Play Ball (manga)

Play Ball
Cover of volume 6 DVD (first season)
プレイボール (Purei Bōru)
Genre	Sports (baseball), School
Manga
Written by	Akio Chiba
Published by	Shueisha
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Jump
Original run	1973 – 1978
Volumes	22
Anime television series
Directed by	Satoshi Dezaki
Studio	Eiken (production) Magic Bus (animation)
Original network	Animax
Original run	July 4, 2005 – September 26, 2005
Episodes	13
Anime television series
Play Ball 2nd
Directed by	Satoshi Dezaki
Studio	Eiken (production) Magic Bus (animation)
Original network	Animax
Original run	January 9, 2006 – March 27, 2006
Episodes	13

Play Ball (Japanese: プレイボール, Hepburn: Purei Bōru^?) is a manga series by Akio Chiba which ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1973 to 1978, which was adapted in 2005 and 2006 into an anime series by Magic Bus, aired across Japan on the anime satellite television network, Animax. The series was released concurrently with Chiba's other major work, Captain, the other series for which he won the 22nd Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen in 1977.

Chiba originally wanted to make the series a rugby or American football, but he began to be held up by collecting all the materials needed to make sure he understood the rules well enough to draw an accurate depiction. In order to catch up, he began creating a manga about the high school baseball career of his main character, Takao Taniguchi.

This eventually developed into the series Captain. Play Ball follows the story of the junior high school years of Taniguchi and his teammates.

Nearly twenty-five years later, in 2005 and 2006, the series was adapted into two seasons of an UHF anime TV series in 2005, which was broadcast across Japan by the anime satellite television network, Animax.