The girls in Taisho Yakyu Musume (Taisho Baseball Girls) may strike out a lot, but their plucky perseverance will lead them to spiritual victory.
The anime is based on a series of light novels written by Atsushi Kagurasaka and illustrated by Sadaji Koike. They have been adapted into a manga series by Shimpei Itoh which is currently published in Monthly Comic Ryu.
Handling anime production is J.C. Staff which has produced shows such as Toradora! and Nodame Cantabile - Paris.
The story is set in 1925 (year 14 of the Taisho period), a time when Japan was going through an industrial and Westernisation period. High school girls Koume Suzukawa and Akiko Ogasawara decide to start a baseball team. At that time, it was considered unladylike for girls to even run, let alone play such a masculine game.
Akiko wants to show her fianc? that women can play as well as men, and that a woman's role is not only to be a doting housewife. Koume enthusiastically joins the cause, but they have many difficulties ahead, from finding teammates, to getting permission from their parents and actually learning how to play.
This is a funny coming-of-age story set in an era seldom ignored by anime. The show reminds us how far women's equality has come in the past eight decades. Keep an eye out for this inspiring anime when it comes out on DVD in a few months.