Baseball is the genre anime keeps quietly winning at. It has more hours of screen time than basketball, volleyball and tennis combined, it produced two of the highest-rated sports series ever made, and this October it gets a new cour: Ace of Diamond Act II Second Season returns on October 11. Here is the full board, ranked by SenpaiRanks' adjusted Consensus score rather than by nostalgia.
Quick answer
Cross Game is the highest-ranked baseball anime on SenpaiRanks at 8.13 adjusted, followed by Major (Season 1) at 8.03 and Touch at 7.75. The genre's current flagship, Diamond no Ace, sits at 7.71, tied with Ookiku Furikabutte. All seven entries below carry a mature vote base, and the most recent one — Diamond no Ace: Act II Second Season, airing now at OLM — holds 7.04 with its board still filling in. If you want one series and one only: Cross Game, 50 episodes, 2009, SynergySP.
The ranked list
1. Cross Game — 8.13 adjusted
SynergySP, 2009, 50 episodes. Mitsuru Adachi's second masterpiece and the reason people argue he is the best sports-manga author alive. It is a baseball series where the baseball is almost beside the point — the pitching mechanics are correct, the practice montages are real, and underneath all of it is a grief story that earns every beat without ever saying the sad thing out loud. The highest adjusted score in the genre on our board, and it is not close.
2. Major — 8.03 adjusted
Studio Hibari, 2004, 26 episodes in this first season. Six TV seasons follow a single player from little league to the majors, which is a structural swing no other sports anime has attempted at that length. The later seasons actually score higher — Major S5 hits 8.12 and Major S6 8.01 — but S1 is where you start, and the payoff of watching Goro age in real time is the whole point.
3. Touch — 7.75 adjusted
Group TAC, 1985, 101 episodes. Adachi again, forty years earlier. Touch is the load-bearing wall of the entire genre — the twin-brothers premise, the girl next door, the Koshien dream — and nearly every high-school baseball anime since has been in conversation with it. The animation is its age. The writing is not.
4. Diamond no Ace — 7.71 adjusted
Production I.G and Madhouse, 2013, 75 episodes. The modern standard-bearer, and the most technically detailed baseball in anime — pitch selection, batting-order strategy and bullpen management get treated as actual plot. Yūji Terajima ran the manga in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 2006, ending it at 47 volumes.
5. Ookiku Furikabutte — 7.71 adjusted
A-1 Pictures, 2007, 25 episodes. Known in English as Big Windup!. The catcher-pitcher battery is the emotional core rather than the ace, which flips the genre's usual camera. Tied with Diamond no Ace on the board and the better pick if you want psychology over spectacle.
6. Mix: Meisei Story — 7.12 adjusted
OLM, 2019, 24 episodes. Adachi's third entry here, set at the same school as Touch thirty years on. Lighter, warmer, and a genuinely good entry point for anyone who bounced off the 101-episode commitment.
7. Diamond no Ace: Act II Second Season — 7.04 adjusted
OLM, 2026, 13 episodes. The one currently on the field. Its second cours premieres October 11 at 5:30 p.m. JST on TV Tokyo and affiliates, 9:00 p.m. on AT-X, and streams on Netflix in Japan right after broadcast. Hideaki Ōba directs, replacing Mitsuyuki Masuhara; GLAY performs the opening "NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN" and OxT the ending "ROAD TO BE BLUE." Its 7.04 is the lowest here, but it is also the youngest board with the fewest votes in — the number will move.
Here is the second-cours promo:
Why baseball outranks most of the sports shelf
Two reasons show up in the data. First, length: baseball series run 50, 75, 101 episodes, and long runs let a cast earn the ending, which is exactly what our Quality axis rewards. Second, the sport is turn-based. Every pitch is a discrete decision with a readable consequence, so the tension can be built out of strategy instead of animation budget — which is why a 1985 series still scores 7.75.
Compare that to the broader field on our sports anime ranking, where the top entries lean on spectacle to carry the same emotional load.
Where to watch baseball anime
Availability is genuinely fragmented and no single service covers the genre:
- Ace of Diamond Act II Second Season — TV Tokyo and AT-X in Japan, streaming on Netflix in Japan right after broadcast.
- Diamond no Ace and Ace of Diamond Act II — Crunchyroll carries the earlier seasons in most regions.
- Major and Cross Game — long out of the simulcast era; check regional Crunchyroll and HIDIVE catalogs, availability rotates.
- Ookiku Furikabutte — has moved between services repeatedly; verify before you commit to a season.
That rotation is exactly why we list platforms rather than steer you to one. For the wider October picture, see the fall 2026 premiere dates and the ranked fall board. If long-running series are your thing, the 80s and 90s anime ranking covers the era Touch came out of.
Frequently asked questions
Q: What is the best baseball anime?
A: Cross Game, at 8.13 adjusted on SenpaiRanks — the highest-scoring baseball series on the board, ahead of Major (8.03) and Touch (7.75).
Q: Where do I start with Diamond no Ace?
A: The 2013 series (75 episodes), then Act II, then Act II Second Season, whose second cours begins October 11, 2026.
Q: Is Major worth watching all six seasons?
A: The board says yes — S5 scores 8.12 and S6 scores 8.01, both higher than the 8.03 first season. It is one of the rare long runs that improves.
Q: What is the newest baseball anime in 2026?
A: Ace of Diamond Act II Second Season, airing at OLM, with its second cours premiering October 11, 2026 on TV Tokyo.
Q: How are these ranked?
A: By SenpaiRanks' adjusted Consensus score, a Bayesian-weighted rating from anime-native voters. We publish a second Quality axis alongside it, because "broadly liked" and "holds up" are different questions — and a single average, the way most sites do it, blurs them into one number.
Q: Are there baseball anime with female leads?
A: Yes, though none crack this board's vote threshold yet. Princess Nine and Tamayomi are the usual recommendations.