Oblivion Battery Is a Perfect Baseball Anime for Those Who Don't Know the Rules

Summary:

• Sports anime — especially those about baseball — might be hard to follow if you don't know the rules.
• Oblivion Battery explains them, making the anime more watchable.
• It's good even if you already know the rules.

Sports anime tend to be somewhat hard to get into for a lot of viewers. After all, the genre has a reputation of being solely for the fans of the sport in question — it's hard to get people interested in more obscure sports, as they have no reason to care.

There are notable exceptions to this rule, though.

Haikyuu!! is said to be perfect for everyone — volleyball is really easy to understand and watch. Most sports are not like that, though: baseball is a notable one. It's popular in Japan and in the US, but confusing to many who were never exposed to it.

In that sense, baseball anime are hard to get into: it's hard to tell what's going on, and the sport isn't as dynamic as something like volleyball. However, the currently airing Oblivion Battery (Boukyaku Battery) is actually great if you don't know the rules of baseball.

The Amnesia Subplot Helps to Explain the Rules

The plot of Oblivion Battery is fairly simple — the amnesiac protagonist gets back into baseball after suffering memory loss. Together with some other retired players that used to play in middle school, they established a baseball club to achieve new heights.

While amnesia plots are not very popular with anime fans — they are very much overdone — here, the amnesia serves another purpose. Since the main character lost his memory, he also lost his knowledge of baseball — and the viewers learn about the game through him rediscovering it.

As such, Oblivion Battery essentially explains the rules for both the protagonist and the anime watchers. While fans of the series can find it annoying, those who are not familiar with it feel like this is actually for the better. This approach can make the anime more watchable to the general audience.

It's Worth Watching Even if You Aren't New to Baseball

Overall, Oblivion Battery is a decent anime whether you know about the rules or not. The comedy of the series may be grating for some, though you arguably are supposed to cringe at it. Regardless, it's just one element of it that isn't the main theme.

The baseball scenes themselves in Oblivion Battery are very well-animated. While it's not a top-tier production for MAPPA, the anime still looks very good when it needs to, and it's worth watching for the games.

The amnesia plot is similar to that of Re-Main, so, if you liked that series, you might also want to check out Oblivion Battery.