn't expecting. A little after the halfway point is when I really felt that everyone was finally on the same page and any sort of past grievances they had with one another was finally moved on from. Their bonds seemed stronger than ever before. But then... the final arc began... I've made it loud and clear over the years just how much I love the romance genre when its done well, and how much I hate it when its not. And this is a classic example of an absolutely excruciating romance, and in a story that REALLY didn't need it. Annoying friendship-ruining love triangle? Check. Miscommunication? Check. Nonsensical betrayal of any previous character development all for the sake of forced drama caused by fighting over a boy? Check-a-roony!

It's not an over exaggeration to say that Takasugi ruins this entire show. Not only would this show have been completely fine without ANY romance plot in it whatsoever, but he's also just a flat out bad character and bad romance option for BOTH of the girls who spend the entire show fighting over him. I remember seeing so many "classic" "romance" films in film school that had this recurring issue of having their one and only female character being constantly hit on and harassed by minor characters who only exist so that they can be stopped by the main male character/love interest. But only for it to immediately follow up with the male lead performing the EXACT SAME ACTS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND PREDATORY BEHAVIOR, BUT ITS OK IF ITS A CHARISMATIC, ATTRACTIVE GUY DOING IT, RIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!?!?!? ..........So ya, you can't convince me that Takasugi is a good person/appealing love interest when his introduction involves him forcibly grabbing and picking up Ryou and carrying her on his back all the way home against her will while she's screaming at him to put her down and struggling to break free. And when he drops her off at home and introduces himself to her mother, he claims to be her boyfriend and continues to do so for the rest of the series. It isn't cute. It isn't romantic. It's creepy and terrifying.

And of course, Takasugi's one-sided obsession with Ryou causes other female characters to treat Ryou bad for "stealing him away from them", including one of the other members of the team whose had an unrequited crush on him for all her life. And when she finally admits defeat after all the backstabbing and gaslighting she's put Ryou through, she asks Takasugi for a kiss as a way of closure, literally right after he told her that he only has feelings for Ryou, and HE DOES IT!?!? LIKE.... WHAT!?!? This person that he doesn't have feelings for, whom he claims he only ever saw as a little sister his whole life, he's willing to kiss her on the lips right before starting a relationship with the girl he actually likes!?!? And OF COURSE Ryou sees this, because forced drama. And OF COURSE they don't communicate what really happened until the end of the final episode, because forced drama. And after Ryou spent the whole stinkin game refusing to pitch properly because she couldn't face Takasugi after what she saw, she finally comes to her senses in the final inning just to... lose the game to Takasugi... and then the show ends. Literally right then and there. No closing speech. No second season. Just a vague after credits scene that hints that the girls were allowed to continue competing in future tournaments, despite not winning in the end. But ya. That's it. An absolute betrayal to every other member of the team who lost everything they worked towards, everything they worked towards BECAUSE of Ryou asking them all to join the team in the first place, I might add. All thanks to her refusing to cooperate or communicate or think about anything other than a boy who she had zero chemistry with in the first place.

As soon as I finished the anime, I was like "Well, can I at least find out how the manga ended!? There has to be more in the manga, right!?" And... it's lost media. The manga apparently only had three volumes. I have no idea how long each of them were. Was there one volume for each year of high school, which would mean that the anime only covered volume one? Or did the anime cover everything and that's literally how it ends? Three volumes isn't a whole lot to work with, so I'm more inclined to believe that that's how both the anime AND the manga ends. Especially since I can't even find any forum posts or fan wikis telling me anything about any manga-only content that I missed out on. So by all intensive purposes, this is how the story ends. And its one of the most disappointing endings to any anime I've seen. Because the show has SEVERAL moments of greatness! It has a fantastic cast that could've been even further developed. It has a great message about overcoming societal expectations and refusing labels that keep you from pursuing your dreams and being treated as an equal in this world. But it all got overshadowed by an overdone series of tropes that have sullied several other stories of both past and present when they could've been so much more than just a bad bunch of cliches for the hopeless romantic viewer.

The morale of the story? Men ruin everything.

6/10

Princess Nine chronicles the trials and tribulations of Kisaragi High School's girls baseball team. Led by Ryo Hayakawa, the preternaturally skilled pitcher (and daughter of a disgraced professional player), and urged on by school chairman Keiko Homuro, they struggle to break through the glass ceiling of sexist school administrators, bigoted league commissioners and disrespectful opposing squads. Through hard work, determination and the eccentric management of ex-pro baller Kido, the Kisaragi Nine prove themselves formidable on the diamond despite institutional opposition and their own mismatched personalities. Drama inevitably ensues, however: Ryo learns the truth about her father, and it nearly destroys her will to play baseball,while she also engages in a rivalry with Keiko's estranged daughter Izumi, who quits tennis to become the team's star hitter. Their rivalry comes to a head due to a love triangle with Hiroki, the star of Kisaragi's Boys Team...which becomes even more tangled when they face Hiroki's team in the league championship!

Most sports anime revel in both cliches and melodrama, and boy howdy does Princess Nine have both! The series is a love letter to classic baseball movies, with a pre-credits sequence referencing Field of Dreams and homages to A League of Their Own, The Natural, Eight Men Out and just about every other sports flick you can think of. This homage means that no genre trope or splash of melodrama is left unturned: of course Ryo is a fourteen year old girl blessed with natural talent, able to strike out semi-pro adults with her wicked fastball. Of course she recruits Koharu, booted from a boys baseball team and living in exile with her fisherman father, by facing her in a beachside pitching duel as the waves crash around them! Naturally, an arc where Ryo runs away and nearly drowns saving two orphans climaxes with her dead father visiting her in a dream, while Izumi treks five miles through the rain to her hospital bed, then yells at her to get better.

If this seems like criticism, it's not really. Cliches have their place, and it's endearing how straight Princess Nine plays them. The energetic earnestness works in the show's favor: while the narrative features few surprises, it sells it with high-energy presentation and likeable characters. If the main cast are archetypes, they're fun: Seira the tough gal who brains gangsters with billiard balls; Mao the hulking but shy catcher; Yoko the conceited model with a heart of gold; the meek principal's daughter Kanako and spacy Yuki, who only talks to her "alien" doll Kiki. The show doesn't have enough time to give them equal focus, but their feuding-but-affectionate dynamics leads to a lot of fun. A lot of the show involves the characters working out their strengths on the field and their problems off; Yuki gets a surprisingly affecting focus arc, while Koharu's closeness with her dad makes her more than a standard tomboy character. If it's a foregone conclusion that Kanako stands up to her dad and Yoko turns down a contract to play with the team, well, consider the genre.

The bulk of the drama focuses on Ryo and Izumi. Ryo is a standard Perky Protagonist Girl, with preternatural pitching skills and a lot of pep. She's gradually beaten down by the difficulties she develops, though, forcing herself to draw upon inner strength she didn't know she had. Her Hero's Journey is rough, but fortunately she has a doting mom, a gruff but caring manager and a team full of girls who has her back. Especially Izumi: initially joining the team to spite Ryo and her mother, she develops an affection for her teammates that pokes through her haughty exterior. Izumi makes clear that she values winning and self-respect; but she also realizes it's unfair to put all the pressure on any player. In their first real match, she chews out her teammates for forcing Ryo to carry the burden of their mistakes - and considering that she and Ryo are barely on speaking terms at that point, it's no small thing.

The show's portrait of team work and female friendship makes the dynamics work and the plot. The feminist themes are '90s You Go Girl Feminism: the men are largely strawman misogynists while Keiko's determination is portrayed with the frostiness expected of an anime feminist. If the show isn't terribly deep in its treatment of the glass ceiling, it's still cool for its message of how girls and women can break through. Through individual skill and determination, certainly, but having each others' backs is more important. The Kisaragi Nine needs to work as a unit to survive: when Ryo or Izumi have an off-day the team needs to pick up the slack, and usually does. Which extends off the baseball diamond: when the eccentric Yuki has an unexpected mental breakdown, the team rallies to show her value to the team and her worth as a person.

Princess Nine stumbles a little in its last arc, when the love triangle takes center stage and the expected tropes pile up. Naturally, Ryo and Izumi's budding friendship is torn apart by petty scheming and misunderstandings; unsurprisingly, it affects both of their play during the final tournament. Hiroki is a hunky cipher; we get his friendship with Izumi, but there's no reason for him to fall for Ryo except that she's the main character. Ryo's own childhood friend Seishiro is more appealing, and has a subplot where he dates the team's spunky first base woman Hikaru. So it's hard to get involved as the romantic drama spikes near the climax, with Ryo intentionally walking Hiroki until Izumi forces things to a head. Still, the finale ends on a satisfying note: the team narrowly loses, but proves their worth to the boys and forges friendships that, we hope, will endure beyond the series.

Strong start, weak AF finish. Art style is fine, sound is fine, vocal performances are fine. The only complaint is the story. If you're looking for a strong sports-driven story, skip this one, because it devolves into another generic love-triangle dumpster fire. Spoilers: What starts out as an interesting story is thrown out the window in the last few episodes in favor of some poorly executed love triangle. The girls lose, and I'm glad, because two players couldn't pull their heads out of their lady parts long enough to play a game. Losing would still have been fine if the final game was at least interesting, but Iguess the writers thought it was more interesting to ditch any real tension of "which team is better" in favor of throwaway emotional garbage.