Whipped even when proposing
This scene is easily one of the best in the bunch. Ichiyou’s response is just so hilarious. Mouse over pics for captions.

I was secretly wanting the ball to land outside Aoba's range to see her struggle from her hospital bed to get it. I'm that evil.

As this picture depicts, this episode was basically spent with Aoba recuperating from the leg injury she suffered the last episode. There were lots of banter as per usual with Kou and Aoba, but the serene screencap above is my favorite with Kou asleep on the chair and Aoba happily tossing up the ball that Kou had brought her.

However, the true stars of this episode were Junpei Azuma and Ichiyou Tsukishima, with the awkward marriage proposal from the former to the latter. I think this proposal is my favorite ever in anime.

Pretty sunsetYeah, who would want to be a pro baseball player making millions of yen?Quite the romantic, eh Junpei?

Dramatic stareAre you asking for her hand or for help in growing vegetables?Having to explain that it's a proposal is never a good thing.

The dude wrote down various proposals and has the gall to look at it while in front of the girl he's proposing to. Gotta admire that.What the hell are you talking about Junpei?As if it would be better if it was summer?

I can only imagine what Ichiyou is feeling right here. Her boyfriend keeps talking about fruits and vegetables instead of asking her to marry him.A pun? A fucking pun? Hahahahahah.She don't look happy.

Just spit it out!Way to appear as desperate as possible. Really appeals to the girl.Can you blame Ichiyou for hesitating?

She had to face away to keep from bursting out in laughter.Happy Junpei.There's always a "but", even with a marriage proposal.

WHAT THE HELL WOMAN? You already said yes!Hahah, he's so confused.Even after saying "yes", she left doubt. Amazing.

Anyway, the point of this long collection of images was to show just how awesome a character Ichiyou is. I mean, what the hell is a guy supposed to think after her saying yes and then giving such a condition. There should be rules against stuff like that.

I originally planned this post to be a big update rapid fire discussion of 37-42 in order to get caught up focus on the baseball tournament that started this week. However, I just wanted to publish this long chain of images because it is one of my favorite scenes in Cross Game so far. It shows just how great and entertaining the side characters can be.

So I’ll probably still do a big update later, but it’ll be on 38-42, unless I find some equally spiffy event.