Ace of Diamond

Ace of Diamond
Cover of Ace of Diamond, published by Kodansha on 15 September 2006
ダイヤのA (Daiya no A)
Genre	Sport (Baseball)
Manga
Written by	Yūji Terajima
Published by	Kodansha
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Magazine
Original run	2006 – ongoing
Volumes	27
Anime and Manga Portal

Ace of Diamond (ダイヤのA, Daiya no A^?, also known as Diamond's Ace) is a shōnen baseball manga written and illustrated by Yūji Terajima and published by Kodansha. It has been serialized by Weekly Shōnen Magazine since 2006. In 2008, Ace of Diamond received the Shogakukan Manga Awards for the shōnen category.^[1] In 2010, it won the Kodansha Manga Award for best shōnen manga.^[2]

Teamed up with an elite catcher, pitcher Sawamura Sakai leaves his high school in the country to attend the catcher's high school.

Characters

Eijun Sawamura

The main character. Eijun is a left-handed pitcher who has extremely erratic throwing motions. His body is naturally flexible with supple joints, allowing him to immediately change the pitch’s direction. Because Eijun has been playing baseball without proper instruction, his pitches normally change direction right before the batter hits the ball. However, this makes catching the ball difficult, as most catchers cannot predict where the ball will end up. He was initially unaware of this quirk in his throws. His knowledge about baseball is mediocre at best, but he strives to improve his skills and become Seidou's ace player.

Eijun comes from Nagano where he played baseball in his middle school. His team was below average, often making mistakes during critical moments and losing almost all matches. However, Eijun has an extremely strong spirit which, no matter how hopeless the situation got, inspired his teammates to continue playing their best. His childhood friend, Wakana, was the baseball team manager. Initially, after Eijun had been scouted by Seidou, he had planned to refuse because he wanted to keep playing with his friends in the same high school. However, his friends encouraged Eijun to go to Seidou despite their reluctant feelings because they felt as if they were holding Eijun back. Eijun eventually goes to Seidou and boldly declares that he will become the team ace.

Eijun’s strong points are his infallible spirit, bunting, infield defense, and his idiosyncratic pitches. His weaknesses are control, outfield defense, and batting. His personality is hotheaded and loudmouthed, often causing his teammates exasperation because of his stupidity. He has a rivalry/friendship with Furuya Satoru, a fellow first-year pitcher. Because his middle school team was so weak, he is extremely level-headed in critical times.

Satoru Furuya

Eijun’s rival, Furuya is a right-handed pitcher with extremely strong fastballs and forkballs. Furuya’s pitches are so strong that no catcher in Hokkaido was able to receive them. As a result, he became alienated from his middle-school team because he was far above them in ability. After hearing about the genius catcher, Miyuki Kazuya, he applied to go to Seidou high school to play baseball with him, and immediately took respect when Miyuki easily caught his pitch. During the game of first years versus second years, Furuya jumped from the second team to the first team after only one pitch. After playing his first official game against Yokohama, Furuya became a living legend within the high school baseball world and is often described as a monster rookie.

Furuya’s strong points are his incredible pitching, outfield defense, and batting. His weaknesses are stamina and infield defense. Also, Furuya’s pitches are so powerful that they cause damage to his fingertips and nails, so he cannot pitch for very long. He is stoic and unsociable with a cool demeanor and often has an expressionless face. However, his aura completely changes while pitching, once being described as “a wild wolf who wants to pitch some balls”. He dislikes all other aspects of baseball besides pitching. However, he is surprisingly humble, once mentioning that he never thought himself better than Eijun. He respects Eijun to a certain point and often accompanies Eijun to do extra practice at night. Because he was an outcast in his middle school, he is happy about but unused to the Seidou upperclassmen’s friendly but bossy treatment towards him, being content when he was ordered to fetch them drinks and uncomfortable when they excessively praise him. He also likes taking advice. He gets bored easily, disliking it when he cannot play in a match, and often falls asleep when he isn’t playing, or when he wants to ignore somebody.

Haruichi Kominato

A first-year second baseman of the team, Haruichi is a naturally talented, all-rounder baseball player. Despite his small stature and frail appearance, he has pinpoint precision while batting the ball, able to hit it as wide and as far as he pleases, and control where the ball lands. He also is extremely talented at defense, able to catch a ball in the air and throw it while still floating. He is often noted to have amazing baseball sense, able to decide in a split second where to hit the ball, what to watch for, and when to steal. His ability in baseball exceeds his older brother’s, Ryousuke Kominato, who is first-string player and also a second baseman. The only thing lacking is his stamina, which he works hard on improving.

He is a very calm and quiet person, often acting as tsukkomi to Sawamura Eijun’s boke. He has a habit of saying things bluntly and often praises either Furuya or Eijun, causing them to compete against each other frequently. He plays reserve in the first-string team and occasionally feels envious of Eijun and Furuya for being able to play in a match. He is easily embarrassed, especially when praised. His relationship with his brother is slightly strained because they play the same position, but he still admires him to no end. Though reserved, he is highly ambitious and aims to take his brother’s position.

Media

Manga

Ace of Diamond is a shōnen baseball manga written and illustrated by Yūji Terajima. It has been serialized by Kodansha's weekly manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine since 2006. Kodansha collected chapters in Tankōbon. The first volume was published on 15 September 2006^[3] and as of 17 August 2011 27 volumes has been published.

Volume List

Reception

The fifth volume of Diamond's Ace was ranked 9th on the Tohan charts between 18 and 24 April 2007.^[23] The eighth volume was ranked 9th.^[24] The ninth volume was ranked 7th and 10th.^[25] The tenth volume was ranked 4th.^[26] The eleventh volume was ranked 6th and 8th.^[27] The twelfth volume was ranked 9th.^[28] The thirteenth volume was ranked 3rd and 17th.^[29] The fourteenth volume was ranked 3rd and 25th.^[30] The fifteenth volume was ranked 5th, 6th, 23rd and 21st.^[31] The sixteenth volume was ranked 3rd and 23rd.^[32] The seventeenth volume was ranked 4th and 18th.^[33] The eighteenth volume was ranked 5th and 16th.^[34]

References

External links

• Ace of Diamond (manga) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia