Gurazeni
Gurazeni: Money Pitch is a Japanese baseball manga series written by and illustrated by. The manga was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Morning from December 2010 to August 2014, with its chapters collected in fourteen volumes. Three sequels have been released since then; Gurazeni: Tokyo Dome-hen ; Gurazeni: Pa League-hen ; and Gurazeni: Dai League-hen.
The series follows the unforgiving money-and-statistics-centric world of professional baseball, in a similar concept to Moneyball, but through the eyes of players: a relief pitcher and left-handed specialist, Bonda Natsunosuke, and Tokunaga, a retired pitcher turned color commentator. The fictional teams in the series are based on real teams in the NPB, particularly the Central League.
A 24-episodes anime television series adaptation by Studio Deen was broadcast from April to December 2018.
Characters
;Natsunosuke Bonda;Tokunaga
;Akira Shibuya
;Yukio Ohno
;Tanabe
;Sakota
;Yuki
;Yasuda
;Hideo Matsumoto
;Segawa
;Roppa Itsuki
Media
Manga
Written by and illustrated by, Gurazeni was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Morning magazine from December 9, 2010, to August 28, 2014. Kodansha collected its chapters in seventeen volumes, released from May 23, 2011, to January 23, 2015.A second series, titled Gurazeni: Tokyo Dome-hen, was serialized in Morning from September 25, 2014, to February 15, 2018. Kodansha collected its chapters in fifteen volumes, released from January 23, 2015, to May 23, 2018.
A third series, titled Gurazeni: Pa League-hen, was serialized in Morning from March 29, 2018, to August 19, 2021. Kodansha collected its chapters in thirteen volumes, released from June 22, 2018, to October 21, 2021.
A fourth series, titled Gurazeni: Dai League-hen, started in Morning on December 9, 2021. The series finished its first part on February 17, 2022; the second part started on May 19 of the same year. The first volume was released on April 21, 2022. As of July 23, 2024, six volumes have been released.
Spin-offs
A spin-off manga, titled , written by Yūji Moritaka and illustrated by Yōsuke Uzumaki, was serialized in Kodansha's Evening from March 10, 2020, to November 8, 2022. Kodansha collected its chapters in six volumes, released from July 20, 2020, to February 21, 2023.Another spin-off by Kawa, titled, serialized its first part in Morning from October 7 to December 2, 2021. Seven more parts have been serialized since then; the second one from March 3 to April 28, 2022; The third one from August 4 to October 13, 2022; the fourth one from February 2 to April 6, 2023; the fifth one from July 13 to September 21, 2023; the sixth one from December 28, 2023, to March 14, 2024; and the seventh one started on July 11, 2024. The first volume was released on April 21, 2022. As of May 22, 2024, six volumes have been released.
Anime
An anime television series aired from April 6 to June 22, 2018, on SKY PerfecTV!'s SkyPer! channel. Produced by SKY Perfect JSAT, Kodansha and Studio Deen, the series is directed by Ayumu Watanabe, with Hideo Takayashiki handling series composition and writing the scripts, Kenichi Ohnuki designing the characters and Akifumi Tada composing the music. The anime's theme song is "Merigo feat. SKY-HI" by Cypress Ueno to Robert Yoshino. The closing song is "Shadow Monster" performed by Asako Toki. Well known actor and film director 'Beat' Takeshi appeared as a guest star in the final episode of the first season.A second season aired from October 5 to December 21, 2018, which included baseball player Masahiro Yamamoto and comedian Yuki Iwai in cameo roles.
Episodes
Reception
By October 2022 the overall series had over 3.5 million copies in circulation. The series was second on the 2012 edition of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of best manga for male readers. It nominated for the fifth Manga Taishō in 2012. It won the 37th Kodansha Manga Award in the general category in 2013.Mike Toole of Anime News Network praised the anime adaptation, in particular the main character Bonda but acknowledged it was difficult to sell to most western viewers.