Eijun Sawamura(Ace of Diamond)

**Sawamura Eijun** (沢村 栄純, *Sawamura Eijun*) comes from Nagano where he played baseball in Akagi

   middle school. He is now a first year high school student of Seidou High Schooland the roommate of Kuramochi Youichi and Masuko Tooru. He is a southpaw (left-handed pitcher) of the Seidou High School Baseball Team. He was scouted by Takashima Rei in his last year of Junior High. From second-string, Sawamura was promoted to varsity as No. 20 and later on No. 18 by the start of the fall tournament.

## Appearance

Sawamura is a lean-built teenager of average height . He has dark brown hair with brown eyes. He is often seen with a smile. He prefers to wear his hat frontwards.

## Personality

Sawamura is hotheaded and loudmouthed youth, usually coming off as obnoxious. After he arrives at Seidou, he quickly makes himself known for his stupidity, because of his strange antics and because his knowledge about baseball is mediocre, at best. Despite his shortcomings, his disruptive nature often helps to ease a tense situation. Because of his strong-will and spirit, he always inspires his teammates to continue playing their best. He is also surprisingly level-headed in critical situations, as he was always in a pinch with his weaker middle-school team.

As the show progresses, Sawamura is not one typical player, but also not the most outstanding. He makes errors which makes him realize his mistakes, sometimes with the help of his senpais. He is ready to learn new things despite his inability to analyze his potential faster than what is expected him and he is a pitcher who throws with his feelings, and is never ashamed to show everyone what's on his mind. He performs his best when he feels the intensity and want of his team to win. Likewise, he can be easily swayed, causing minor slumps in his performance.

He treats his teammates depending on how they treat him, with Haruichi quickly becoming his friend. He is respectful towards majority of his senior teammates like Chris, Yuki, Isashiki, and Ryousuke, but he is more familiar towards Kuramochi and Masuko. He is blunt and rude with Miyuki because of his relentless teasing. The person he never wants to show weakness to is Furuya, a fellow-pitcher. They are often seen arguing which ends up the latter ignoring Sawamura.

At academics, Sawamura's output is poor and he needs constant cramming in order to pass his exams (though not as bad as Furuya).

## Relationships

### Miyuki Kazuya

Their first meeting takes place when Sawamura visits Seidou for the first time with Takashima Rei. They formed a battery against Seido's well-known batter Azuma Kiyokuni. Because of Miyuki's nasty personality, Sawamura is suspicious around him. But after Miyuki makes clear that he is his partner and wants to slay that monster alias Azuma together with him, he gets Sawamura's trust and they form a team. With Miyuki's help, Sawamura potential obliterates Azuma. Sawamura is totally overwhelmed by this experience and secretly wishes to play baseball with someone as incredible as Miyuki in the future - this is one of his reasons he joined Seidou. But because of Miyuki's never ending teasing with him, Sawamura never shows him the same respect as the other senpais, instead treating him as someone of his own age.

As far as battery is concerned, Miyuki is good at exploiting his potential in most games. As the guy who pitches with his feelings, Miyuki is aware that he might pitch at his peak and can fall down hard as well. Despite how hard Miyuki may be to deal with and how teasing he may be, Sawamura highly respects his input, and will often immediately listen to Miyuki despite resisting, while Miyuki, in turn, places utmost belief in Sawamura (though he rarely shows it). To quote: "*I'm also partially responsible for for Sawamura's poor performance in the game*(vs. Yakushi). *I told him that his control was too weak at every single opportunity during summer break ... of course I have high expectations of him and want him to grow even more. If he's destroyed by the yips, I'm the one who would be troubled.*"

Miyuki asked Chris to help to Sawamura to get over his yips as he knows that is the most effective way.

### Chris Yuu Takigawa

Their first encounter is a disaster. While Miyuki will be in charge of Furuya, Sawamura has to team up with Chris. Both Sawamura and Chris say that they would prefer the other option. Because of Eijun's stupidity and inexperience, Chris tells Sawamura that he won’t be able to be the ace in the future. During Furuya's pitching debut, Sawamura gets angry at Chris' constant melancholy and yells at him: "*You’re the one who has given up on returning to the first string. So I don’t want to be lectured by someone like you. No matter how high the wall is, I will never become a soulless player like you.*" Chris turns his back to Sawamura and answers: "*Although you are an idiot, you hit the mark. So don’t become like me, Sawamura*."  Afterwards, after a run in with an infuriated Miyuki who overheard Sawamura talking about the exchange with Takashima, Sawamura is informed about Chris' injury and his strong will to recover. Eijun – who didn’t know that Chris went to physiotherapy everyday after practise - is stunned and immediately regrets his words. He confronts Chris and bows his head to the floor to apologize, and asks for another chance. They then worked together again, slowly polishing Sawamura's skills.

Chris made Sawamura think what are his strong points/ selling point. Later, he told him that the moving ball is the quality that defines him through the way he grip the ball. He asked him to polish his idiosycratical ball as the balls will be struck out easily by the wide range of the metals bats used in high schools . Chris was surprised when Sawamura was able to polish his own special pitch in just one week with the help of the Coach Kataokaby using the right hand to form a wall, pitching normally and using a different form.

The two formed a battery only once during a training match in which Sawamura pitched with a form taught to him by Chris and Kataoka. Ono isn’t able to catch those pitches and so the coach asks Chris if he is able to bring out Sawamura's talent in this match, and allows Chris to catch regardless of still recovering, and the two dominated.

Knowing Sawamura has yips from Kanemaru, he believe that he will get over it and will become stronger. He wanted him to learn the low outside pitches which are far away from the batter's eyes.

### Wakana Aotsuki

Wakana is Sawamura's childhood friend. She is mistaken by Kuramochi to be Eijun's girlfriend, but Sawamura denies saying that she is **just** a childhood friend. However, she has shown feelings for him right when he left. Later on Wakana confesses her feeling that she wants to watch Sawamura closer on his great development as a pitcher.