is a Japanese

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

-themed

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

series written and illustrated by Yuji Terajima. It was serialized in

Kodansha is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', '' Afternoon'', '' Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' ...

's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''

Weekly Shōnen Magazine is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published on Wednesdays in Japan by Kodansha, first published on March 17, 1959. The magazine is mainly read by an older audience, with a significant portion of its readership falling under the male hig ...

'' from May 2006 to January 2015. A sequel titled ''Ace of Diamond Act II'' was serialized from August 2015 to October 2022. An

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

television series adaptation ran from October 2013 to March 2016. An anime adaptation of ''Ace of Diamond Act II'' aired from April 2019 to March 2020. As of August 2021, the manga had over 40 million copies in circulation, making it one of the

best-selling manga series The following is a list of the best-selling Japanese manga series to date in terms of the number of collected ''tankōbon'' volumes sold. All series in this list have at least 20 million copies in circulation. This list is limited to Japanese m ...

. In 2008, ''Ace of Diamond'' received the 53rd

Shogakukan Manga Award The is one of Japan's major manga awards, and is sponsored by Shogakukan Publishing. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga and features candidates from a number of publishers. It is the oldest manga award in Japan, being given since ...

for the ''shōnen'' category. In 2010, it won the 34th

Kodansha Manga Award is an annual award for serialized manga published in the previous year, the event is sponsored by the publisher Kodansha. It is currently awarded in three categories: '' shōnen'', '' shōjo'', and general. The awards began in 1977, initially ...

for best ''shōnen'' manga.

Plot

The series follows Eijun Sawamura, a baseball pitcher with an unusual pitching style that naturally causes the ball to move unpredictably at the plate. Sawamura plans to go with his friends to a local high school and play baseball to the best of their abilities. However, one scout from the prestigious Seido High School approaches him and offers him a scholarship and a chance to make it to the nationals. Sawamura decides to pay a visit to the school, and it changes his entire outlook on the future. Seido and their main rivals attempt to help the upperclassmen make it to nationals during the summer tournament. Once the summer tournament ends, the upperclassmen will be forced to retire, but Sawamura will help them to success, despite his lack of control. Some time later, Sawamura and his teammates, Furuya Satoru, Kominato Haruichi and Miyuki Kazuya, lead a new team, along with a few returning faces, through the fall tournament. Their overly ambitious goal is to go to nationals during the fall tournament and convince Coach Kataoka that he does not have to resign. ''Ace of Diamond Act II'' continues to follow Sawamura and the team as they prepare to compete for the summer tournament. With a new year, new faces appear and join the Seido baseball club. Sawamura and Furuya compete with national level teams, being able to identify their own strengths and weaknesses and further mature their pitching style, all the while they are competing with each other to earn the coveted ace title. Simultaneously, the Seido batters are improving themselves to become as fearsome as the batting talent of their previous year's first-string team. With all of these preparations, Seido is aiming to win the summer tournament before the upperclassman have to graduate.

Media

Manga

''Ace of Diamond'' is written and illustrated by Yuji Terajima. It was serialized in

's ''

'' from 15 May 2006 to 14 January 2015. Kodansha collected the chapters into forty-seven ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

'' volumes, published from 15 September 2006 to 17 August 2015.

Kodansha USA Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC is a publishing company based in New York, USA, and a subsidiary of Japan's largest publishing company Kodansha. Established in July 2008, Kodansha USA publishes books relating to Japan, Japanese culture, and manga, ...

has licensed the series for a digital release in English under the title ''Ace of the Diamond'', and has been publishing the volumes since 7 March 2017. The series is licensed in Indonesia by

Elex Media Komputindo Elex Media Komputindo is a publishing company in Indonesia which publishes books, comics, magazines, novels and other print media. Established on January 15, 1985, Elex Media Komputindo is a subsidiary of Kompas Gramedia Group. Elex is headquart ...

. A sequel manga, titled ''Ace of Diamond Act II'' was serialized in the same magazine from 19 August 2015, to 26 October 2022. Kodansha released the first ''tankōbon'' volume on 17 November 2015. As of March 2022, thirty volumes have been released. A comedic spin-off, titled ''Daiya no B!'', about the same characters, at the same school, but in a brass high school band, was published on Kodansha's ''Magazine Pocket'' web platform from 2015 to 2016. It was collected in three volumes, released from 17 November 2015 to 17 August 2016. Another spin-off manga, titled ''Cat of Diamond'', by Terajima's wife Yuki Okada, started on ''Magazine Pocket'' app and website on 12 January 2022.

Anime

The TV series was produced by Madhouse and Production I.G and began airing on 6 October 2013, on

TX Network TX Network (TXN) is a commercial television network in Japan owned by Nikkei, Inc. The "TX" is taken from the callsign of its flagship station, TV Tokyo. It is also known as TV Tokyo Network. History Tokyo Channel 12 almost went into bankr ...

stations and later on AT-X. The episodes were simulcast in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Central and South America, Spain, Brazil, and Portugal by

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex. The service primarily distributes films and t ...

with English and German subtitles. The series was initially planned to be 52 episodes but was extended and ended in March 2015. A second season started airing soon after on 6 April 2015 on

stations and later on AT-X. Like its predecessor the episodes were simulcast in the aforementioned countries by

with English and German subtitles. Two

original animation DVD , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...

s were bundled with the fourth and fifth volumes of the ''Ace of Diamond Act II'' manga; the first was released on 15 July 2016 and the second was released on 16 September 2016. An anime adaptation of ''Ace of Diamond Act II'' was announced in November 2018, and it premiered on 2 April 2019. The cast and staff reprised their roles from the previous series, with Madhouse returning for animation production. The series ran for 52 episodes.

Reception

''Ace of Diamond'' received the 53rd

for the ''shōnen'' category in 2008. It also won the 34th

for the ''shōnen'' category in 2010. As of March 2015, the first 45 volumes of the series have sold over 22 million copies. As of November 2015, the manga had over 25 million copies in print. As of August 2021, the manga had over 40 million copies in print. ''Ace of Diamond'' was the 25th best selling manga in 2011, with 1,711,607 copies sold. ''Nikkei Entertainment'' magazine published a list of top 50 manga creators by sales since January 2010, in its September 2011 issue; Yuji Terajima, the author of ''Ace of Diamond'' was ranked 20th, with 2,792,000 copies sold. It was the 27th best selling manga in 2012, with 1,685,194 copies sold. In 2013 ''Ace of Diamond'' became the 23rd best selling manga, with 2,010,045 copies sold.

References

External links

*
''Ace of Diamond'' official anime website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ace of Diamond 2006 manga 2013 anime television series debuts 2019 anime television series debuts Anime series based on manga Baseball in anime and manga Crunchyroll anime Kodansha manga Madhouse (company) Manga adapted into television series Production I.G Shōnen manga TV Tokyo original programming Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (Shōnen) Winners of the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen manga