In middle school, Haruka Kiyomine and Kei Kaname formed a genius battery that crushed the dreams of anyone that played against them. However, Kaname lost his memory and decided to put playing baseball behind him.
Not wanting to leave his catcher and best friend behind for baseball fame, Kiyomine joined Kaname in entering Kotesashi High School, a public high school that doesn’t even have a baseball team.
However, the duo are not the only middle school baseball stars that chose to hide from the sport there, and they discover that a love for baseball may fade but it never completely goes away.
“Just another baseball anime” turned out to be an unexpected treasure trove of laughs! If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Oblivion Battery, head on down below.
Anime Like Oblivion Battery
For Fans of Reviving The Team AND The Passion
Re-Main
Minato Kiyoumizu was once a rockstar among rockstars on his junior high water polo team. However, when a car accident put him into a coma for several months, he awakes without memories from the past few years.
Not even fully understanding what water polo even is, he decides to not play and focus on his new high school.
However, when the sole member of his school’s water polo team tries to recruit him and people from his past ignite a fire, he finds himself re-learning the sport from the start.
Similarities Between Oblivion Battery and Re-Main
- The main characters got amnesia after a big win and no longer wish to play the sport they can’t remember liking.
- The main character gets dragged into reviving a defunct club
- The plots surround that character relearning the sport, rediscovering what they liked about it, and recalling struggles prior to the amnesia.
- The casts feature characters with similar personalities and dynamics
Differences Between Oblivion Battery and Re-Main
- Re-Main follows a water polo team rather than a baseball club like Oblivion Battery.
- Re-Main is more a serious and dramatic sports anime while Oblivion Battery is often more of a comedy.
Free
Haruka Nanase has a passion for swimming that led him to compete and win a tournament in elementary school with his friends.
Years later, they reunite as high schools students, and while Haruka and three friends decide to form a swim club, his fourth friend, Rin, attends another school in order to surpass Haruka in skill.
He has also made it clear he has no interest in being friends again.
Similarities Between Oblivion Battery and Free
- Characters with skill quit their sport, but restart it again in high school
- A rivalry forms with a person from their past
- Both feature characters with similar personalities and dynamics with each other
- Visually lovely sports anime
Differences Between Oblivion Battery and Free
- Free follows a swim team rather than a baseball club like Oblivion Battery
- Free features a main character that still loves the sport, despite quitting it
- Free is often more about the rivalry than the more personal hurdles that Oblivion Battery follows
For Fans of Baseball
H2
Hiro only has two loves in the whole world – baseball and porn. However, after an elbow injury, he gives up baseball and even avoids it so far as to go to a school with no baseball team.
At his new school, Hiro ends up joining the soccer team where he meets the daughter of his father’s boss and manager of the school’s unofficial baseball team, Haruka.
When the soccer team tries to embarrass the baseball team by challenging them, it urges Hiro to make his return to the sport he still loves.
Similarities Between Oblivion Battery and H2
- Comical pervert gives up baseball, only to play baseball again
- Often just as much about comedy as it is about baseball
- Large cast of diverse, realistically flawed characters
Differences Between Oblivion Battery and H2
- H2 is also pretty dense with romance, since a pretty girl is often the main character’s motivation.
- As an Adachi baseball series, H2 is lengthy and often just as much about characters living life as it is about baseball
Big Windup
Ren Mihashi was an ace of his middle school baseball team, but only because his grandfather owned the academy. Due the obvious and unwanted nepotism, Ren was crippled by anxiety over how his pitching led to the team’s constant losses, even with the endless practice he put in.
The bullying of his team and low self-esteem got so bad that Mihashi decided to go to high school in another prefecture, intent on giving up on baseball despite his love for it.
However, when he is unwillingly dragged onto the school’s reviving baseball team, he finds that his new teammates might just be his perfect match.
Similarities Between Oblivion Battery and Big Windup
- Main character quits baseball, doesn’t want to play baseball, is forced to play baseball by a friend anyway
- Big focus on the battery, but the rest of the team also shines
- The baseball team is revived by one passionate boy that wants to play ball and drags others into it
- Emphasis on overcoming trauma
Differences Between Oblivion Battery and Big Windup
- Big Windup is more about the main character overcoming anxiety and insecurity than the amnesia and unwillingness that serves as a roadblock in Oblivion Battery.
- Big Windup is about a proper baseball team revival and not a casual club full of genius players like Oblivion Battery.
- While Big Windup has as much comedy as most sports anime, it really is more focused on the game and personal drama.
Battery
Takumi is hailed as a prodigious pitcher. When he moves to a rural town, he is convinced his greatness can make his new high school team a powerhouse.
However, he struggles to find a catcher that can keep up with his pitches and clashes with his new teammates.
Similarities Between Oblivion Battery and Battery
- Baseball anime with a particular focus on the battery
- Obscure teams get talented players
- Both series focus on learning to work together, be it for the first time or again
Differences Between Oblivion Battery and Battery
- Battery is more character drama than sports anime
- While Oblivion Battery enjoys a lot of comedy, Battery goes thick on the drama
- The team is established in Battery, just not very good. However, the big team issue is a clash of personalities.
Mix – Meisei Story
It has been almost 30 years since the legend of Tatsuya Uesugi and the Meisei Academy High School Team was born in the National High School Baseball Championships. However, despite the glory the school received afterwards, the team has since languished in mediocrity and lost all fame.
Two step-brothers, Souichiro and Touma Tachibana, form a powerful battery after playing together since childhood and hope to revive the team’s glory.
However, though the brothers themselves are prodigious, there are endless obstacles between them and taking Meisei back to the championship plate.
Similarities Between Oblivion Battery and Mix
- Overpowered, genius-level battery main characters
- Diverse, often quirky and/or flawed characters
- Plots surround reviving floundering (or non-existent) baseball teams
Differences Between Oblivion Battery and Mix
- Mix follows two step-brothers as a battery
- As Mix is an Adachi baseball series, it focuses on character drama – sometimes more than baseball. This means while there is comedy like Oblivion Battery, there is just as much drama, romance, and slice of life as there is comedy in Mix
For Fans of Sport Comedies
Grand Blue
Iori Kitahara is excited to travel to the seaside town of Izu for his first year of college. He moves into his uncle’s scuba shop, Grand Blue, but things don’t go according to plan.
Inside the shop is a bunch of naked and drunk upperclassman who get him drunk. After his cousin walks in, his college life starts to derail, but his work getting it back on track doesn’t go quite as planned either.
Similarities Between Oblivion Battery and Grand Blue
- Both series are technically sports anime, but their jokes are better
- The main characters are often the unwilling ones in many situations
- Clubs full of eccentric, but still grounded characters
Differences Between Oblivion Battery and Grand Blue
- Grand Blue is about a college diving club in contrast to Oblivion Battery’s high school baseball club
- The main character in Grand Blue actually does want to go diving, it is the other random things his club drags him into that he doesn’t want to do. It is much the reverse in Oblivion Battery
- Grand Blue features more comedy and less sport while Oblivion Battery has more sport and less comedy. Like a 60:40 ratio in both.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Oblivion Battery? Let fans know in the comments section below.