Category: Sports

Bonus Round – The Amazing Rosetta & Chums Circus

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In our newest contribution for the Bonus Round on Anime3000, we look at Kaleido Star Season 1. In a miracle of miracles it seems that Studio Gonzo is able to hit one out of the park on occasion. The 2003 show is about a young girl’s struggle to become a circus star in the competitive and glamorous world of the Kaleido Stage. She is told by the mysterious spirit of the stage that she has the potential to perform the legendary maneuver but she will have to overcome some harsh shojo sports training before she is ready. As well as the review there is a little commercial before the main event for an amazing new Anime 3000 production. I hope you will enjoy it whenever it comes to your town. It is almost too good to be true.

Anime3000 – Bonus Round – Kaleido Star Season 1


Major S1: The Natural

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I have always had an interest in sports series from the beginning of my fandom, but that desire has exploded in the last couple of years. Major is something of an institution as far as baseball titles are concerned with an incredibly long serial and the unique angle of following our lead from pre-little league youth up to the major leagues. It also happened to finally come to an end in 2010. Some readers might remember this title was also recommended to us for our 100th Ongoing Investigation and for that I am grateful as it was the push I needed to jump in.

When you think of long running shonen series you almost always think of shonen fighting. But shonen sports can be just as popular and run just as long. Slam Dunk, Fighting Spirit, and Prince of Tennis are all mega popular shonen sports franchises that go on for over 30 books and have had equally long running anime. But when it comes to sports anime the king of athletic manga has always been baseball anime. Star of the Giants and Touch are amazingly popular cultural touchstones that have hardcore fans outside of the normal manga reading demographic. Another such breakout baseball manga hit is the recently completed manga Major. It chronicles the career of Goro Honda from just a kindergartner with a love of baseball to his major league baseball career and everything in between. The manga ran for an incredible 77 volumes and the anime ran for 6 seasons and only just ended in 2010. As major sport anime fans we decided to check on the first season of the anime and see what story has completely captivated Shonen Sunday readers and NHK viewers over the years.

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There were way too many baseball puns during our stint on the OSMcast.

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We did a guest spot talking about a certain baseball series with Basil of the OSMcast and Drew from Akihabara Renditions. No, we did not talk about the Homer at the Bat episode of the Simpsons. We talked about something even better (if you can imagine that), Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game manga and anime. Despite Adachi’s popularity in Japan he is relatively unknown in the U.S. We hope to begin correcting this error by talking about his recently completed series and hope to convince people to try this superb romantic baseball story that has a little bit for everyone. We also talk a bit about Sym-Bionic Titan and Star Driver as our moments of awesome in the beginning because much like the OSMcast crew we cannot help but talk about awesome.

OSMcast: Cross Game 11-8-2010