Furu Anime Panikku

Having watched these two awesome baseball anime, I felt greatly inspired to write about them.

As stated above, both Oofuri and Major hits homeruns, and are awesome in different ways. In my opinion, Major scores Grandslam, a homerun fully loaded with 3 runners, while Oofuri scores an ordinary homerun with no runners at the bases.

Now, before the fiery Oofuri fanboys and girls start pitching at me with their gyroballs, let me assure you that I am in no way dissing Oofuri. In fact, I have absolutely no reason to do so as I love it.

Oofuri and Major actually focus on different areas, despite being of the same genre, baseball. Oofuri focuses a lot on a single match, while Major focuses more on the main character, Goro’s life journey through baseball.

Oofuri spends almost half it’s entire run on a single preliminary match, while Major goes at a much faster pace, ending an entire chapter of Goro’s primary school life with almost the same amount episodes. Personally, I like fast-paced anime. Hence, Major gets an extra point from me due to the pace factor. I’m not saying that Oofuri is slow-paced. However, compared to Major, it’s slower. As I have a certain liking towards faster-paced anime, Major scores an extra point off me.

Next the emotional factor. After watching both series, I would have to hand it to Major in this section. I never shed a tear once in Oofuri, but all 3 seasons of Major had my cheeks damp at least once each season. For the first season, the tears came from the game against Yokohama Little. For the second season, it was the game against Komori’s team. And finally, for the last season, the amazing match of endurance against Kaidou. Oofuri was touching, but not as touching as Major, which caused tears to seep out without me realising it. I’m definitely a sucker for the power of teamwork as well as the never-say-die spirit in sports.

And finally, the timeline factor. In Oofuri, the viewers only accompany the team for the first few matches for the first season. There’s definitely going to be a sequel to Oofuri, but as far as I can see, the whole storyline would end with the characters graduating from high school. That’s a pretty short time, and there’s a limit as to how much the viewers can grow with the characters. On the other hand, Major’s timeline is much longer. You get to watch Goro grow from a 5 year old who has lost his father into a young adult who pursues a career out of his passion, Baseball.

Personally, I feel that watching a character grow from a kid into an adult is the best way to grow attached to a character. It’s as though you lived the character’s life together with him/her. Even if you the process in which the character grows up is skipped, an example being Gurren Lagann, it still works like a charm. Unfortunately, there are not many anime series that feature a character growing up.

I love and enjoyed both Oofuri and Major, but overall, Major is still much more enjoyable for me. My statement isn’t fair, as Major has 4 seasons, while Oofuri currently has only 1. However, even if I look at the first season of Major and compare it to Oofuri, my answer would still remain unchanged.

If you have not watched either of these anime, I strongly encourage you to do so. It doesn’t matter if you have never liked sports or baseball. Even for someone like me who has never watched any sports anime before Oofuri and Major, I was able to enjoy every single moment spent watching the characters playing baseball.

For those who plan to pick Oofuri and Major, I suggest you watch Oofuri first, before heading on to a Major marathon. This way, the enjoyment increases as you watch, and so does the excitement and intensity. Think of it as playing around in Tokyo Disneyland before heading over to DisneyWorld in Orlando.