# Play Ball (manga)

Play Ball (Japanese: プレイボール, Hepburn: Purei Bōru) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akio Chiba. It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1973 to 1978, with its chapters collected in twenty-two tankōbon volumes.
A sequel, Play Ball 2, illustrated by Yūji Moritaka, was published in Grand Jump from April 5, 2017, to May 6, 2021 and collected into twelve volumes.
The manga was adapted into a two-season anime television series co-produced by Eiken and Magic Bus, which aired on several Japanese television stations as well as the anime satellite television network Animax from July to September 2005 (1st season) and from January to March 2006 (2nd season).
The series was released concurrently with Chiba's other major work, Captain, the other series for which he won the 22nd Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen in 1977.

## Plot

After fracturing a finger in a junior high school game, Takao Taniguchi is unable to play baseball. After entering Sumitani High School, he is constantly watching the baseball club even though he is unable to play. He catches the eye of the captain of the soccer club, and while he still has lingering hopes of joining the baseball club, he decides to join the soccer club. While he's a complete beginner, Taniguchi developed a strong spirit of hard work while in junior high school and his new teammates begin to see his potential. While he focuses all of his energy on soccer, he is unable to forget his youthful zeal for baseball and he begins umpiring baseball games in secret.
After someone leaks his secret to the captain of the soccer team, the captain becomes angry at him and Taniguchi decides that soccer is not really for him. At the recommendation of the captain, he resigns from the soccer club and joins the baseball club. The Sumitani baseball club would lose their big game every year due to the inexperience of the club members. After Taniguchi joined, however, the club begins to change for the better.

## Characters
### Takao Taniguchi

    Voiced by: Kenichirō Maeda
    Pitcher (right-handed) and third baseman. He injured his finger in an accident when he was in junior high, and causing him to give up pitching because he thought it was too hard to pitch with a finger which caused him to be unable to pitch straight. However, through a great deal of effort and hard work, Taniguchi was able to overcome this and master the forkball (in the anime, his right index finger is crooked). After that, he had surgery to fix the injury to his finger (the anime has the order of events a bit different than in the manga).

### Tadakoro

    Voiced by: Yutaka Kōno
    Plays catcher. Was the captain of the baseball club when Taniguchi joined.

### Yutaka Kurabayashi

    Voiced by: Satoshi Hino
    Plays catcher after Tadakoro. Usually bats third.

### Nakayama

    Voiced by: Yoshitaka Kuremoto
    Plays pitcher (left-handed) and third baseman. One year older than Taniguchi, and wears glasses.

### Ōta

    Voiced by: Shinsuke Fukui
    Plays shortstop, and can run 100 m in 12 seconds. One year older than Taniguchi.

### Yamaguchi

    Voiced by: Norihiko Nanda
    One year older than Taniguchi. Known for having a huge mole.

### Yamamoto

    Voiced by: Takashi Senda
    One year older than Taniguchi. Plays right fielder, first baseman, and is a right-handed relief pitcher. Has an overbite.

### Marui

    Voiced by: Yū Asano
    One year younger than Taniguchi. Plays second baseman.

### Yokoi

    Voiced by: Kōichi Shibasaki
    Same age as Taniguchi. Plays second baseman, switches to shortstop in the second year, and third baseman in the third year.

### Handa

    Voiced by: Kyōhei Tanaka
    Same age as Taniguchi. Plays right fielder.

### Tomuro

    Voiced by: Akira Kubota
    Same age as Taniguchi. Plays left fielder.

### Suzuki

    Voiced by: Ōki Sugiyama
    Same age as Taniguchi. Plays right fielder. Joined the baseball club at the same time as Handa.

### Matsugawa

    Voiced by: Kenji Iwama
    One year younger than Taniguchi. Plays third baseman.

### Shimada

    Voiced by: Ryūta Anzai
    One year younger than Taniguchi. Plays center fielder.

### Katō

    Voiced by: Naoto Seki
    One year younger than Taniguchi. Left-handed.