The WORST episodes of Cross Game
Every episode of Cross Game ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Cross Game!
Kō Kitamura, son of the owner of Kitamura Sports, lives in the same neighborhood as the batting center run by the Tsukishima family. Due to their proximity and the relationship between their businesses, the Kitamura and Tsukishima families have been close for many years, with their children going back and forth between the two homes like extended family. Because Kō and Wakaba are the same age and always together, Aoba is jealous of all the time Kō spends with her older sister. Aoba is a natural pitcher with excellent form, and Kō secretly trains to become as good as she is, even while publicly showing little interest in baseball. Then Wakaba dies in a swimming accident at a summer camp during fifth grade.
#1 - Wakaba
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 10/25/2009
Upon seeing the girl who looks like Wakaba, Ko remembers the summer Wakaba died. In a flashback, scenes of Wakaba from the first three episodes are shown, leading up to her death. In the present, the girl invites him to come to the restaurant when it opens.
#2 - An Audition?
Season 1 - Episode 18 - Aired 8/2/2009
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, only from kindergarten to first-grade level. After a week of Midori's pleading, Aoba agrees to pitch to her again. At the school baseball field, they meet Risa practicing at the last minute. Aoba strikes Midori out in three pitches, and after watching her form, Risa pitches a ball over the plate for the first time. Risa gets the role of a spoiled team manager and resigns as Seishu's manager. Risa gives Aoba a gift in thanks, and says she's okay with a supporting role if it leads her to her goal of becoming famous.
#3 - Since Forever
Season 1 - Episode 39 - Aired 12/27/2009
Akaishi visits his old elementary school and remembers Wakaba describing her Koshien dream. Aoba teaches Ko new breaking pitches, which Azuma describes as her way of climbing on the mound in Koshien using Ko's body, and resumes training after her cast is removed. After Ryuo wins the spring Koshien tournament, its coach denies to reporters that he is worried about Seishu in the upcoming summer tournament. Akane becomes a waitress at the Clover Cafe. When Akane visits a flea market in another township, Aoba suggests that Ko accompany her, where in return for Aoba's coaching Ko buys her a garish T-shirt. Aoba tells Azuma that she does not regret not making the women's national team, then complains about how quickly Ko learns new pitches, saying that maybe she has underestimated him. When Ko gives her the shirt, she thanks him, to his surprise. Because the women's national team is short on pitchers with fastballs, the coach asks Aoba to join their training camp.
#4 - Happy New Year
Season 1 - Episode 34 - Aired 11/22/2009
On New Year's Eve, Ko helps the Takigawas deliver soba. At the Tsukishima's, he meets Junpei Azuma, who had forgotten he is driving his brother home for a visit. When Ko is done, Akane returns a book to him, thanking him for helping her draw a good picture for a competition. Ko, Akaishi, and Nakanishi go to a shrine to pray for good luck, and Senda follows to avoid practicing with Midori but fails to find them. Yuhei Azuma returns and finds Aoba alone in the Tsukishima batting cages, the rest of the family having gone to the shrine. Junpei's wallet is stolen at the shrine, and Ko and his friends chase the thief, but he is caught by Momiji's "candidate" boyfriend. In the batting cages, when Aoba tells Azuma she will not try out for the women's national team because does not want to take time away from practicing with Seishu, to help them get to Koshien, he tells her she should try for a Koshien of her own.
#5 - He May Be Right
Season 1 - Episode 27 - Aired 10/4/2009
That afternoon, Maeno dismisses practice early. In a bookstore, Mishima and Ryuo backup pitcher Oikawa talk about how unlikely it is they will get to play against Seishu. Midori visits the Tsukishima batting cages, where Aoba tells her Seishu might beat Ryuo. That evening, Akaishi reviews tapes of Ryuo's games one more time, particularly Shimano's batting, while the rest of the team prepares their equipment. The next morning, after a press conference for Idol Ace, former manager Risa tunes in to the start of the game. In the first inning, Ryuo quickly retires all three Seishu batters, and Ko strikes out three Ryuo batters with nine pitches. In the second inning, Azuma hits a home run on the first pitch, while Shimano hits a single but is left on base. At the top of the fourth inning, Seishu still leading 1 to 0, Mishima asks to be sent out to the first base coach box during Ryuo's next at-bat.
#6 - Mizuki Asami
Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 8/16/2009
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 she finds Mizuki attractive but she does not answer, and later Momiji remembers Ko and Wakaba playing with her and silently apologies to Wakaba. Several girls ask Mizuki out. He turns them down, claiming to be in love with Aoba, and tells some irate boys that the rumor that Aoba and Ko are going out is false. At practice, Ko tells Akaishi that Aoba is hiding a twisted ankle no one had noticed, and Aoba retaliates by revealing Ko is hiding a stiff left arm. As Mizuki helps Aoba walk home, he tells her he is serious about her.
#7 - No Matter What Happens
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 8/23/2009
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 game of the season, Aoba is the starting pitcher. When Ko relieves her, Akaishi tells him not to throw too hard just to compete. Ichiyo watches Aoba and Ko squabble in the dugout and comments on their similarity. After Seishu wins, Mizuki fulfills his promise to take Aoba to a movie, though she refuses to call it a date. As they return home, they meet Ko and Aoba squabbles with him again, after which Mizuki comments the encounter cheered her up.
#8 - She Hasn't Changed...
Season 1 - Episode 43 - Aired 1/31/2010
While scouting Seishu's first opponent in the tournament, Junpei meets Daimon and turns down an invitation to watch Kurokoma practice. Risa returns to Seishu for a photo shoot the day before Seishu's first game but refuses to interrupt the team practice. Various members of the team ask out Aoba based on whether they perform well during the game, while Ko asks to be excused from dating her if he strikes out at least 10 batters. The game is called for Seishu after five innings, but only Ko makes his promised goal. Daimon, watching from the stands, discounts Ko's performance based on how poorly the opponents batted. Aoba asks Ko if he wanted to avoid dating her so much, then advises him to conserve his strength in the future. Kurokoma plays Sena, the team led by Miki, and loses in a close game because Daimon refuses to use his ace pitcher against a "no-name" school.
#9 - Everyone's Summer
Season 1 - Episode 42 - Aired 1/24/2010
Maeno announces a training camp for the week before the tournament. On her way home from school, Aoba finds Akane having a spell of weakness in the train station and walks her home. On the team's day off before the training camp, Mizuki complains to Ko about Azuma and Aoba being together so much; Nakanishi's girlfriend competes in a track-and-field tournament but loses in the quarterfinal heats; Junpei introduces Ichiyo to his parents; Akaishi meets former portable teammate Makihara, who tells him to beat Ryuo to save Seishu's face; Azuma gives Senda batting tips at the Tsukishima cages; Tubby scouts a Ryuo practice, where Mishima tells her to not let Seishu loose before they meet; Akaishi and Ko practice pitching at the secret training place they used in junior high school; and Aoba tells Ozaki she has chosen to help take Seishu to Koshien instead of joining the national team. Aoba then pitches for Ozaki, striking her out. The next day, the Seishu training camp begins.
#10 - How Many Points?
Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 7/5/2009
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, Ichiyo asks Ko to take Aoba her forgotten change of clothes in return for Aoba's bringing his suitcase to camp. At the pool, Ko meets some boys who asked Aoba out but were turned down, including Senda and a boxer who despairs because Ko and Aoba argue familiarly. Ko and Aoba are reminded of visiting the pool with Wakaba, and when he asks Aoba what her sister saw in him, she says she wants to know too.
#11 - Secret Weapon
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/26/2009
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 Ko's home run record but complains about how slow the pitching machines are. The boy later appears at Seishu High School, being given a tour for prospective baseball players. Senda visits Aoba while she is working in the Clover Cafe attached to the batting cages and asks about Ko's secret training, but she denies any knowledge about random neighbors. As Ko practices pitching with Akaishi as catcher, the latter describes the dream Wakaba had the night before she left for swimming camp, in which Ko and Akaishi are a playing as a battery in the national high school baseball tournament at Koshien.
#12 - Enjoy It More
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 7/12/2009
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 grandfather. Yuhei Azuma tells his older brother he will get to Koshien for certain, to which Junpei says to have fun with baseball. Because of his differences with Daimon, Miki transfers to another school. The portable team recruits Aoba for the scrimmage to replace a retired third-year player, and to convince her to play center field instead of pitcher, Akaishi has her bat against Ko. After watching the portable team practice, Azuma deliberately injures himself to avoid playing in the scrimmage and tells Daimon to prove that he has enough other good players to take him to Koshien.
#13 - Or Is It Fate?
Season 1 - Episode 33 - Aired 11/15/2009
Seishu wins their first game of the autumn prefectural tournament. On a day without practice, Aoba and Ko each decide to clean their bedrooms, which neither does regularly. As thanks for saving her, Akane makes Aoba a frilly cushion, telling Ko that she always wanted a cute little sister like Aoba. While delivering it, Akane learns that Aoba had an older sister, Wakaba, who died. When Akaishi helps his father deliver liquor to the Takigawa soba shop, he again is shocked by Akane's appearance, after which Akane learns from Senda of her resemblance to Wakaba. After practicing in the Tsukishima batting cages, Azuma eats a meal cooked by Aoba at the Clover Cafe despite Ko's warnings. The next day Azuma has acute appendicitis and misses Seishu's next game. While watching it, Akane learns that Aoba cannot play in tournament games such as this one, and begins watching Aoba in the stands. The game is a pitchers' duel that Seishu ultimately loses 1 to 0.
#14 - Idiot!
Season 1 - Episode 40 - Aired 1/10/2010
Distracted by the coach's request, Aoba burns a customer's order in the Clover Cafe. One night, Ko escorts Akane home because she thinks she is being followed by a stalker, and together Ko and Aoba catch a man who had recently stalked Aoba before finding her too scary. As punishment, Aoba forces the man to use the batting cages until he is exhausted. After Ichiyo tells Junpei Azuma she will marry him if Seishu goes to Koshien, he joins the team as an enthusiastic assistant coach; Ichiyo later tells Ko that she never said she would not marry Junpei if Seishu does not make it. When they go shopping together, Aoba tells Akane about her invitation to join the women's national team, and Akane suggests she chose the course that leads to the fewest regrets. While Junpei and Aoba scout a Ryuo practice, he asks whether she likes his brother. When she cannot answer, he suggests that she be honest with herself, and she later reassures him that Seishu will go to Koshien.
#15 - Summer Training Camp?
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 6/28/2009
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. While waiting for Aoba at the bus stop, Senda complains about how strict Maeno has become and Ko says he prefers to keep busy in the summer. After a thunderstorm, they search for Aoba and find her shoe near a swollen stream similar to the one Wakaba drowned in, before finally finding her at a woodcutter's house. In Seishu's next game, Daimon takes Miki out of the lineup for ignoring his orders. Aoba spends the night at camp, and in the morning Maeno tells her the team is training hard to keep up with Ko because they have become fans of him. As she leaves on the bus, Aoba whispers to herself, "Portables, fight."
#16 - A Careless Pitch?
Season 1 - Episode 44 - Aired 2/7/2010
Azuma tells Aoba that to understand her popularity, she needs to recognize her good points outside of her baseball skills. When she asks Ko what those are, he tells her that one can to be too close things to see them clearly, and as she watches fans cheer him during the game against Sena, she admits he might be right. After Miki bats for the first time against Ko, Miki admits to Akaishi he may have transferred from Seishu too early. Seishu gets on base each of the first seven innings but fails to score, while not allowing Sena any hits. When Ko complains about how well Miki knows Seishu's abilities, Azuma says Miki has not accounted for Aoba's influence on the younger Seishu players and in the bottom of the eighth, one of them hits a three-run homer. At the end of the ninth, Miki hits a home run, preventing Ko from pitching a no-hitter. Seishu wins 3 to 1.
#17 - I Know
Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 9/27/2009
At the end of the fifth inning, after three batters fail to bunt against Ko, Sanno's coach describes Ko's pitching as the sort seen only once every ten years. When Seishu starts scoring in the sixth, Maeno attributes this to Seishu's players being too inexperienced to have consistent weaknesses or strengths. Meanwhile, at Ryuo, Mishima tells two classmates he does not mind staying away when reporters interview Shimano because he himself will ultimately have a better career. After Seishu wins 8 to 1, newspaper coverage highlights Ko's 151 km/h fastball. When Mizuki comments that this was not Aoba's ideal of 160 km/h, Aoba retorts that she wanted many things when she was a child. Aoba remembers Wakaba describing her last dream, which included Aoba playing center field at Koshien. When Aoba forces Ko to tidy up before meeting reporters, he comments she reminds him of Wakaba. During the interview, he claims Mishima is the Ryuo batter he worries about the most. The day before the game against Ryuo, Azuma tells Ko that they have a chance of winning if Mishima stays on the bench.
#18 - Don't You Quit
Season 1 - Episode 24 - Aired 9/13/2009
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 buys the scheduled present of a shiny pendent. When the tournament schedule is announced, Ryuo is seeded first and Seishu is bracketed to play them in their third game. Seishu's first game of the tournament is called in the fifth inning. Afterward, Ko catches pitches for Aoba, who was for the first time not allowed to play because she is a girl, and when it gets dark, he tells her not to give up on baseball.
#19 - It’s His First Date
Season 1 - Episode 38 - Aired 12/20/2009
Ryuo continues to advance at Koshien. Akaishi gives Ko an introduction to kabuki theater to study up on it, saying that he set up Ko to take Akane to a performance because he wants to see Wakaba's smile. Outside of Aoba's hospital, Azuma meets Daimon, who says his new team will beat Ryuo. Aoba tells Azuma that Ko's date with Akane is his first, then assumes the glove maintenance kit Ko sent her is from Azuma. After the play, Ko and Akane visit the neighborhood where she grew up. Ko later gives Akaishi kabuki-themed snack food. At the start of the school year, when Ko becomes a third-year student and Momiji enters junior high school, Aoba is discharged. With Aoba out of the hospital, Azuma starts hitting hard again. In return for the kabuki tickets, Akane gives Akaishi a handmade mobile phone charm that she modeled after him, then later gives another to Ko.
#20 - I Guess I Slept Well
Season 1 - Episode 37 - Aired 12/13/2009
Aoba is hospitalized with a broken foot and unable to play for a month. She claims will not affect the team, given she cannot participate in tournament games, but Ko tells Akane that Aoba really is frustrated. Because Azuma feels guilty, he stops hitting hard in practice and visits Aoba daily in the hospital, and because of this both Ichiyo and Nakanishi suggest he has feelings for her. Midori is disappointed that Aoba cannot participate in the second round of tryouts, and is herself wait-listed for the national team. Junpei Azuma proposes marriage to Ichiyo, who says yes on one condition, which she does not name. To keep Aoba occupied in the hospital, Ko brings her a ball and glove, after which a nurse says she looks more lively. Akaishi gives Akane two tickets his family cannot use and tells her to invite Ko to the performance. While watching Ryuo advance in the spring Koshien tournament, Aoba tells Azuma she will train hard when she gets out so Seishu will have a pitcher for batting practice who can match Oikawa.
#21 - Hey
Season 1 - Episode 32 - Aired 11/8/2009
When Azuma asks Aoba whether Akane really does look like Wakaba, Aoba says, just as Ko did, that in her mind Wakaba is still in fifth grade. Ryuo loses in the semifinal at Koshien. One morning after the Takigawa soba restaurant opens, when Akane and Ko walk to the train station together, he accidentally takes her case of art supplies and goes to her school to return it, where he helps stop an exhibitionist by hitting him with a baseball. During practice, when Aoba makes a bad pun, Azuma tells her she and Ko are a lot alike. Akane meets Momiji at a park where they both are sketching and walks her home, where Aoba and her father formally meet Akane for the first time. After Aoba rescues Akane from being harassed by some boys, Akane recognizes her from Ko's description of the three Tsukishima sisters. Aoba later asks Ko why he didn't tell Akane about Wakaba, then admits that Akane is very like Wakaba beyond just appearance.
#22 - Yeah, Right
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 6/7/2009
At the top of the fourth, Ko hits a triple but fails to score. In the bottom of the inning, Azuma hits a two-run homer to give the varsity team the lead. The portable team players in their third year tell their teammates that winning does not matter, only playing well enough to get promoted back to varsity. Daimon chews out center fielder Miki for strategically bunting against his orders to treat the scrimmage as a batting practice. At the bottom of the sixth, a tiring Ko tells catcher Akaishi that he can no longer pitch with both speed and control, and Akaishi has him go for speed. After Azuma hits another home run, Akaishi tells him the pitch was weak because this is Ko's first real game. When a third-year portable player, Makihara, is thrown out while running for home, Senda tells him Daimon has no intention of promoting anyone to the varsity team because that would mean admitting he was wrong. In the bottom of the seventh, Miki notices that if Ko had intentionally walked Azuma, the varsity team would be losing 1 to 3 instead of winning 5 to 3.
#23 - Koshien, Here I Go!
Season 1 - Episode 41 - Aired 1/17/2010
Akane tells Aoba that she drew a lot as a child because she was sickly and could not play outdoors, unlike Wakaba. Akane claims Wakaba had no weaknesses but before Aoba can name one, Ko suggests her taste in guys. Ko visits Wakaba's grave on their 18th birthday, after which both Akane and Aoba give him cake and he buys the scheduled, slightly expensive earrings for Wakaba. A younger player tells Ko that the team has gotten a lot better because of Aoba's influence and gets Ko to confirm that she and Azuma are not yet officially dating. The brackets for the summer prefectural tournament are announced, which have Seishu meeting Daimon's current school, Kurokoma, in the second round. Aoba surprises Azuma by praising Ko's pitching, but that night she cannot guess what Akane and Wakaba see in Ko. Akane tells Aoba that she and Ko are a lot alike and that if she learns to love herself, she will see what Wakaba saw in Ko. At practice the next day, Aoba is surprised to see how hard Ko works. She asks him if he likes Akane, and he replies that she looks too much like Wakaba
#24 - It's an Honor
Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 9/20/2009
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 evening before the game, Ko remembers Wakaba telling him that all he has to do to get Aoba to like him is pitch 160 km/h. The next day, during the first two innings against Sanno, Seishu has trouble handling Sanno's bunting, however, with Ko's fielding, they hold Sanno to only one run. During the bottom of the second, Akaishi tells Ko to stop practicing fielding, and he begins pitching with his full power. Sanno's coach admits their data about Ko may be faulty, but tells his players that with their current strategy they still have the advantage.
#25 - Memories...
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 8/9/2009
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 their names, which Aoba had then scratched out. He gets lost and Aoba directs him to the tree, where he discovers that Aoba had later carved replacement names. Back home, at the start of spring, Ko and Nakanishi see a strange boy climb up a drain spout to retrieve a woman's hat blown there by the wind. When Ko later visits the batting center, he learns the boy is Mizuki, who is moving in with the Tsukishimas.