Nine Dragons' Ball Parade: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes
Added 2022-03-11 23:01:01 +0000 UTCManga Details
- AKA Kowloons' Ball Parade (Koo-lowns)
- “the nine dragons”/”Kowloon” are both nicknames for the high school they will be going to a little bit later. Per Tucker’s research
- Author:
- Mikiyasu Kamada - writer
- All he did
- Ashibi Fukui - artist
- Slime and Dragons
- Sukeban Deka
- Mikiyasu Kamada - writer
- Author’s other works:
- Run dates:
- Chapters/Volumes: 3/20
About the Manga
- Plot
- Tamado Azukida (Tam-a-o Ah-zoo-key-dah) wants to be on the best high school baseball team ever, Hakuo Gakujin (Ha-koo-oh Gah-ko-een).
- Azu is a weak nerdy kid but a genius at baseball strategy, so he has devoted himself to being a catcher. Unfortunately, Hakuo is an anti-nerd team so Azu is rejected, but while there he meets a super talented pitcher named Tao Ryudo (Tao Re-you-doe). Ryudo was accepted but he turned down the invitation; instead of wanting to work with Azu to put together a team that can defeat them.
- They are approached by a girl sneaking around Kojima-style in a cardboard box. Her name is Karin Kurotaki (Cahr-een Ko-ro-tak-ee) and she’s the daughter of the headmaster at Kokoryuzan (ko-ko-re-yu-zan) high school, which used to have an incredible baseball team 30 years ago but got shut down when they started losing.
- Karin’s dream is to revive the team to its former glory, becoming the obligatory girl manager that David predicted when she recruits Ryudo and Azu.
- To do this they decide to go after great players that no one wants.
- First, they get Yoshitaka Tsurugi (Yoo-she-taka Tsu-roo-gee), an incredible and well-known batter who had quit to help his dad run their toy store but his dad tells him to stop being an idiot and go play baseball. Next, they get Rinnojo Tsubaki (Ren-oh-joe Sue-baki), a very talented shortstop who sucks at playing team sports and constantly gets ejected from games.
- After that, the Kokoryuzan group acquires a guy named Shuhei Kido (Sho-hey Kee-doh) who’s pretty forgettable and doesn’t do much. They’re also joined really quickly by a dumb strong guy named Taiga Toramoto (Taiga Tor-a-mo-to) and his friend, a scared fast guy named Iyo Horaguchi (Ee-yo Hore-a-gach-ee)
- They’re approached on the field by Shiro Shiratori (She-ro Shi-ra-tor-ee), the son of Hakuo’s headmaster and a crazy good pitcher. No one, including Tsurugi, can hit his pitches and he leaves laughing about how he demoralized them. He never shows up again.
- A few months pass and they pick up some randos to fill out the required number of players to compete in the big tournament. Their first match is an easy surprise victory as they shut the other team out 8-0. Then the next match is against a baseball team that’s basically just one guy who’s really really crazy good. They win and the manga’s over. They don’t even play Hakuo, damn.
- Characters
- Tamado Azukida
- All about fitness
- Likes to record data
- Wants to be a catcher
- Timid
- Tao Ryudo
- Takes it easy
- Very fit
- Pitcher
- Raised in an orphanage
- Dream of making an amazing baseball team
- Karin Kurotaki
- Very odd
- Likes to touch people
- Hides in boxes
- Supports baseball
- Solid snake
- Yoshitaka Tsurugi
- OCD
- Batter
- Works at a toy store
- Wholesome helping his dad
- Rinnojo Tsubaki
- Shortstop
- Problematic behavior
- Egomanic
- Shuhei Kido
- Mr. average
- Just is kidna like ok sure
- Taiga Toramoto
- Wants recognition of his skills
- Left handed
- Hot headed
- Iyo Horaguchi
- Afraid of hazing
- Second baseman
- SHiro Shiratori
- Pitcher
- Prob bad guy?
- Tamado Azukida
Why it failed
- The second chapter is really boring it’s just the same topic being discussed over and over
- I get them trying to make the MC a realist but he really seems like a damper on things
- This series moves soooo slowly
- Drops the stats part which is really what made it interesting in the pilot
- You def needed to know Japanese baseball to get a lot of the references
- It just takes forever to get interesting and then it ends
What it did well
- The art is very clean, an anime adaption could just use these character designs
- I think a series about sports statistics is actually fun
- Really good use of graytones
- Tryouts is a nice way of learning names without it being artificial
- Glad it has baseball the first game
- Actually makes the catcher seem interesting
- I feel the message of individualism still mattering in a team is unusual given Japan
- I really like the visual metaphor
- Nice wholesome low stakes series
- Has one good joke
Where it could have gone
- Make this an educational series about statistics
- Maybe have everyone be neuro atypical and show how it’s fine
- Hard stop 1 chapter per recruit, make it work this is just too slow
- Have the school already have some players which maybe arn’t as good but can show talent
- Have more character-driven focus, needed some non baseball things that aren’t based on recruiting
- Show more about management, like the element with Rinnojo was really cool showing how you can motivate people differently
Misc Thoughts
- How big is this school they needed such an extensive tryout?
- Something is weird about the eyes the characters never look like they’re making eyecontact
- Why is it a super-a rank instead of s-rank like everything else
Final Verdict
- Six Word summary
- Fan submissions:
- T-Wolf: This manga flubbed after first base
- Vespairr: Needed more than just one Cleanup
- NKSCF: Acquire friends without playing enough baseball
- Scott: Mangaka didn't make the major leagues
- Genericman: Take me out of the ballgame
- T Root: Too many balls, not enough strikes
- Xylon: WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO-
- Albie: It puts the "meh" in Sabermetrics
- The Duke of Dumbass: Two bases short of a run
- KirbymonDoscolas: They were really dragon their feet
- Ozyrat: It's not cricket, so why bother?
- THEBBKINGBBTHE: One, two, twenty strikes your out
- Chemychems: One, Two, twenty chapters. You're OUT!!!
- ZZDigital: For mighty Kamada has struck out
- Daniel: I miss Eyeshield 21 so much
- Luke: Moneyball Your Way To Friendship
- Tucker: Not foul, not a home run.
- Tucker: Saying “memorable” a seventh-inning stretch
- P-value? More like P-U value, it stinks!
- Slow start that got mercy-ruled
- MasakoX - Umm...You picked the wrong protag
- Not enough balls not enough steel
- Fan submissions:
- Flop or not
- If flop, what they could read instead
- If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
- Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about
