Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts granted Hashira-like powers by Ufotable.

Ufotable has established itself as one of the premier studios for producing dramatic action anime, with Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba becoming an instant and massive hit when the animated series started in 2019. This summer will see the release of the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle theatrical feature, but Ufotable’s artists, and one member of the anime’s cast, still found room for a very cool side project: an animated crossover between Demon Slayer and Major League Baseball.

Later this month the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs are headed to Tokyo for a series of games, and sports fans in Japan are very excited. Not only is this a chance to see Major League stars in action, no fewer than five Japanese players will be making the trip, with the defending World Series champion Dodgers bringing Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki, and the Cubs’ roster including Shota Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki. To promote the event, which is being called the MLB World Tour Tokyo Series, Ufotable has produced an animated short featuring Ohtani and a number of the other participating players in anime form…with some color commentary by Demon Slayer’s Urokodaki.

As the veteran Hashira expresses admiration for Ohtani’s breathing technique, his counterpart in the baseball announcer’s booth relates the history of baseball in Japan, with easy-to-draw parallels to how each new generation of the Demon Slayer Corps builds upon the foundation built by the effort and expertise of their predecessors.

While the Japanese players get the majority of the screentime, the video does shine the spotlight on a few non-Japanese players too, like the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts.

In and of itself, sports anime, and baseball anime in particular, isn’t so rare, but it’s not often that actual real-world baseball players are depicted in anime. Likewise, though Ufotable has a lot of fantasy anime on their resume (they’re also the studio behind the Fate franchise), this is their first time to turn their talents toward sports, and when Ohtani steps into the batter’s box, it’s with the full flair of Ufotable’s action aesthetics that he unleashes the Batting Breathing First Form technique.

▼ The non-subtitled version of the video, for those who want a clearer look at the visuals

The MLB World Tour Tokyo Series takes place from March 15 to 19 at Tokyo Dome, with the Dodgers and Cubs playing each other on the 18th and 19th.

Related: MLB World Tour Tokyo Series official website
Source: YouTube/MLB, PR Times
Top image: YouTube/アニプレックス チャンネル
Insert images: YouTube/アニプレックス チャンネル, YouTube/MLB
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