Product Details

• Actors: Nao Nagasawa, Hilary Haag, Monica Rial, Vic Mignogna, Chris Patton
• Directors: Tomomi Mochizuki
• Writers: Kensei Date, Takao Kawaguchi
• Producers: John Ledford, Katsuhiko Goto, Matt Greenfield, Sharon Papa, Sinchi Omata
• Format: Animated, Color, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0), English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Adv Films
• DVD Release Date: October 23, 2001
• Run Time: 125 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005PJ7R
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #105,204 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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• For more information about "Princess Nine - First Inning (Vol. 1)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

When he died 10 years ago, Ryo Hayakawa's father left more than the restaurant Ryo's mother runs: his daughter inherited his talent for baseball, including a jet-propelled fastball. Determined to overcome sexist opposition and make a girls' team the national champion, Ms. Himuro, the head of prestigious Kisaragi High, gives Ryo a scholarship. Then complications arise: snobbish tennis ace Izumi dislikes Ryo; handsome baseball star Hiroki is smitten with her; drunken coach Kido, who recalls Mr. Fujisawa in El Hazard, has to find enough top players. Hiroki's attraction is understandable as Ryo's a very likable character. She's not a klutz or a whiner, as many anime heroines are; she's proud of her abilities but surprised at where they take her. In action sequences, the artists flatten the ball to suggest speed, a manga convention that looks weird in animation. Rated 12 Up but suitable for younger viewers; alcohol use. --Charles Solomon

From the Back Cover

Get ready for the sports action hit that's going to knock your customers right out of the ballpark! Led by a hot-shot young natural, nine young women defy the male-dominated tradition of Japanese sports—not to create a league of their own, but to take on the boys on their own artificial turf and prove there's nothing a man can do that a woman can't do just as well! The hallowed stadiums of Japanese baseball become a battlefield as the bats crack, sweat flies and every hard-earned run becomes another step in the long road-trip to victory!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Something different for anime fans, December 13, 2001

By	Serdar S. Yegulalp "carbon-based unit" (Huntington, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This disc absolutely blind-sided me. I am no fan of baseball, or sports for that matter -- and I'm certainly no fan of the sport subgenre of anime and manga. But "Princess Nine" isn't really about baseball in the first place. Baseball is just the vehicle for a bigger story about striving and making it, delivered with a panache and a style I've not seen in a long time.

The main character is Ryo Hayakawa, 16, living at home with her mother and helping her run the family restaurant. Her ballplayer father died some time ago, but not before witnessing his little girl's brutal fastball. As naturally gifted as Ryo is -- she pitches an impromptu no-hitter at one point -- she's not interested in playing. She wants to help her mother, get good grades, and step out of her father's shadow.

That being said, she's all the more enticing a target for an ambitious woman who wants to start an all-female ball club and send them into the big leagues to compete against the male teams. Ryo is her first draftee, and she hires a down-and-out coach to scout the rest of the team. Some of them are truly odd choices -- the tennis player with the killer backhand smash -- but in context they make perfect sense. And some of them are just plain odd, like the girl who wanders into the clubhouse one day and just starts doing everyone's laundry on a whim.

What makes "Princess Nine" work is the bombast and the gusto with which it tears into its story. The writing and the voice-acting and especially the music (thanks to the Warsaw Philharmonic, which also gave us the amazing "Giant Robo" score) are all pitched at the right level of passion and sly self-knowing -- the show knows when it's being gleefully over-the-top, and celebrates it.

I recently had the displeasure of watching the "Steam Detectives" anime, which trashed Kia Asamiya's terrific manga and made it aimless, lifeless and confused. "Princess Nine" is a great example of how good anime can get, even with a cliched subject.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is better than "A League of Their Own", November 13, 2001

By	David A. Brown (Sonoma, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This one is a keeper, one of those anime DVD's that you can pull out and show to people who claim that anime is nothing more than violence and pornography. There is no "fan service" or anything else to offend.

Princess Nine is the story of Ryo Hayakawa, a 15-year old junior high student who wanted nothing more than to skip high school and stay home to help her single mother run an Udon bar (High school is not mandatory in Japan).

There's just one thing. Ryo's father, who died while she was five years old, taught her how to pitch well. Really well. Well enough to pitch for the neighborhood league team and to strike out semi-professional baseball players. Ryo is handpicked as the core player of a girl's high school baseball team formed with the goal of reaching Japan's national high school championship.

It's hard to describe how complex this story is. Ryo plays baseball in part to maintain a connection with her deceased father. Keiko Himuro, the chairperson of the board of directors of Kisaragi High fights for the right for a girl's team to compete against the boys. Her daughter, tennis star Izumi Himuro, fights for the love and attention of her too-distant mother. Shinsaku Kido, the team's coach, is a drunkard who, I think, will try to redeem himself by coaching this team to victory. There are two potential love interests for Ryo: Her quiet and sort of geeky childhood friend and Hiroki Takasugi, the rising star of the Kisargi boy's high school baseball team. And this is only after five episodes.

Who should see this? Well, everyone, I think, but especially people who like either baseball or inspirational stories about young women. There's a certain energy to Princess Nine that makes me believe that it's going to be a classic of enduring value.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not your typical anime..., April 28, 2002

By A Customer

My first exposure to this series was through the ADV trailer on the Robotech series. At first glance it seems a far departure from the typical robot/battle/sex/gore fare that gets translated into English, so I had to check it out. Over all, it is a really decent series that doesn't play into any of the typical stereotypes, and becomes a very crafty exploration of Japanese culture and ethics by presenting an all girl's highschool attempting to break tradition and form a baseball (not SOFTball) team to compete against boys schools. There are plenty of complexities within the dynamic between all the players, their pasts and how it all fits together into the present. Perhaps the most refreshing idea of the series is presented through a very simple, elegant subject which means so much to the Japanese- baseball (highschool baseball holds big interest in the Japanese public). The involvement of the visionaries and management of the team adds depth to the stories which play up to the aspiriations of all those involved with the team, and those of the people against the formation of a girl's baseball team.

The first few episodes plod slightly as it reveals the hidden power of the central character, Ryo Hayakawa, a fourteen year old high school girl who is the daughter of a late baseball superstar. The revelations of her father and his involvement in people's lives unfolds through the series. Ryo inherited her father's ability to throw a fast, accurate baseball. She is then discovered by Ms. Himaro, the president of Kisaragi High where she hopes to put together a girl's baseball team, and Hiroki who is a star male high school player. The team's rather slovenly, apparently disorganized, drunken coach Kido reveals his hidden depths as hegets Ryo to use her enthusiasm to lure in other girls from around Japan and gain scholarship to Kisaragi. The second episode has Kido trying to land a wayward athelete whose home is being shattered by divorce. The fourth episode concerns Ryo's unexpected solo aventure to a seaside town where a girl with extraordinary batting abilities is hiding her skills so she can stay with her enfeebled father.

All around, the stories are fun and enthralling once the series gets underway. The video is very good, the audio is fine, and the disk extras are nice additions. The only negative to me is the style of layout and animation- it is the usual flat technique prevelant in the less skilled productions. However, the developing stories, unique characters and complex back story make up for anything the series is lacking. Sweet, aggressive, thoughtful.....'Princess Nine' is a very enjoyable series!