Every year in the summer, around the time Koshien is held, I inevitably come across a lot of baseball-related media. It doesn't matter if it's about baseball games, baseball anime, or actual baseball players, the baseball news in this time of the year always, without fail, leads me back to rewatching the Ace of Diamond anime or rereading its manga.
This year's reread is still ongoing, but after going through some of my favorite moments in both Act I and Act II, I just want to talk about one of the things I love about this series: how it tackles and portrays growth.
The most obvious growth that both we the readers and the characters in the story get to witness is, of course, physical growth. Their running becomes faster, their batting more accurate, their pitching more stable, their form cleaner, their muscles stronger, their stamina better.
I love that training is something that is not only shown but also talked about in the series. A lot of the characters give snippets of information here and there about each other's training habits. How this group tends to train at a certain place, or how that group tends to train late at night, or how they never see certain people do certain exercises. It's the little details that give these characters more life and depth. I enjoy the brutal training because we get to see how much effort they put into something. But I also enjoy when they talk about training that they did outside of the animated frames or drawn pages, because we get to realize just how small the part of their life that we see actually is.
But what I enjoy the most is the character growth that we get to see. I just feel like Ace of Diamond does it so well. And even better, we get to see this to varying degrees for a lot of characters, even the opponents or the more minor ones.
The most obvious change is obviously Sawamura's. As the main character, a lot of the series is catered to showing his development and how he transforms into someone worthy of becoming an ace. One of his biggest changes happens in his yips arc. He overcomes this career-ending condition very gradually: first by physically training to be able to do something new (throwing outside instead of in), and later on slowly becoming able to throw inside as he becomes mentally stronger and able to confront the trauma. And while this was very satisfying to witness, I have two other Sawamura growth moments that I particularly love.
The first one is him learning about the importance of learning. At the very beginning, Sawamura didn't know much about baseball history or teams or players or even techniques within the game itself. He didn't see the need for it as he thought he just needed to get better at actually playing it instead of watching the game or knowing lingo. It was initially through Chris' mentorship that Sawamura slowly comes to see the value of information-- that it is needed for his training, that it helps him get better, and that the technical terms aren't just there to sound fancy but to help him identify patterns and types and respond accordingly. Sawamura never becomes the type to write down or organize information, it just isn't in his personality, but he never lets go of this learning. We see this when he asks to see the score sheet to check his opponents' stats (even if he needed help deciphering the sheet). We see this when he watches his games over and over to figure out where he made mistakes and what went wrong. We see this when he asks Miyuki about game calling so that he can start to think for himself instead of just following orders.
The second growth moment, or should I say moments, I love from Sawamura is when he learns to get along with people of different personalities or values. The earliest example of this is with Miyuki and Chris. Initially, Sawamura was not too happy about Chris' moody vibe and unfairly judged him because of what he perceived was a half-hearted attitude towards baseball. Sawamura looking down on Chris in turn soured his relationship with Miyuki whose personality actually got along well with Sawamura's but who valued Chris' contributions and admired him greatly and did not take Sawamura's disrespect too well. Sawamura did apologize after some time and he ended up becoming good friends with both. Close enough with Miyuki, in fact, that when Sawamura later got into a conflict with Okumura and their old fight was brought up as an example of how you can unknowingly step on something that is important to another person, they were both able to laugh about it (Sawamura was more embarrassed but Miyuki was happy to laugh enough for both of them).
Aside from Sawamura, there are many other characters we get to witness changing. Two of my favorites are Nori's and Narumiya's growth. I've said this in a previous post but Nori is my favorite character in the whole series so I've probably talked too much about him already but let me touch on this topic a bit again. Nori's inner battle with his confidence was there for almost the whole series. And seeing the development from the scared freshman, to the determined but meek second year, and finally the dependable third year was so satisfying. His personality remains mostly the same so he never becomes a loud presence, but he definitely becomes a comforting one. He comes to represent stability in their school's amazing pitcher pool and finds a self-assurance amidst the overwhelming talent of his juniors.
As for Narumiya, his is definitely one of the best character arcs in the series. When he is first introduced he just seemed like the stereotypical arrogant player who just happens to have the talent to back up his confidence. But even if he was immature, you could tell that he was serious about baseball and his goals, and he was willing to work for it. However, most of his previous year went well in large part because of their captain Harada who was able to bring the team together and handle Narumiya's childish antics remarkably well. So when the third years left, Narumiya started to crumble. He was so used to the team accommodating him, but without the third years, the team is not skilled enough to just let Narumiya do whatever he wanted. Narumiya needed to learn how to work with his new catcher instead of blaming him for not knowing the pitch he should ask for. He needed to learn how to mesh with the rest of his teammates, how to trust them to do their own roles while being prepared to support them if needed. And he did learn. We see only parts of the journey, and by the end of Act I, we don't even know how the change affected the team. But in Act II we see the results of it. I cannot tell you just how emotional I was in the first Yakushi vs. Inashiro match in Act II when I saw that panel of Narumiya declaring "I am King" for the first time. (I remember this moment vividly. I was on break, in my cubicle at work.) He's still as bratty as ever, but he's now bringing his team together as its ace. He's now actually partners with Itsuki instead of just dismissing him. He's shouldering responsibility without losing sight of his goals.
There's so many more examples of character growth sprinkled throughout the series. Most of it is gradual (as it should be), playing out in the background after the obstacle is presented such as Sanada's recovery and return as ace, or Miyuki's road to being a captain and team player. Some of it is small but impactful like Amahisa working hard to be accepted by his team, or Takatsu and Yui slowly becoming open to playing other positions. Even just something as simple as Haruichi growing into himself both as a player and as a person. Or Nabe finding his place in the team. It's such a joy to watch.
I do not have the ability to explain properly just why this series is so well done, especially in showing the growth of its characters. I wish I was more articulate. But if nothing else, I hope this crude attempt at putting it into words can at least give you an idea of why these characters are so dear to me.
