neko's thinkbox

I’ve spent the weekend playing catch up with Cross Game. I enjoyed catching up, mostly because I enjoy baseball and also the characters in the story. While episode 19 contains no baseball, it does a good job of focusing on character development, mainly Kou and Aoba. Also a new character is introduced!
Some spoilers lie ahead!

Click the thumbnails to enlarge the pictures.

Episode Highlights:
• Aoba’s family and Kou’s family go to Tsukishima’s family’s house, where Kou hasn’t been since Wakaba passed away.
• Kou and Aoba find the tree with a love umbrella for Kou and Wakaba engraved in the tree.
• When Kou returns home, he runs into Aoba’s Uncle’s son Asami Mizuki (the new character) stealing his spotlight. Mizuki helped a cute women by retrieving her hat that had blown away.
• When Kou and Azuma head to Tsukishima’s batting cage Mizuki shows up to hug Aoba and kiss her on the cheek.

Liked:
+ The further character development of Aoba and Kou, the situation the two are in is very interesting. Whether they end up as lovers or friends, it is very thrilling to watch it happen.

Disliked:
- The new character Asami Mizuki, his personality seems like it might irritate me, but we’ll see.

Final Verdict: 6/10
This episode wasn’t anything to spectacular in comparison to previous episodes. While focusing more on character development than baseball, it was still enjoyable to watch by all means. The flashback scenes with Wakaba and Kou, but also seeing the relationship of Aoba and Kou play out in current time is a very interesting way to do things. I just hope Mizuki isn’t a long term character or interferes with Kou and Aoba’s relationship (even though it seems like he will). None-the-less the preview for the next episode definitely looks like a good one.