Ace of The diamond vol 1 by yuji terajiMa

Eijun Sawamura and his middle school baseball team fail to win their championship game based on a wild pitch from Eijun. After he recovers from his disappointment, he’s content to head to the local high school with his friends and continue to play baseball with them. Then, Rei Takashima turns up, scouting Eijun for Seido High, a top baseball high school in the country. Eijun feels guilty for leaving his friends behind, but a trip to watch the team practice mostly solidifies Eijun’s decision. He doesn’t make a great first impression on the Coach, however, after showing up late for the first day of practice. The coach gives him an ultimatum to be able to throw a ball over 300 feet or give up pitching all together, and Eijun of course can’t back down from a challenge.

---

This is another high-stakes sports entry that would appeal to fans of Haikyu!! or Prince of Tennis, but, so far, there’s much less humor than Haikyu!!. Eijun is a typical sports star who thinks he’s amazing but needs to get dropped down a peg or two in high school. Eijun has some natural talent as a pitcher but lacks some breadth that the training will provide, so that's definitely where this series will focus at least for the next few volumes. We met some of the supporting cast for this series in the first volume, and there are some really interesting folks that will help round out the pages when we're not focusing on Eijun and his journey. This is a pretty decent entry into sports manga that will be entertaining for readers.

The art of this story is pretty detailed, and it majorly focuses on action lines and animating characters as they perform their feats of strength or whatnot. There are a couple of poses that seem very stylized compared to how humans actually look while pitching or running, but that's not unusual from a sports manga. 

Currently, this is only available digitally, but hopefully, we'll get a print version of this soon!

Sara's Rating: 8/10
Suitability Level: Grades 8-12

Publisher: Kodansha
Publication Date: March 7, 2017

​Tags: Rating: 8/10, Suitability: Middle School, Suitability: High School, Manga, Sports, Friendship, Kodansha