Cross Game : Season 1

Fifth-grader Ko Kitamura was born on the same day in the same hospital as his neighbor, Wakaba Tsukishima, who treats him as her boyfriend as a result. One day during summer vacation, she makes him take her to swimming lessons on his bicycle. On the way back, to avoid classmate Osamu Akaishi, who has a crush on Wakaba, Ko joins a sandlot baseball game organized by another classmate, Daiki Nakanishi. Because he has never played before, Ko fields badly, but because he has practiced in the Tsukishi

Four years later, in the fall of her second year at Seishu Junior High School, Aoba is a pitcher for the baseball team, and still hates Ko for having monopolized her dead sister's time. Starting pitcher Keiichiro Senda, who considers himself popular, asks her out on a date without waiting for a response. When she does not show up, Senda goes to her house but is frightened off by the family cat. When Ko (in his third year at Seishu Junior High) delivers baseballs to the Tsukishima batting cages,

Nakanishi recruits Ko for a rematch of the sandlot game from fifth grade. When Ko warms up with what he calls a few soft pitches, Nakanishi has him play right fielder instead, claiming he wants a friendly game. Meanwhile, when Aoba plays catch with her little sister, Momiji, she is startled to learn that Momiji can handle her hardest throws because Momiji has helped Ko practice. Akaishi, now captain of the junior high school baseball team, watches the sandlot game and is reminded of Wakaba's boa

On the way to school one morning, Aoba and Ko foil a burglary they glimpse from the train by hitting the burglar with a baseball, but Senda gets credit for it. Akaishi does not believe Senda foiled the robbery, and learns from Aoba that she threw a ball that Ko had been carrying, and then from Nakanishi that he and Ko have been training in secret. Akaishi takes over Ko's training on the condition that Nakanishi return to the baseball team. At the Tsukishima batting cages, an unknown boy breaks K

On New Year's Eve, Aoba's father and oldest sister, Ichiyo, visit her sick grandmother, leaving Aoba to care for Momiji, who is down with a cold. When Ko visits, he brings the ingredients for rice porridge. When Momiji's fever spikes, Ko helps Aoba tend her until the fever breaks after a few hours. Unlike Aoba, Ko is a decent cook, and his porridge tastes just the way Wakaba prepared it for Aoba. After Momiji tells Aoba about a time Ko played with her when no one else would, Aoba tells Ko that s

Ko enters Seishu High School and joins the baseball club along with Akaishi and Nakanishi, where they are put on the second-string "portable" team headed by former Head Coach Maeno. Most of the varsity team are ringers recruited by new Head Coach Daimon from around the country, including power hitter Yuhei Azuma, the boy from the batting center, and Daimon promises Shido that he will take the school to the national spotlight of Koshien within three years. When Aoba, now captain of the junior hig

When Akaishi meets Momiji, he is startled by her resemblance to Wakaba, who died at the age Momiji is now. Ichiyo reminds Aoba that she resented how Ko monopolized Wakaba's time, and both Ichiyo and Akaishi tell Aoba that she and Ko are alike in their competitiveness. In the park, Momiji plays catch with an old man who is a regular at Akaishi's family's liquor store. Daimon tells Shido that an upcoming scrimmage between varsity and portable teams will demonstrate how much better the varsity play

As the scrimmage starts, Daimon tells Shido he is using Senda as starting pitcher to test his team's fielding. In the top of the first inning, the portable team is quickly retired. In the bottom of the inning, Ko quickly pitches out the first three batters, which Daimon attributes to luck but Azuma recognizes is based on Aoba's batting data and Ko's ability. After Senda gives up three runs in the top of the second inning, including home runs by Ko and Akaishi, Daimon kicks him off the varsity te

Knowing they will not be promoted, Maeno's third-year players stop playing hard, but after the portable team manager, Hiroko "Tubby" ?kubo, tells Makihara that Daimon injured Maeno's head as the latter pleaded to give a third-year player a spot, Makihara plays with renewed effort. At the end of eight innings, Ko notices that if the score remains 5 to 3, he will win his bet with Aoba. In the top of the ninth, the portable team gets runners on first and second and Makihara advances them with a sac

Aoba's teammates ask her out on dates conditional on their performance during a game, but she criticizes their goals as too low. Even with Aoba not pitching her hardest, Seishu Junior High wins in a called game. Afterward Senda meets his cousin, Midori Koganezawa, who is annoyed he ditched practicing with her to watch Aoba's game. Midori challenges Aoba as a batter, but Aoba declines to pitch to her. At the Tsukishima batting cages, Ko tells Midori the pitching machines are not as fast as Aoba's

Ko, Akaishi, and Nakanishi watch Seishu's varsity team crush an opponent in the prefectural summer baseball tournament and realize they did very well against them. During one game, Miki shifts position against Daimon's orders to make a game-winning play. Banned from using the school's field by Daimon, Maeno takes the portable team on a secret intensive training camp in the mountains. Ko forgets his suitcase, and when Aoba takes it to him she gets lost following his father's bad instructions. Whi

At the portable team's training camp, Akaishi and Maeno note that their outfield's defense has been weakened by the retirement of the third-year students. Without Miki in the lineup, Seishu loses in the round of 16. After the game, Aoba helps a Seishu fan by hitting a thief with a baseball and learns the fan is Junpei Azuma, Yuhei Azuma's older brother. Junpei gives her a ride home, where he is immediately taken with Ichiyo and becomes a regular suitor. When Aoba goes to the swimming pool, Ichiy

Shido tells Daimon that the portable team has been playing practice games without permission, losing all five times. After a sixth loss, Azuma learns from Tubby who the opponents were. Shido orders the portable team be disbanded. However, Maeno proposes to instead hold a rematch scrimmage with the losing team's coach losing his job, and Daimon agrees in order to settle things once and for all. When Momiji's mysterious old man visits a portable team practice, Tubby introduces him as her grandfath

Before the scrimmage Daimon tells Azuma that Shido will not fire him even if the varsity team loses, and Shido confirms this. However, during the first inning, Tubby's grandfather, who is the school's chairman, tells Shido and Daimon he is ratifying the wager with Maeno. During the first two innings, Ko allows the bases to get loaded before striking out the next three batters, and to focus him, Akaishi tells Ko to pitch as if it were late in the game. In the sixth inning, the game still scoreles

After the scrimmage, Shido and Daimon are fired and most of Daimon's varsity players follow him to another school. Yuhei Azuma stays and begins living with the Kitamuras because the baseball dorm is closed down. Because Ko's stamina flags during the fall prefectural tournament, Azuma makes Ko begin jogging to school instead of taking the train. A boy asks Ko for an introduction to Aoba, and Ko congratulates him as the 100th person to do so. When Azuma asks Ko about a photograph of Wakaba, Ko adm

Aoba's friends urge her to audition for the lead in a movie adaptation of Idol Ace, but she declines. Risa auditions and when she is picked as a finalist, she makes Ko try to teach her to pitch convincingly. Midori tries again to recruit Aoba for her school's girls baseball team. When Aoba declines a batting rematch, Midori shows off her hitting in the Tsukishima cages, where she meets Risa practicing batting and coaches her. With continual practice Risa's pitching improves but, as Azuma puts it

For the first time since Wakaba's death, Ko goes with the Tsukishimas to visit to the sisters' maternal grandparents in the mountains, where they are caught in a snowstorm. While trapped in the house, he and Aoba remember his past visits and playing with Wakaba. Looking through a photo album, Ko recognizes Aoba's uncle, a famous mountain climber, but not his son, Mizuki, who is the same age as Aoba. In the morning, Ko goes into the snowy forest to visit the tree on which he and Wakaba carved the

At the start of the school year, Aoba and Mizuki enter Seishu High School, where Mizuki quickly becomes popular with girls, to Senda's annoyance. Aoba joins the baseball team as a pitcher, which pleases Akaishi and Maeno as the rest of the team will try hard to not lose to a girl. When Mizuki and Aoba reminisce about Wakaba, he tells her that Aoba is the one he loves. Mizuki belatedly recognizes Ko as Wakaba's boyfriend and wonders whether he throws a 160 km/h fastball yet. Momiji asks Aoba if s

Fliers are posted around school describing Mizuki and Aoba as a couple, and when Ko tears one down, Mizuki tapes it back up. After Ko finishes a meal prepared by Aoba at the Clover Cafe, Ichiyo tells him Aoba tried hard to cook it well because it was for him. Ko tells Ichiyo that he turned down a girl Aoba introduced to him, to which Ichiyo says Wakaba would not mind if he dated someone else, then admits she is more serious about Junpei than any previous boyfriend. For Seishu's first practice ga

Before the prefectural summer tournament begins, Aoba teaches Ko how to throw a slider. Midori asks Aoba to pitch for her high school team in a practice game against Oka University, the current national champions in women's baseball. Aoba refuses, claiming Seishu as a prior commitment. At practice, Aoba overhears some younger Seishu players say her pitches are hard to bat because they want to avoid hitting a girl with the ball. That night, she remembers Wakaba telling her she will pitch at Koshi

After giving up a fourth run in the second inning, the Satomi pitcher, Kojima, asks to switch positions with Aoba. The Oka players are startled by Aoba's 130 km/h fastball, at the upper range for female pitchers, and she strikes out their best batter, Ozaki, all of which annoys Oka's pitcher, Sawaguchi. In the fourth inning, Aoba bats in two runners with a double. After Ozaki figures out Matsuyama's call patterns and Oka scores a fifth run, Aoba asks to give the signals instead. In the sixth inn

Ko, Akaishi, Azuma, and Nakanishi scout a practice game of Ryuo Academy, who is favored to win the prefectural tournament, and while there meet a former varsity teammate who transferred to Ryuo. Ko is impressed by a Ryuo batter who is not a regular starter, Mishima, whom Azuma remembers from a single meeting. Azuma talks with Miki, who is also scouting Ryuo for another school, and they tell each other they do not regret their choices, leaving and staying at Seishu. For Wakaba's 17th birthday, Ko

Ryuo's coach apologizes to Mishima for benching him during the tournament because his star batter, Shimano, insists on keeping attention on himself while being scouted by pro teams. A scout for Seishu's next opponent, Sanno, overhears Akaishi and Nakahara discuss their own team's weaknesses during practice. While studying Shimano's batting, Ko thanks Azuma because no batter can surprise him now. During practice, another Sanno scout overhears Aoba tease Ko about his weak fielding of bunts. The ev