Taishō Baseball Girls | |
Cover of the first light novel.
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大正野球娘。 (Taishō Yakyū Musume.) |
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Genre | Historical, slice of life, sports (baseball) |
Light novel | |
Written by | Atsushi Kagurazaka |
Illustrated by | Sadaji Koike |
Published by | Tokuma Shoten |
Demographic | Seinen |
Imprint | Tokuma Novels Edge |
Original run | April 17, 2007 – present |
Volumes | 4 |
Manga | |
Written by | Shimpei Itoh |
Published by | Tokuma Shoten |
Demographic | Seinen |
Magazine | Monthly Comic Ryū |
Original run | July 19, 2008 – April, 2011 |
Volumes | 5 |
Anime television series | |
Taishō Yakyū Musume | |
Directed by | Takashi Ikehata |
Studio | J.C.Staff |
Licensed by | |
Original network | TBS |
Original run | 2 July 2009 – 24 September 2009 |
Episodes | 12 |
Game | |
Taishō Yakyū Musume: Otome Tachi no Seishun Nikki | |
Developer | Suzak |
Publisher | 5pb. |
Genre | Visual novel |
Platform | PlayStation Portable |
Released | October 29, 2010 |
Taishō Baseball Girls. (Japanese: 大正野球娘。 Hepburn: Taishō Yakyū Musume.?) is a popularlight novel series written by Atsushi Kagurazaka and illustrated by Sadaji Koike. Tokuma Shoten has published four novels as of October 2013. The novels have been adapted to a drama CD, a manga serialized in Monthly Comic Ryū, and an anime television series aired in 2009. The TV series had been licensed in North America by Sentai Filmworks, anime distributor Section23 Films released the complete collection on November 16, 2010.
In 1925, after being told by a baseball player that women should become housewives instead of going to school, two 14-year-old Japanese high school girls named Koume and Akiko decide to start a baseball team in order to prove him wrong. During this time, when even running was considered too vulgar for women, baseball is known as "what the boys do" and they face many difficulties when having to find enough members, to get permission from their parents and also when learning about the sport itself.
The first book in the series opens in Taishō 14 (1925), introducing Koume, who is the 14-year-old daughter of a yōshoku restaurant owner, and a student at a local girls' academy. One day, Koume's friend, Akiko, asks her to join in an all-girl baseball team and have a match against a boys team. While the first volume can be read as a stand-alone work, the second volume develops the storyline further.
The second book is set in the summer of Taishō 14. Koume, Akiko, Manoe and the rest of the nine members of the Baseball Girls continue to face off against numerous all-boy teams, and have trouble dealing with the fast balls thrown by the boys. To combat the anxiety they experience, playing against more experienced teams, they decide to abandon their traditional baseball uniforms in favor of a kimono-style uniform. The girls also partition off the batter's box so that other teams cannot see what they are doing.