Reviews for Major 2nd

The very first scene seen in episode 01 offers enormous emotional depth when Daigo talks about his father and tells about his dreams in front of the class. The empty baseball fields at sunset work as the perfect, powerful backdrop while a soundtracks from the original series starts playing. The inability to meet the expectations set for him and the lack of natural talent required to follow his father's footsteps are the very core of his character. But he is not his father. It's time for him to be himself. When I started watching Major 2nd, I didn't expect it to hit me in the feelswith a baseball bat already in the first episode. This is the 7th season for the Major franchise, and it's nothing less than a love letter to its fans.

The story is once again far from being perfect. The beginning suffers from compromises that were made in purpose of making this season watchable to a new audience that hasn't seen the original 6 while simultaneously trying to create the next generation of Major and its setup. The pacing is rather weird and jumpy, time skips happen already in very early stage. The 2nd main character introduction is random and could be called to be based on coincidences alone just to create the preferred settings for the anime itself. Basically the first 7 episodes are rather mediocre and messy, but once the beginning is left behind and the story starts advancing, we get a more consistent flow centering around the familiar things that Major has always done so successfully.

The characters are fun to follow. Daigo's sister is absolutely lovely. She has clearly inherited her mother's temper. The voice acting alone makes me smile uncontrollably because the seiyuu work delivers so much personality. Especially the adult version of Shimizu has turned out fantastic. Daigo's pondering and uncertainty can be little annoying and feel filler-ish at times, but what it also did was leave more room for character development which Major 2nd relies almost as much as its predecessor. The romantic subplot plays much bigger role and the potential love interest is full of charm, much like all female characters in the series.

The single best part of the cast is how there is not a single anime character in it. Anime as an adjective I mean. Everyone follows the realistic pattern where characters rely on their personalities. In one way, this is the polar opposite of let's say Kuroko no Basket where character specific skills/talents are essentially superpowers, personalities follow archetypes and character designs is based on the "spot the main character" tier fakeness. Major is downright genuine work, relying on itself and not on common tropes that create false appeal.

When it comes to balance, that is certainly among the most impressive sides of this season. Every bit of drama and character centric insecurities are overcome during the baseball games where character development, character relations and sport intelligence all continue to advance. Seeing how our cast grows closer to each others while growing as persons as games advance, is the perfect example of awe-inspiring. Yet, at the same time, the matches itself exist as baseball games on the surface level, and the importance of this hasn't been forgotten. The smoothness creates a rather magnificent atmosphere that manages to make the series incredibly entertaining and offer a fresh experience.

In one way, Major 2nd is nothing but light slice of life drama centering around baseball and focusing on character relations and development. It's a widely used formula in the sports genre and those who have never seen this to be anything special won't be changing their minds here either. What I see is an endless potential and Major 2nd is yet another massive success that managed to live up to its potential and offer beauty that can only be achieved under these settings.

What if you love something so much, that it becomes painfull to see everyone around you being better? Will you throw away everything just to not suffer anymore? Life's not fair, everyone s born with a gift but they desire things that cant achieve easily, that's why we struggle to become better persons. Before starting the review I'm going to say that Major is one of my favorite series of all time, both manga and anime, so I'm very excited and happy about this sequel, it's a shame that not much people are into sport, but I could not care less, I love it and I hopepeople reading this review will change their minds.

First of all it's a given that if you want to grow even more attached to the characters you have to read or watch the first series, and I know for a fact that reading 700+ chapter or watching 150+ episodes it s huge investment of time, luckly for you Major 2 dont revolve too much around the first series, so you can start and enjoy this as it is.

Clearly is not going to be as epic as was with Goro, pitcher and catcher are obviously different roles that requires different types of skills.

Story (9):

The two main characters of the story are the sons of the famous Gorou, amazing pitcher and at the end of his career batter, and Toshiya the strategist catcher.

They were chilhood friends and same thing is happening with their sons.

This time around the roles are swapped, Daigo, Gorou son is not like his father, he doesnt have his powerfull arm nor his amazing talent, on the other end Hikaru has all the talent that Daigo wanted.

Art (10):

I'm a sucker for this kind of art. Simply beautifull, neat, colorfull and dynamic when it needs to be.

Sound (9):

The opening is good but I prefer the ending, voice actor and background sounds are really solid and do a good job to create the atmosphere needed.

Characters (9):

I guess people will find the attitude of Daigo quite annoying, but can you really blame him? Hikaru on the other end is so carefree and funny.

Ohhhh Kaoru is simply fantastic haha her facial expressions are hilarious.

A good cast full of potential in my opinion.

Enjoyment (10):

Even tought not as dramatic or epic like the first series I find Major 2 really relaxing, exciting when needed and funny to watch, I'm loving it, as much I did with Major 1.

Thanks for reading.

The original "Major" is one of my favorite animes of all time. Although Im not a baseball fan (I like sports though), it was very wholesome, inspirational and unpredictable. Major 2nd was unwatchable to me by episode 7. The "Satou" 2nd is very flimsy as far as background and character development go. Very "friendship and baseball" with the only substance being young Shigeno's (2nd) trying to step out of his fathers shadow. But instead of focusing on that its mostly the mother and sister talking about the boy constantly and manipulating him into playing baseball. I was very annoyed by those two as the first 7 episodes(atleast) were mostly them being almost cruel to a boy whos trying to figure out things thatre bigger than baseball.... Instead, all the nagging and manipulation make it very gynocentric although its a boy's sport.

This seems to be geared to a very young audience that will not read too deep into it and just go with the "friendship power" theme. Its like the original Major if all the deeper plot points and thorns were removed.

Right at the outset, let me say this. Its Major, but don't expect the first season of Major here in '2nd'. And oh, spoilers in the review. TL;DR - Its a great anime, but if you hold high expectations of this like i did, then maybe you might be slightly disappointed. However, it's still worth the watch and i have high expectations of subsequent seasons. If you're a fan of Major, definitely go ahead and watch. If you like sports anime in general, give it a chance, see if you like it. I'm sure subsequent seasons will be really good and this might be important forthose.

This season of this possibly long series basically tackles the question of how expectations might affect a second generation (third actually) of a professional athlete family. And it portrays it well. Just it's not that interesting to me. The original Major, the entire series, was a testosterone filled, action packed and at times tear jerking series about the triumphs of Goro in his journey of becoming a baseball player. The first season of it as well fits that description. It was also about establishing the motivation of Goro, the early trials that he faced like his father's death, the motivation Gibson gave him and the like, and while great in itself, it largely helped propel subsequent seasons to greater emotional heights because we knew what Goro went through. His father's death and that epic match at the end of the tournament in the first season.

I came into this expecting similar things. Now when i compare that with the new MC, Daigo, and his inability to cope with expectations placed on him because of his father's success, it just didn't have the same impact. I kept expecting Daigo to come up with a cool move or show inhuman determination that made everyone acknowledge his genius and make my spine tingle and my hairs stand on end. He doesn't. The show itself doesn't. And i guess the point is, the show and he shouldn't. Those kinds of things would be at odds with the theme its trying to deal with. Major 2nd feels much more grounded. Daigo, at least for now, isn't a baseball genius. The show repeatedly pounds you with that early on. The progress he makes throughout the show in terms of skill are minor (like learning how to bunt). Even later on, he doesn't make as much of an impact on games like Goro did. Mostly it's Daigo's best friend, and Satou's son, Hikaru, who is shown to be the baseball genius that the team needs to win games. And apart from him, the emphasis is more on Daigo dealing with his inferiority complex and how the entire team contributes collectively to their, and Daigo's, success.

Needless to say, that requires strong secondary characters. And often, I found myself skipping through bits of the show because the character conflict it tried to drive just fell flat for me. Most of the characters are boring. The original had Goro to single handedly lead the show. Here it understandably tries to focus on multiple characters. Multiple, underdeveloped, weak characters. And did I mention how much I find the FMC this time irritating. Uh.

(A bit of an aside, Mayumura's son is voiced by the guy from Konosuba - I didn't even need to check - and the entire time I found his lines hilarious because I kept seeing him in a comedic light. Still that guy is probably the most fun character in the show for me)

The show has its moments however. It shines when there are matches to be played instead of conversations. The baseball is exciting as ever which kept me watching this. We look at what a few of the characters from the earlier season are doing and the final match of the show is great as well. Its basically a second generation version of the last match Goro had while a part of Kaido. In terms of characters that is, not epicness. It pales in comparison to the last match of major's first season as well. And I say that while not exactly remembering the specifics of how that match played out. This series still has a long way to go to get to those heights.

A bit of a cursory comment on the other aspects. Art is good, nothing standout, consistent throughout. Sound...hmm i don't remember much about this lol. OP is ok. The second ED is just 'Uhh!'.

That was long, and I probs repeated myself more than once, thanks for reading. Here's hoping there is more baseball and badassery next season.

Honestly didn't like the first couple episodes, but it brought me in the same way the original Major did. The setting/premise for the series was perfect. Gotta admit the character growth was larger than i expected. It brought tragedy in like how the original series did, which I didn't think it would. I liked how they played that. It made us focus on other characters problems, which again followed the original series. I didn't like how when they pitched or hit, there were sparkles. Bad animation choice.But that final episode was amazing. Brought in all the feels.

Overall great series if you watched the original one. And if you're new I'd say it is a good one with some weird problems. But if they follow suit and provide multiple seasons, it'll grow into something big.

The Major series was definitely the best sports anime ive ever seen in my life if not the best Anime i have watched. Just the story and character development is superb. No anime compares to this anime in terms of character development and story telling. I have the seen the first major series a long time ago so seeing a new sequel come out really made me excited. this sequel was definitely worthy to be its predecessor. Characters: Definitely the strongest point for the whole majority of the major series the character development is without a doubt the best I've seen from the characters backgroundto intense emotional cut-scenes that really make you feel bad for the character. Hopefully this season will add to that and more!

Story: Major has A really amazing story line no argument its one of the best relating to sports.

Overall: IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE ORIGINAL MAJOR GO WATCH IT NOW EVEN IF YOUR NOT A SPORTS FAN TRUST ME YOU WILL BE BLOWN AWAY WITH THE EMOTIONS AND THE FEELS WATCH IT NOW!

DONT WATCH THIS SEASON BEFORE WATCHING THE ORIGINAL FIRST!

Spoilers After 8 years of Major being off our screens, finally a glimmer of hope appears: major 2nd is the continuation from, 6 seasons of Major as well as a Major Movie and 2 Major OVA series. the story starts with different characters compared to the original anime, to be precise the sons of titular characters Goro and Toshi from the original run. the story seems similar to the start of the first season , taking it back to the basics, however, I'm not sure whether Major 2nd will be able to wrap up the current series as well as the original series was ended. if any of you haven'tseen major before, be it for dislike of sports anime or don't want to watch the older series due to quality, i recommend you take some time to catch up, however it is not required nor is it necessary to enjoy Major 2nd.

Major, in my opinion is quite different from other baseball anime such diamond no ace, for example Major from Season 1-6 and throughout the OVA's show you not just Goro's kindergarten days as seen is the first series but shows you his progression through life, from being a child to being a grown adult having played professionally in America and now returning to Japan, from which point the story is continued with Major 2nd.

So all I can say to leave you with is, if you enjoy an anime following the story of a underdog who rises from zero living in the shadow of their father before they find their own light and shine through, i thoroughly hope you enjoy Major 2nd as much as many people who grew up watching the original 6 seasons did.

Shamial, thanks for the proofreading!

"A dream isn't something that someone tells you to go for. It's something you fulfill of your own will." - Moritaka Mashiro (Bakuman) This quote is from another great/masterpiece anime but it fits in here perfectly. You probably watched the whole main Major series so you probably can expect what this anime is about. If you dont have seen the main series please watch it, its very great but even if not you can watch Major 2nd. There is nothing you cant understand if you didnt watched the main series. Back to the quote: Major 2nd is not only another season of Major its very diffrent fromthe main series. While the whole main series is about Goro shigeno the boy we see grew up and find out the reasons why baseball isnt only an sport for him... Major 2nd takes place with Daigo, the son of goro shigeno - a pro baseball player. It sounds like the same plot as the main series because goros father was also a pro baseball player. But Daigo is a lot diffrent than goro. He feels the expectations very hard. Yes, he likes baseball and want to play it like his father did and his father did, but he hasnt the talent like his father with a monster throw. His body is weak even for his age.

This anime is about a boy who likes baseball and want to play it but gets pulled down from expectations and a nonexistent talent. Also it shows you a littel more of baseball next to only pitching. Now there are some positions in a baseball team who will get more spotlight. Also the grewing up of Daigo is a lot diffrent from his father, aswell as the grew up from Hikaru, a other son of an pro beaseball player. Also the sister of Daigo Izumi is a interesting new character, there was no character like her in the main series. If you want something the same like the main series Major you will get disappointed but if you are open for baseball and struggel with expectations and nonexistent talent, exchanged with training and hard work you will like this anime.

So far I like Major 2nd. It is diffrent from the main series and a littel bit harder to get close to it but give it a try. I think it is worth your time! AT least it is worth my time. There only 6 episodes out yet thats why my opinion can change a littel bit if this series tooks a other path.

Last but not least I hope you will enjoy the series like I do and apologize my bad english I am from germany so it is not my mother tongue.

For reference, I watched the entirety of the original Major series from S1 to S6 in one go, including all OVAs and movies. While I consider myself a fan, I think the original series is far from perfect and suffers from consistent flaws from start to finish. One of my biggest issues with the previous show was how similar each arc was. This may be a controversial statement, but the original Major kept retreading on the same conflicts, some you even see in other baseball manga before and after its inception. Goro's development, at least to me, peaked in S2, and we've only seen micro-improvementsto Goro's skill and character since then, with the only unique issue being his yips in S6.

All of this to say is that I was pleasantly surprised to see Major 2nd tread in a completely different path than the original series. Goro from the start was shown to be an incredibly talented individual with his independent goals. Daigo on the other hand is less talented and has to fight the pressure of his legacy. The combination of the two makes his journey as a character more poignant as an athlete than anything I really saw from Goro in my opinion. There's also significantly more highlighting of the side characters in Major 2nd that the original started to mostly forget, especially in later seasons of the show. Finally, Daigo is a catcher, one of the most interesting positions in baseball but one that's constantly overshadowed by most baseball manga in favor of highlighting the pitcher. This new perspective that you don't see in almost any other manga makes this a unique and fascinating read.

This is not to say that Major 2nd is perfect, I think the show in particular has a weird and borderline unhealthy view of child development in how they go about encouraging baseball. While it's not really too bad in the beginning, it gets really bizarre in the final few episodes to the point where it's hard for me to wrap my head around.

That being said, Major 2nd overall brings so much flavor and uniqueness using Daigo as the star of the story that Major never offered. The original Major felt like gourmet french fries. It tastes good, it's flashy, and it's well-made, but ultimately you only appreciate the first fry for so long before you just scarfing piece after piece down and it all blends together. I genuinely believe that Major 2nd is on track to be much more ambitious than that and more than any other season of Major I've seen to this day, I'm incredibly excited to see what comes next.

I've typed it as a total, but, assuming I've expressed plenty of my internal beliefs and feelings, I'll just paste it to the beginning, so that you'll be able to just read the total and make a fast decision. This is what I think 2nd lacks, just the harmony with itself, the high IQ baseball it made intended, with highly detailed RPG, like Hajime no Ippo had. Instead, they've nearly dropped detailes overall WHILE pruning character power levels, at the same time making characters show their big feelings, making it hard to use empathy there, because not much happened, can only say "omg just play normallyalready 4Head ", when in the 1st this was the fans work, they yelled from stands and made you feel for players, trying their best. But here, it feels like Major making a step to Dia no Ace, with random no setup events having a chance to make u just roll eyes and say "whatever happens already". Not nesessarily the improvement, ehm.

But if you've watched the first one, you're nearly obligated to watch the 2nd, a mere connection between them is already enjoyable, the bitter side is that it may be mosly this element that will carry.

Honestly, it lost a lot of qualities first anime had, it gained some details thing, but lost so many other elements, it feels like some pocket budget 1st. As I said, it does have that Dia no Ace dreadful scent, which had completely random outcomes every time, for, I guess, "realism", but it backfired as hard as possible, printing that indifference to the outcome feeling I honestly DONT want to feel. I mean, finding flaws mode is fun to use when the info can be used, but when the project is already up to gold, there's nothing to use from those unfounits you've generated gathering smaller infounits with organse of senses... It's an artificial story, don't need it to be random, how can one be exited if it's literally "whatever happens, all Random Number Generator", now generate a nickname for me as well pls coz whatever my name will be, let's all be indifferent. It should teach some meaningful stuff + it should be cool at the same time. And "meaningful stuff" is usually some "improved from training, that's why it happened this way"(did pitch out some really strong batter who every1 thought is gna get the homerun or big hit, etc.), or whatever else plot, but this RPG factor or some interesting plot factors are abscent so much. Sure anime had some good old Bats "no motivation, whatevah, I will kill u guys if I will miss the date with Jenny" lazy molding skill of baseball vibes, but in a new key of just girls bumping that boy puberty muscle mass increase wall, but way too many random moments in between them. Hope we got why random moments are bad already, why reality thing is not good because there are actual MLB matches, can watch those and it will even be more detailed, with every pitch speed and course, can even sit and write down all pitcher/batter habits strengths weaknesses etc if able to see em, but this is not a freggin MLB, this is an artificially made piece of content which should entertain right here right now, with limited time. Real matches last 1-2hrs and its exhausting to wait for anything dramatic to happen, but in anime there should be those moments. That's why I gave only 7 for Enjoyment, honestly ok Art is 9, good new effects and stuff, drawing is whatever to me, I can see shadows and stuff done well enough, Story 7 as well, I mean, Hikaru bumping into the chest is way too dragged by ears, some other moments as well, they an author cannot make something happen with crossing all events logically and just drags it by ears, I personally instantly see it, like, set it up, man, don't just throw it in randomly. Reminds some Sasukeh moments where he just forcefully survives 100500 Deidara explosions zero scratches recieved, like that Tao girl that were smug about not getting dirty and playing halfhearted(which in 1st ssn would've been seen isnta and beat out of, btw), these dragged by ears moments that are almost against all odds in the situation, it's like a negative set up or something, really makes feel dreadful. This feeling like robbed of some dramatic setup, as if ur Niko from GTA IV and Roman is showing u his home for the first time and u realise it was all a lie, all that bragging. I know the anime is still partly done well and sometimes almost at the 1st Major lvl, but at times it drops like a forkball. Pitchers throwing 4 balls left and right without stopping on 3, all the atmosphere on not giving the damn is getting to me, honestly making not give the damn as well, keeping in synch by default. The first ssn could've been more RPGy, but for some reason it wasn't, author didn't show us that everything is trainable, like it was with Goros' left hand pitching after breakin the shoulder, which is a great real life lesson as well, I would've enjoyed some plot like that for the 2nd time EASY, because it's SO REAL, can rehab irl big time, some ppl cure their freggin fatal knee injury in some 4 months when every doctor says that 2year and dont even try faster, I mean they prob use some peptides or w/o hormonal stuff but ye, worth a try when it's a career yeh/na question in the air. Making that shoulder gain power was, after all, the thing that was most likely the essential RPG element for the story, but the Daigo RPG did stop even much before the 2nd ssn(of 2nd Major), he learnt some technique, aight, now throwing a bit better, where's the rest of RPG, why is there no info about how he's building the shoulder up, I mean, why not, Goro did all kinds of stuff like that even with a strong one, and it reflects the reality as well, u can build muscles, in any exercises suitable, for pitching even, EZ, and if he had ABSOLUTELY NO way of building the shoulder enough for monster speed pitching his pops did, Major 2nd could've had a thing about breaking balls, some deeper breaking ball meta, detailed breaking balls strats, that's what the 1st ssn did lack, all Fastball-Fastball-Fastball till the very end almost, when atm some Kershaw uses all kinds of em pitches, some clutch once in a thousand times Euphus, and the trick with a moving fastball + fast slider(Katori thing from the 1st), making best batters swing like a yard away coz they look extremely similar, this is what Major did lack, as for me. That Mayumura skillset, where he in reality had not as insane fastball as Shigeno did(even if a close one, it seems), but made up for it more than enough with insane breaking balls development, where he could pierce em through the strike zone by one pixel and before that make em fly in and away completely outside of the strike zone. 1st ssn had these things with "pitches looking similar and super hard to hit", with Katori "kousoku suraida" feint with pitching into the ball course to feed Goro a fake slider he was training to hit, because they've defined what he's trying to hit by looking at where his eyesight is directed to. Or with Bravo(Cuba) pitching in the World Cup, where he had 3 similar lookin curves, and the biggest curving one pitching out the almighty Kyoshiro. Fox was also doing tricks like that to make up for Sanchezu lack of control coz he's a slow starter. But still those were like rare ones, although I like how they were set up to, it felt so natural that it was unreally cool. In Major 2nd not only setups aren't done sometimes, but also stuff isn't that cool as well. Honestly, everything is pruned, like that shoulder of the main hero. If you prune the starting abilities of the hero then make up for it with deeper RPG stuff, that technique of throwing like Kyoshiro is a good start, now add some mad training with some rubber strings, some athletic ball throwin or whatever! :O

The anime is done in a way that really has that deep RPG intended, yet the author makes the skip of details value even larger than in the 1st Major, where it worked perfectly with the monstrous power characters' irrational kind of vibes, being in the zone not caring about details and smashing, the "flow" essence of irrationality, giving all plots in maximally natural way, at the same time drawing crazy shonen energized scenes. But here in 2nd, when no strength, need precision, right? And this is what makes it really weird, approaching us from the "This is actually The Smart Terrotory, bby" way, with the main protagonist Daigo being a catcher, seemingly moving to that Jeff Keene thing with being efficient as a supercomputer with teamplay and ordering pitches and smashing hard by doing that, yet all details just SINK ezpz, who threw a sinker with details boiz, making random number generator matches with Daigo not droppin a single sweat particle, watching his pitcher throw 3 balls, each worse than the one before, some TWELVE times in a season, while showing him as "attentive to all details and smartplaying it", and ofc it turns to 4 balls each time, every1 is surprised, ikr, how comes. Even in the 1st ssn, that had that hard-boiled irrational madskill flavor, some Komori or Toshiya did insta yell "TIIIME!!" at like Ball 2, let alone 3, and asked pitcher if he ate some tomato with milk, or told him he's danzo, gabella, kapit, and he will just lose all ERA the next pitch, like Keene did, or Goro with "Kawabata, lemme talk with Toshi for a sec I'm sure that he understands the situation" and then straight up flaming him to the ground for being confused as a catcher. But they DID give the damn, even back then, in the irrational monsterpower 1st Major!

When watching 1st, I could relate on so many things, it felt like I've lived through the same even if not being a Major Leaguer. 2nd needs plenty of fixing in the future if there will be one, to make ppl relate to it easier, so far it's been some minor(league) value of that, some niche elements of sympathy. Let's hope Masuda will get it better next time, and, hell ye, all to gym, boiz, rebuild em shoulders :>