Princess Nine

A baseball team of high school girls attempts to make it to the national tournament. The National Boys Tournament.

Also known as Princess Nine Kisaragi Girls High Baseball Club, Princess Nine is a 26-episode television anime series first aired in 1998.

Keiko Himuro, president of Kisaragi Girls High School (and its brother school for boys), has a dream. She wants to prove that girls can compete in baseball (not merely softball), and forms a team around Ryo Hayakawa, a brilliant young pitcher. A Ragtag Bunch of Misfits is quickly assembled. They must then overcome sexism, personal problems and oh yeah, an Opposing Sports Team or two on their way to respect and baseball victory.

Compare with Taishō Baseball Girls.

---

Tropes used in Princess Nine include:

• Acquitted Too Late: Hidehiko's eventual fate, if his real-life counterpart's reinstatement in 2005 (several years after the series ended on a vague cliffhanger) is anything to go by.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: One of the players is recruited while playing pool; she's naturally the team rebel.
• Bittersweet Ending: While the team doesn't quite make it to the championship game (failing in the quarter-finals), with hints they might go farther next year, they did succeed at getting people to take a girl's baseball team seriously.
• Blank White Eyes: Shown by Ryo when she sees Takasugi and Izumi kissing.
• The Chick: Yoko Tokashiki, who isn't really into baseball, or sports in general, but is on the team to get attention for her modeling career.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Yuki Azuma, who is never without her faithful "alien" companion Fifi. Nene is pretty out there herself.
• Cute Sports Club Manager: Nene Mori.
• Delinquent: Seira Morimura, red-haired dropout (and world class sprinter) who has to be tricked into joining the team.
• Disappeared Dad: Ryo's father Hidehiko Hayakawa was a professional baseball player before being banned for a scandal and dying.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Seira tempts the coach... with beer.
• Down to the Last Play: It's the bottom of the ninth, the score is tied, and the other team's best better comes up to bat. He hits a low drive out to Yuki, who's going her best to catch it ... The ball goes just over her glove and out of the park.
• Expy/Homage: the coach seems to be a cross between Jimmy Dugan and Buttermaker
• Fallen Princess: Izumi Himuro, who takes a substantial demotion from star tennis player to join the team.
• Genre Savvy: It's clear that everyone on the team has grown up on sports cliches, but no one more so than the team manager/gofer, Nene.
• Hot for Teacher: Seira and the coach have a certain chemistry going. Would be a lot more disturbing, if she didn't look like she could kick his ass.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Mao Daidoji, a large but shy girl picked from the judo team to become the catcher for the baseball team.
• Lampshade Hanging: The show fairly drips with it, no sports cliche is safe.
• Meganekko: Kanako Mita. Her glasses actually become a plot point - see "Wig, Dress, Accent" below.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Chibi-Izumi seems to laugh this way in the eyecatch.
• Princess Curls: Izumi's hairstyle.
• Sdrawkcab Name: Tami Konaka (syllables reversed), Kanako Mita's alter ego.
• Shop Keeper: Shino Hayakawa, Ryo's mother, runs an oden shop.
• Show Some Leg: The girls (Well Seira and Hikaru actually) do this to a team from a boys-only school. It works for a couple innings, then the boy's coach points out that girls that pretty probably already have boyfriends. The atmosphere gets ugly REAL quick.
  • Also played for irony since at that point in the story, none of them have boyfriends.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Koharu Hotta, who disguised herself to play on a boys' baseball team before being found out.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: Kanako Mita has to disguise herself with a green wig (and no glasses) to avoid having her father - the principal who disapproves of the team - find out she's on the roster. Lampshaded when she mentions how odd that all it takes is a wig for a father to not recognize his own daughter.
• You Go, Girl!