Baby Steps

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Romance rating:

Anime Information ⍰

Title:

🇯🇵 Baby Steps

🇬🇧 Baby Steps

Adaption from: Manga

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Relation

TitleEpisodesRelease dateRelease season
Season 1Baby Steps2506. April 2014 ‑ 21. September 2014Spring 2014
Season 2Baby Steps 2nd Season2505. April 2015 ‑ 20. September 2015Spring 2015

Spoilers


General facts ⍰

Maruo Eiichirou

⇒⇒ 💖 ⇐⇐

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⇓

💖

⇑

⇑

Takasaki Natsu

Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu are in the same year at school, but are not in the same class.

At school, Maruo Eiichirou is known as the top of the class, while Takasaki Natsu is the popular girl and is adored as the school idol.

The first time they meet is when Takasaki Natsu needs help to study for a test.
She asks a friend in Maruo Eiichirou’s class if she has any notes to look up.
This friend refers Takasaki Natsu to Maruo Eiichirou because his perfect notes are the best.

As she’s a bit of an airhead, she says without sensitivity and simply straight out that she thinks his notes are crazy.
But she takes the notes, thanks him and leaves.

Just before she leaves the classroom, she takes a clumsy tumble and soils his notes.
Whilst the boys in the class admire her, Maruo Eiichirou is completely stunned.
Takasaki Natsu gets up, cleans up the notes, apologises and leaves the classroom as if nothing had happened.

The second encounter follows immediately afterwards, as Maruo Eiichirou is looking for a club activity.
He decides on a tennis club, and that’s when he meets Takasaki Natsu.

There he sees a different side of her.
He admires her playing tennis, which she is exceptionally good at.
She then confides a secret to him: She wants to become a professional tennis player.

And thus, thanks to the tennis club, Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu slowly become closer and closer.
They get better at tennis, cheer each other on, play together and meet up more often.


Until at some point later it finally “clicks” for both of them. 😊

No

No, not a big leap in time per se.
There are only ever a few months that pass between tournaments, but you hardly notice them.

No


Romance facts ⍰

Yes, but kept weak

Sasaki Himeko
Marcia O’Brien
Aki Shumizu

Sasaki Himeko is a classmate of Maruo Eiichirou and has a crush on him, but doesn’t dare to approach him.

However, in order to support Maruo Eiichirou, she is later often seen at his tennis tournaments and always actively cheers him on.

When she realises how close Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu are getting, she decides not to take action.
Still, you can see how jealous this makes Sasaki Himeko and how badly it hurts her later on.

Nevertheless, she continues to support Maruo Eiichirou and cheers him on from the sidelines.

Marcia O’Brien makes a brief appearance at the beginning of season 2.

She helps Maruo Eiichirou during his trip at the America Camp to improve his tennis skills.

As she is a BroCon, she behaves very much like a Tsundere towards him because her brother is very important to her and she doesn’t want to see him lose.
And yet she helps Maruo Eiichirou to recognise his mistakes and increase his potential.

At the end of Maruo Eiichirou’s trip in the America Camp, Marcia O’Brien realises that she has grown fonder of him than she would like to admit.
When he leaves, she blushes slightly and cries as he says goodbye.

Aki Shumizu also only appears very briefly in season 2.

At a tournament, she is running and accidentally bumps into Maruo Eiichirou.
The mobile phone flies out of her hand and lands on the floor, falling apart a little in the process.
Maruo Eiichirou helps Aki Shumizu repair her mobile phone.
She thanks him and blushes.
When Takasaki Natsu appears, Aki Shumizu says goodbye and carries on walking, her face still flushed.

Season 2, episode 6


A little later, a special training session takes place at Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu’s tennis club.
Tennis players from other clubs come to visit and train together.
And Aki Shumizu is also part of the training squad.

She observes Maruo Eiichirou during training.
When she takes a short break, she bumps into him outside by the vending machine and they chat for a while until they are interrupted by her mum.

After the training session is over, Aki Shumizu thanks him and gets into the car.
She watches as Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsus make their way home.


It gives the impression that she is interested in him, as she seems to be very fixated on him.
At the same time she has a very sad expression in her eyes.
I wonder why and have two assumptions.

The first and probably logical assumption is that she is sad because she sees them together and is grieving about not being able to together with him.

The second guess is that there is something else.
I think she has had some bad experiences in her past.
Maybe something awful happened in her childhood…

Too bad we won’t see her again.
She doesn’t appear in the anime afterwards and is never mentioned again.
So unfortunately we won’t find out more about her and what’s behind her sad expression.

Season 2, episode 13

Yes

Kageyama Kojirou

♥

⇓

⇓

♥ ⇒⇒

Sasaki Himeko

♥

⇓

⇓

♥ ⇒⇒

Maruo Eiichirou

As I mentioned in the harem spoiler, Sasaki Himeko has a huge crush on Maruo Eiichirou.
But at the same time, Maruo Eiichirou’s best friend, Kageyama Kojirou, has a crush on Sasaki Himeko.
However, this is not immediately clear at first, as Kageyama Kojirou tries to support Sasaki Himeko so that she can get closer to Maruo Eiichirou.

But when Kageyama Kojirou realises that Maruo Eiichirou is interested in Takasaki Natsu, he sees a small chance for him.
Nevertheless, he keeps it to himself and continues to try to support Sasaki Himeko.
Even when Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu become a couple, he stands by her side to comfort her.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out whether they come together later in the manga.

Egawa Takuma

♥ ⇒⇒⇒

♥

⇓

⇓

⇓

Takasaki Natsu

Egawa Takuma behaves more like a big brother to Takasaki Natsu.
But when Maruo Eiichirou gets closer to her, you realise that Egawa Takuma is getting jealous and he keeps Maruo Eiichirou at a distance from her.

Later it is also explained why. A flashback is shown of Egawa Takuma.
It reveals that he was devastatingly beaten by Ike Souji.
He stopped going to training because of this and repressed it.

When Takasaki Natsu told him that she was worried about him, he returned to training.
So he basically only did it for her.

And now that he has Maruo Eiichirou as his rival, he realises that he never made a move on her.
Thereupon he asks Takasaki Natsu by message how she feels about Maruo Eiichirou… and immediately gets the reply that she likes Maruo Eiichirou, but that he shouldn’t tell anyone else.
That was a flat rejection for him and he sorrowfully goes to bed.

Season 2, episode 5

Takasaki Natsu

⇒⇒ ✌️ ⇐⇐

⇓

⇓

✌️

⇑

⇑

Ike Souji

Takasaki Natsu and Ike Souji used to be childhood friends.
He emigrated to Florida to further his career as a professional player.

When he sees Takasaki Natsu for the first time in a long time, he runs to her and hugs her in front of the entire team.
Embarrassed and shocked, Takasaki Natsu blushes and pushes Ike Souji away from her.

Season 1, episode 18


After that, Ike Souji has to go again.

He only appears again briefly a little later in the anime.
A flashback shows that Ike Souji and Takasaki Natsu used to play tennis together as children, and she encouraged him to take tennis more seriously.

He then meets Maruo Eiichirou and asks him what kind of relationship he has with Takasaki Natsu.
Ike Souji teases Maruo Eiichirou and claims that he is Takasaki Natsu’s fiancé.
Which of course totally shocks Maruo Eiichirou.

Season 2, episode 3

—

Yes

Takasaki Natsu

Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu have their first date at Christmas.

When they are at karaoke, he asks Takasaki Natsu how she feels about him.
She blushes briefly but gives no answer.
Takasaki Natsu just says that she thinks it’s unfair.
And to make him forgive her, Maruo Eiichirou has to treat her to an ice cream, which of course he does.


(It’s not a confession of love in the true sense, but perhaps if she had reacted more positively with a slightly better (honest) answer, there might even have been a love confession, or at least their relationship would have progressed faster.)

Season 1, episode 25

Egawa Takuma

Just as Maruo Eiichirou is about to confess his love for Takasaki Natsu, Egawa Takuma appears out of nowhere.
He watches the two of them in silence and then walks on without saying a word.

Both are speechless and simply walk home without anything happening.

Season 2, episode 5

Yes

Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu meet at the hotel in the evening.
She wants to show him something cool.
They walk along a path and chat until they arrive at a beach.

Maruo Eiichirou ponders for a long time whether now would be a good time to confess his feelings.
But he can’t make up his mind and in the end doesn’t have the courage.

But suddenly Takasaki Natsu beats him to it and asks him if he wants to go out with her.
Maruo Eiichirou doesn’t realise what exactly she means and simply accepts.
And then when he realises what he has just accepted, he is totally shocked.

Maruo Eiichirou now wants to confess his feelings to Takasaki Natsu properly, and does so.

Takasaki Natsu smiles but doesn’t really say that she loves him too.
But she gives Maruo Eiichirou examples of why he makes her happy and gives her strength.

Season 2, episode 14

No

Yes

Season 2, episode 14

—

No

No

No

No

Normal ending

My opinion

Moments:

‘Baby Steps’ is a sports anime about the top student Maruo Eiichirou, who starts playing tennis and gets better and better.
He likes it so much that he thinks about training more intensively to improve his skills and can even imagine starting a career as a professional player.

At the very beginning, Maruo Eiichirou meets his classmate Takasaki Natsu at the tennis club, who eventually convinces him to take up tennis during his first training session.
This leads to the two of them also getting closer.

Most of the time, the anime revolves around Maruo Eiichirou’s development during his training or tennis matches.
Unfortunately, there aren’t that many romantic moments, and they range from mediocre to pretty good.

However, the romance between Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu is taken seriously and kept adult.
Both are brave enough to get closer to each other without introducing overly childish romance moments.

If you like sports anime, especially tennis, this is the right place for you.
I had no idea about tennis myself before, but the anime has managed to get me into it and I now even know a few tennis rules.

Romance is only occasional, but if you like romance with slow development, you won’t be disappointed by this anime in the end 😉

Animation:

The animation style is rather mediocre.
I would have liked a better style for a sports anime and expected more action-packed scenes during the tennis matches.

Characters:

Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu:

Maruo Eiichirou is someone you can call the perfect top student.

He writes everything down in class and records it in his notebooks.
Afterwards, he edits these notes at home so that he can give his classmates a simplified copy from which they can learn.

Maruo Eiichirou is very determined and always gives his best.
This is particularly noticeable when he starts playing tennis.
He practises until he masters it properly.

He has very sharp eyes, which he can use to his advantage in his tennis matches.
This and his talent for memorising things accurately, he uses very well to make notes of everything, even in the middle of breaks in a tennis match.
This enables him to recognise how he needs to change his strategy in order to perhaps still come out of the match victorious.
And if he does lose, his notes and data help him to try something new in his training and improve.


Takasaki Natsu is the popular and pretty girl in her year at school.
With her smile and cheerful appearance, she attracts the attention and glances of the boys at school.

But when it comes to school performance, she is rather clumsy and an airhead.
However, this changes when she is at her tennis club.

She is considered a talented tennis player and regularly impresses with her skills on the court, especially Maruo Eiichirou.
Her sporting ambition and discipline are admirable and she is always striving to improve.

Furthermore, Takasaki Natsu is not only an outstanding sportswoman, but also a warm-hearted and supportive girlfriend.
She has a particularly close relationship with Maruo Eiichirou.
Among other things, she appreciates his hard work and determination to constantly improve.

With her positive attitude, she constantly motivates Maruo Eiichirou to believe in himself and pursue his goals.
Her friendly nature and unwavering optimism make her a valuable support in his life.

Ending:

Fortunately, ‘Baby Steps’ ends with at least Maruo Eiichirou and Takasaki Natsu getting their little conclusion together.
But since the manga was unfortunately discontinued, we won’t get to see any more seasons.

Therefore, I would have liked to see a bit more romance with the two of them in the final scenes, yet we only see Maruo Eiichirou watching his rival’s final match instead of his girlfriend’s final match… right behind him. 🤷‍♂️

Episode Rating:

Most of the episodes are rather limited in terms of romance.
Mostly it’s just about Maruo Eiichirou’s development as a tennis player and how Takasaki Natsu supports him.

I found the last episode of season 1 (episode 25) very weak because it was not well realised romantically.
It could have led to a love confession, but Takasaki Natsu’s reaction was strange.

But then in season 2 episode 14 there was finally the romantic moment we had been waiting for all this time.
Which was also not realised in such a super romantic way, but still somehow fitting to the anime and it was also kept more realistic.

PositivNegativ
Courageous interactions between the coupleRomance is more in the background and only makes slow progress
Many Meetings and datesLove triangle
Love confessionSmall harem (and rather insignificant)
Interruption
Romance rating:
Positiv
Courageous interactions between the couple
Many Meetings and dates
Love confession
Negativ
Romance is more in the background and only makes slow progress
Love triangle
Small harem (and rather insignificant)
Interruption
Romance rating:

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