What I love about Maruo Eiichiro's Journey

Hello to all! Today is a good day to talk about the journey of Maruo Eiichiro. I simply want to highlight some of his key strengths and how he has managed to continue growing even though it may seem like he has plateaued. These include my overall thoughts and feelings regarding Maruo Eiichiro, as I feel like I have been growing with him and Baby Steps.

Baby Steps is a series I very much enjoyed - starting off with the anime and then naturally pivoting onto the manga. I particularly enjoyed how much emphasis is given to the technical side of the sport, the differing play styles, and the in-game analyses done by all players. The only other animes that do this much justice to the activity one is pursuing while having the right natural and nurturable tools are Beck, Bakuman, One Outs, and to a lesser extent Haikyuu.

Maruo Eiichiro is a character I am very fond of. Within the school environment, he is seen as relatively smart and diligent under the moniker of A-chan because of his straight-A record and perfect-to-grasp notebooks. He initially starts off tennis as a stimulating way to get his workouts. His growing fondness for the sport starts off with how he treats the sport like a puzzle he must solve rather than a competition he must win. His perspectives begin to change with time as he becomes more and more obsessed with playing the game, analyzing in his unique way, and coming up with strategies to take on his opponents. Baby Steps revolves around Maruo, the people he meets, and the sport of tennis.

The series takes its sweet time with getting to all of these though, and they help further develop the depth of the tennis world within the series. The title "Baby Steps" shows up in Maruo's journey symbolized by "Baby Steps to Giant Strides". Maruo undergoes many steps to eventually want to go pro and be at that stage from an activity he liked to do for fitness. Maruo was entertaining to follow because of his oddly quirky style of figuring things out and notebook analysis. The pure unadulterated transition from a noob to becoming or at least aiming to become a pro is very attractive as for once, we look at the more intellectual side of sports and what type of skills you can use from life to your path.

His path in no way was without thorns. The series makes sure to give the viewers/readers a more than thorough idea of just how hard it is to go pro. We get to see several different types of challenges that go beyond just the basic competitive level of the sport - things like convincing your parents of your dreams, LDR, differences in play styles, sponsorships, maintaining corporate relationships and so much more than most generic sports series. The sports mechanics side of things is handled superbly too by the way, the manner in which Baby Steps fleshes out different play styles early on and applies the small niches that each character uses giving so much additional depth to both the sport and the characters introduced.

Moving back on to the epicenter that is Maruo Eiichiro, here is how his journey mainly set him up for success:

From the get-go, his eyes were described as being impressive at processing information quickly, enabling his strong hand-eye coordination. Maruo had basic stamina, analysis skills, and hand-eye coordination that formed the foundation of his tennis. Maruo Eiichiro takes a look at the technical ways of tennis rather than doing it for just doing it. His natural gift of a fast-moving eye, genuine intelligence, and the way he learns the sport is amazing. Everything stems from him writing down the methods of striking the ball and then the postures - eventually growing into analyzing the different patterns used by his opponents and coming up with strategies to outdo them.

What makes him enjoyable to watch is how much emphasis he is willing to put into solving tennis, be it play-wise or mentality-wise. To give a few excerpts:

1. In his very first tournament match, he hit a wall. He was able to return fastballs very well but couldn't generate the energy when his opponent realized that Eiichiro couldn't create any power of his own. He was then clearly overwhelmed by this opponent. He had overestimated himself and underestimated the sport. The solution he came up with from this point on was not to sulk and wait for the power of emotions to make him better, instead, he figured out the best way to beat opponents would be by improving his ball control, muscle training, and jotting down just what they are up to.

2. A general Maruo trend was that he dragged his matches, and was only able to beat his opponents through outlasting them. This had started to become a trend but he was being heavily affected by the fatigue too. His answer? To play an increasing number of counterstrokes and create situations for himself where he can take manageable risks to earn points. This was seen as a huge change-up, as his opponents started to expect that he couldn't win matches without drawing them out as he played a low-risk style of play.

3. Much later in the manga, Maruo came to a point of stagnation with his ongoing learning with SEC. His solution was simple yet tough to accept. To leave his then-coaching school for a new coach with the goal of going pro at its crux. This move was essential for him to overcome a gap that others were putting between them and him. Maruo in a similar vein was not afraid to embrace change from that point on, the great thing though was how thoughtful he remained towards others regardless of how constantly upward his trajectory was.

Throughout his learning journey, Maruo didn't sit back and let the traditional styles used by others impact him. He challenged himself at every point and showed results every time he lost or barely won (and both happened a whole lot), i.e., every time he fell down, he'd pick himself up and present everyone that he was a better him. His drive and conviction are truly unmatched as he essentially decided to switch up his career to go pro, and stuck with his promises of remaining a great student as well, as was the condition set by himself.

I really love the guts of this guy, y'all. Maruo Eiichiro is one of my favorite underdogs in anime. He is such a proper underdog story, I loved baby steps. Yet, at the same time, he has certain goals and objectives that he knows he has to complete. His direct focus on these things is what makes him a beast in its own way. On a character front, Maruo grew up. From the slightly off but smart guy who was ready to follow the crowd into the world by going to college, he was able to fall for a girl, make her fall for him, pick up a sport for fitness, and then get so good at it that he wanted to go pro, made everyone around him want to root for him and respect him and most importantly, his baby steps lead him to want to take the big leap. I mean, if this wasn't a case of great character development and paths they would take to them, I frankly don't know what could've been.