Apache Yakyugun
(Comic Version : 1970 – 1972)
(TV version: 1971 – 1972 / First Episode: https://youtu.be/DdWTavCMbjI)
The title means “Baseball Troop of Apache” – The Baseball Team whose players look like Apache (a Native American Tribe) Indians in US. As you see in the pictures above, all those are the players, none of whom wear baseball uniforms of any kind. They act like beasts. They play like beasts. Still, they are super talented in baseball!
The main character named Dojima Tsuyoshi used to be a genius baseball pitcher, who won a highschool baseball championship with a miraculous perfect game. In those days, there was no draft system in professional baseball industry. All those teams sent scouts to get this rookie in their team. Tsuyoshi’s father became a money worshipper with tremendous amount of money those scouts offered to him. Technically speaking, he was going to sell his own son and his talent to the highest bidder!
Tsuyoshi’s feelings were so hurt that he made a firm decision not to go work for any team. His father still wanted to control his son’s future. Tsuyoshi could not put up with his father’s attitude and he ruined his treasure – his left hand – by stabbing it with a broken bottle of whiskey!
At this moment, Tsuyoshi, a genius baseball pitcher, was killed. And later…
There was someone that recommended that Tsuyoshi go to a ruined school in a remote country to teach baseball. Then, a new story began for him! He was to start taming beasts (students) and have them behave!? His task was next to impossible. He started building a baseball team with those beasts who didn’t even know the rule of baseball. Everyone of those beast-like kids had problems. Everyone, however, was talented in baseball. Tsuyoshi had to find a key to polish raw diamond…
(They became human beings for the first time in their lives through baseball!)
“Apache Yakyugun” was NOT a simple sports drama, but a story in which a former baseball genius helped youngsters who almost flunked in their lives to be reborn as decent human beings. In addition, the very baseball genius helped himself to recover from his negative past. Teaching “Apache Yakyugun” saved his soul, too.
