Natsunosuke Honda, an eight-year veteran middle reliever for the Spiders, treats the pitcher’s mound like a ledger. Every strike he throws, every batter he retires, nudges his annual salary up or down, and he keeps a mental spreadsheet of every rival reliever’s pay packet to make sure he stays the richest. The league’s pay-for-performance structure means a single bad outing can cost more than pride; it can cost a refrigerator. Fukushi Ochiai voices Honda with a rasping swagger that never lets you forget the man is counting yen in his head between pitches.
BS SKY PerfecTV! aired the first twelve episodes in spring 2018 and a second dozen that autumn, each running a brisk twenty-three minutes. Director Asahiko Koshiyama keeps the dug-out chatter fast and the on-field action lean, favouring reaction shots of contract clauses being signed as the real climax. The anime sticks to the manga’s cynical eye: no sentimental rookie dreams, no last-inning miracle, just a man checking his bank balance on the stadium scoreboard and deciding whether the guy at the plate deserves a bigger slice than him. When the season ends, Honda’s salary is still north of most starters, and that, for him, counts as a championship ring.
Production Details
BS SKY PerfecTV! / 2 Seasons / 24 Episodes / 2018
Cinematography: Asahiko Koshiyama
Main Cast
Fukushi Ochiai as Natsunosuke Honda (voice)
Takanori Hoshino as Akira Shibuya (voice)
Mao Ichimichi as Yuki (voice)
Issei Futamata as Tanabe (voice)
Daisuke Namikawa as Tokunaga (voice)
Ryuzou Ishino as Kozato (voice)
Kenji Nomura as Sakota (voice)
Hideo Matsumoto as Hideo Matsumoto (voice)
