Draft King Episodes 1+2

This is an interesting season for WOWOW. They have a family dorama in 0.5 no Otoko and also a sports dorama in Draft King, based on a manga. I am liking this variety from WOWOW because they generally do shows a lot better than the rest of the other networks.

Draft King is about the world of baseball scouting in the Japanese baseball league. Kamiki Ryosuke is a former 3rd string baseball player who never amounted to much turned scout. Muro Tsuyoshi is the enigmatic Gohara Ora, a veteran scout for the Yokohama Bay Golds who does not mince his words telling everyone they are wrong and has an eye for talent.

I don't know much about baseball and my knowledge of drafting is all from the NBA but the first episodes have been educational for me. Drafting in the NBA is a crapshoot because so many great players are not top picks but I can't imagine how difficult it is for baseball. Like basketball, it is still a bunch of people gathered in a room looking at stats and videos, arguing amongst themselves and trying to find a diamond in the rough.

The episodes are only 30 minutes and it is a bit weird watching a very manga-like WOWOW show because most of their show are not very manga-like. What I mean by manga-like is you have a main character declaring something to everyone and then at the end you find he is right, sort of like the shonen protagonist declaring that he is going to be strong.

I had downloaded the series to watch raw because I thought no one was subbing. Luckily I checked the jdorama fansub map and subs for episode 1+2 from void_spell are available on subscene. The jdrama fansub map is a great resource for checking what shows are subbed and big thanks to subie06 and Keiko1981 for maintaining the fansub map.

The first two episodes of Draft King are not bad and I would say it is a breath of fresh air. Fingers crossed the rest of the series is good! Recommended for people who like sports.