Going into Thanksgiving break I knew I wouldn’t have time to record much, so I kicked off a project to clean up all my intro movie recordings for the Power Pros AKA Pawapuro series on my YouTube. As the fruit of that labor, this is the ~definitive~ ranking of these powerful intro cinematics.
Not every mainline Pawapuro game has them, since the early Super Famicom games basically only had short title screen animations. But over time these grew and grew into bigger and bigger productions, often with an anime studio credited for the work.
The basic gist is usually the same: Our mouth-less, leg-less, bald(?) main character Pawapuro-kun dreams of baseball greatness. He has a rival with nice hair. And the intro always has to show at least one player from each pro team in the game. Otherwise you might think Konami disrespects the Hiroshima Carp. When nothing could be further from the truth.
These are theoretically ranked from my least favorite intro (which is still pretty alright) to the tear-jerking face of God brilliance of the best of the best. Though really I’m just making a big disordered list of intros and talking about ’em. Let’s go:
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu ’97 Kaimakuban
- Some text and one rendering with a little bit of animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: I love the spooky 3D Pawapuro-kun. An intense and weird little cartoon character.
- Power Cons: It’s just barely more than a title screen and arguably shouldn’t be on this list at all!
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu ’98 Kaimakuban
- Some team-specific player renderings and funky background animations. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: The PS1-era pre-rendered Pawapuro-kun sprites are all my best friends. And the chubby guy calling his shot on the title screen is fantastic.
- Power Cons: If you’ve only seen these two intro videos, you’re wondering why anyone would care enough to make a list of these. Feel free to skip to the bottom-most one on this page and spoil yourself, then come back up here later.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2009
- 3D animation. No vocal theme (though there’s a little bit of background vocal).
- Power Pros: Nice animation quality and good baseball action scenes.
- Power Cons: Clearly a step back from the anime-style intros used over most of the PlayStation 2 lifecycle. I like the visuals, but the soul is gone on this one a little bit.
Jikkyou Powerful Major League (2006)
This was the first MLB-set spin-off in the Pawapuro series, despite still only releasing in Japan.
- Mixture of 2D and 3D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: I like MLB, and I like Power Pros. And I like the announcer saying “Powerful Major League.”
- Power Cons: My least favorite music of any intro on the list. The visuals are all over the place, blending different styles. Maybe I’m just blind to it as an American but I don’t get a lot of USA flavor in this first U.S.-set Power Pros game. At this point in the series all players get the same face, so the American players in the intro aren’t very recognizable outside of Ichiro (and I guess that’s Smoltz pitching for the Braves since he’s number 29).
MLB Power Pros 2008
- 3D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: I dig this music a little more than the other Power Pros games for instilling an “American” vibe. The animation quality is really nice compared to the other PS2 games on this list.
- Power Cons: The whole intro is showing off real MLB players with no nod towards the storyline of these games (or their main character, who had a cameo in a U.S.-released kart racing game!)
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2000 Kaimakuban
This is for the PS1 game. There’s also a game just called Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2000 for the N64 with a different intro, later on in this list.
- 3D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: Yabe, Ikari, and Pawapuro-kun running around beneath the stars is goofy fun.
- Power Cons: Where are these silly guys up to exactly?
MLB Power Pros (2007)
- 3D animation. It’s got a song with lyrics, but I can’t find anyone giving it a title or an artist. Have a look through the credits if you like.
- Power Pros: Giving each pro a semi-distinct look was a new innovation for the series in MLB Power Pros, and only in the U.S. version! The Japanese version of this intro turns them all back into Pawapuro-kun clones with different skin tones. Eventually this would be brought back into the main series across all regions, and I think it’s a clear improvement. I would like to recognize the players! And I’m interested to see artistically how they reproduce the likenesses in this minimalistic, almost LEGO-y way.
- Power Cons: The entire intro is showcasing different real-life pros, which is cool but missing part of the magic of the series. You can play as Derek Jeter in any old baseball game, but other games don’t have Success Mode! So I wish there were a little more acknowledgment of the Pawapuro of it all.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 4 (1997)
This is the first game on this list, and the first N64 Pawapuro game. Each intro cinematic has two roles: Show that every pro team is in the game, and hint at the Success Mode story content in the game. This one actually split the two items into totally separate intro cinematics, with the second one only playing if you leave your N64 on through the first intro and some demo gameplay without ever hitting start:
- 2D sprites, illustrations, and 3D stadium models. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: The music for both intros is great. I like the look of the stadium models. And the chubby old Pawapuro-kun design reminiscing on all life’s obstacles is pretty good. Did his manager beat him with a fungo bat?
- Power Cons: The first intro going through each team is a little too straightforward. It’s almost an upgraded version of the R.B.I. Baseball / Famista intro.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 6 (1999)
- 2D illustrations throughout.
- Power Pros: Great art, fast animations, good music, lots of story characters shown off.
- Power Cons: Too ashamed to stick with the pastel color scheme through the whole intro. And the real con is my lack of Pawapuro Success Mode lore knowledge, so I hardly know who most of these guys are.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2001
- 3D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: The baseball action scene at the end is about as good as they get. That would be an absolutely screaming line drive to the wall though. Love the slow-mo play at the plate.
- Power Cons: Not sure I really get the spooky industrial jazz stuff at the start. The PAWAPURO gradient text at 0:32 is pretty hard to look at.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu Switch (2019)
- 3D animation. Not really a vocal theme but it is ska.
- Power Pros: Ska is fun. We’re all here to have fun.
- Power Cons: Like the game itself, Treasure Mode is not a replacement for Success Mode and that reflects on the intro.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 15 (2008)
- 3D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: The thumbnail moment above with Pawapuro-kun doing a bizarre stance in front of a wall of pyro… That’s what I like.
- Power Cons: I don’t mind the jazz rock music thing, and its little references to the old Pawapuro themes, but I want lyrics, dang it.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu ’99 Kaimakuban
- 3D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: A twerpy little gremlin version of Pawapuro-kun skittering across a Japanese town. That’s what it’s all about right there.
- Power Cons: I’m tired of writing “no vocal theme” on these so far. Let’s get a singer in here for the next one.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 13 (2006)
- Anime OP-style intro. Theme song is “ONE” by Megumi Oka.
- Power Pros: Good overall animation quality and a good theme song. Best single frame is this with Hiroki Kuroda and the Carp’s former ball dog Mickey:
- Power Cons: The story of the intro seems to be basically “Pawapuro-kun is playing in a pro baseball game,” which doesn’t exactly bring a tear to my eye (unlike some of the later intros!). The game seems to end with Pawapuro-kun hitting a sayonara home run, though it’s weirdly subtle about showing it.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 14 (2007)
- Anime OP-style intro. Theme song: “Shining Road” by Maki.
- Power Pros: Includes Power Pro versions of Masahiro Tanaka and Shingo Takatsu. Also, give me any anime where a mysterious pitcher dramatically steps out of a bullpen car:
- Power Cons: I don’t get much out of the storyline in this one. A mysterious pitcher who looks like the main character approaches… Then he is revealed to be… The main character!
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2000
This is the N64 one. There’s also 2000 Kaimakuban for the PS1, which has a totally different intro.
- 2D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: I’m simply not used to the N64 looking this good. There’s not a lot of actual animation happening here, but these zippy screen effects and nice 2D illustrations make me think of a Game Boy Advance or DS game. A nice way to work around fuzzy low frame rate N64 textures is to avoid using them entirely.
- Power Cons: I mean it really is a lot of Flash movie-like effects juggling a bunch of static illustrations of a baseball guy around. But what’s not to love about that.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 5 (1998)
- 2D illustrations and 3D stadium models.
- Power Pros: Your fave baseball game could never rock a pastel aesthetic like this. Pawapuro-kun is serving looks, and every shot in this intro is begging to be someone’s Win95 wallpaper.
- Power Cons: Music’s just okay. Nothing but a list of the pro teams and showing what their stadiums look like. But still!
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 7 (2000)
Konami was cooking in 2000: This game came out on PS2 while separate full games came out on the PS1 and N64 the same year, and all three had different intro movies.
- 3D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: This one’s got that shonen anime over-the-top action and drama. Pawapuro-kun hits apparently a walk-off home run with a full count and two outs, at the national Koushien tournament, deeeep to left field. His bros come out to celebrate but he’s frozen, intense, staring out to where his rival Ikari managed to catch the ball in a tunnel in the outfield stands. His team may never officially win the game because this rivalry is too badass and intense for him to run the bases.
- Power Cons: The animation quality is a little primitive-looking now, though it’s got its charms. The music is pretty generic.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 12 (2005)
- 2D animation. Theme song is “Sorairo no Kiseki” by Kyoya Asada.
- Power Pros: I like the scoreboard graphic aesthetic thing. For a game about professional baseball, these intros rarely show as much urban environment stuff as this one.
- Power Cons: Feels like the animation quality is a step below most of the other 2D anime-style ones. And the song is only okay.
Jikkyou Powerful Major League 2009
- 3D animation. It’s clearly got a vocal theme but it doesn’t seem to have an official name anywhere, or a long version. ‘Tis a shame.
- Power Pros: Really sad that this was a Japan-only swan song for the MLB spin-off series, because this intro nails it. The lyrics are goofy but I’m into it. Chipper Jones, Albert Pujols, and the gang look perfect.
- Power Cons: Only the sad reality of a missed opportunity. And the fact that this game is only on PS2 and Wii despite coming out three years after the PS3’s release.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2010
- 3D and 2D animation. No vocal theme.
- Power Pros: This is the first PS3 game on the list, so hey, the resolution is nice. I love the screen time Yu Darvish gets. The callback to the earlier Pawapuro game themes is really nice.
- Power Cons: It’s a mish-mash of current pros and quick snippets of Success Mode characters without anything really tying each part together.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 10 (2003)
- 2D animation. Theme song is “Catch Up Dream!” by ASACO.
- Power Pros: Unreal level of animation. Really good theme song. I like the detail of the fan diving out of the way of the home run ball, letting it bounce off of his seat in the bleachers.
- Power Cons: It’s one of those where the storyline is just “I was part of an exciting baseball game” but at least we see the full walk-off celebration here.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 8 (2001)
- 2D animation (made by a real anime studio whose name I forget). Theme is “Little Soldier” by Chihiro Yonekura.
- Power Pros: I would pay $20 more for any Pawapuro game that includes a vocal theme. And the animation quality is really nice.
- Power Cons: Do not under any circumstances pause the video on the brief second of 3D animation flying over a stadium. There’s a reason it zips past you in under a second. Also wow Japan, way to go not including any teams in the whole north half of your country back in 2001.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 11 (2004)
- 2D animation. Theme song is “Pride” by Sumitada Azumano.
- Power Pros: This one stands out to me because of the cool male vocalist and I like Pawapuro-kun as a pitcher. The thing where he’s visualizing his high school rivals as he gets ready to pitch in the pros works for me.
- Power Cons: Love the song but it’s a little less catchy for some reason. Every time it starts I’m like “Oh yeah, I forgot about this one! I should listen to this one more often.” Then I never do.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2012
- 3D animation. The theme song is “Chance!” by Noriyuki Watanabe.
- Power Pros: Great animation. Nice song. Sick bat flip.
- Power Cons: Blends in a little amidst all the others. The story of the intro is Pawapuro-kun hits a pinch hit home run and looks cool.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2018
- 3D animation with some 2D bits. Theme song is “Brand New Sky” by KOCHO.
- Power Pros: The PawaFes cruise ship setting makes for a bright, colorful intro. The song is good.
- Power Cons: No major faults, but doesn’t hit the highs of some others on this list. Just a nice little cinematic.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2020
- 3D animation. Theme song is “Aoi no Kanata e” by Kaon Kokudo.
- Power Pros: Gorgeous visuals, really nice song. Feels like every character in the game shows up at one point or another.
- Power Cons: The intro is maybe a little too focused on this edition’s airborne PawaFes mode and opera singer character guy. PawaFes is a super-fun mode and it does have a storyline, but it’s not the most emotionally resonant thing in the world IMO.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 9 (2002)
- 2D animation. Theme song is “Tomorrow~Mirai e no Tsubasa~” by Keiko Horiuchi.
- Power Pros: The animation quality goes up another notch for this one. Great overall sense for a story, from ragtag group of idiots to Koushien champions. The song rules. Any intro where Ikari is the rival instead of just another buddy is a plus for me also.
- Power Cons: Beats me. This one’s killer.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2013
- 3D animation (mostly). The theme song is “Start” by Chiaki Seshimo.
- Power Pros: Nice storyline to the intro with pitcher Pawapuro-kun getting shelled in spring training and working his way into a job, then the close-up on a ball that says “My dream: To become a Pro” at the end.
- Power Cons: Nah this one’s just great.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2011
- 3D animation. Theme song is “Ready, Steady, Go” by koh-ichiroh. There’s a slightly different version of the intro for 2011 Ketteiban.
- Power Pros: The triumphant return of vocals in Pawapuro intros, and with probably the catchiest song of the whole series. The animation is colorful and dazzling. And I’m a sucker for any intro that briefly touches on the dating/marriage aspects of Success or MyLife Modes. The brief wedding scene sends this one over the top.
- Power Cons: These intros are all gravy from here. I have no notes. I’m done with talking negatives.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2016
- 3D animation. Theme song is “Never-Ending Tale” by Yui Mugino.
- Power Pros: This one’s got my personal favorite OP theme, with the “P-A-W-A-P-U-R-O 2-0-1-6” part being singalong-friendly for English-speakers. And the animation is non-stop visual splendor. Show me this intro movie on an OLED screen on a loop for the rest of my life. Ohtani shows up again briefly. What’s not to like.
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2014
- 3D animation with some 2D stills. Theme song is “Link” by mao.
- Power Pros: We have entered the potential tearjerker tier of this list. The song is perfect. The implied cycle of the ball being hit to a boy not unlike Pawapuro-kun in the outfield stands gets to me. And the pro player references are really cool, especially this double Ohtani:
eBaseball Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2022
- 3D animation. Theme song is “Gunzouka” by Panno Mimimi. There’s a music video for the song if you’re interested.
- Power Pros: They left it all out on the field for this one. It’s hard to imagine a more definitive intro for the series than this one. In two and a half minutes, a full Success Mode-like storyline is conveyed. Pawapuro-kun joins a ragtag group of high school dumbasses and through sheer will and the power of friendship, seeks to achieve their goal of making it to the Koushien national tournament.
Triumph! They won their prefecture tournament and made it to Koushien! The team manager (not the head coach but like, the coach’s student helper) flips through her scrapbook, crying lightly. She flips from page to page: Made it to the tournament! My first hit at Koushien! Then, we lost. This isn’t some crazy story. We’re just starting to be a good team, so of course we didn’t win the whole national tournament.
But that’s it, time’s up. Pawapuro-kun has to graduate. He hands the ball over to the new team captain to carry on his legacy. The scrapbook closes, with a new goal written on it: To win the whole thing next time.
This one’s got it all, for me. Great intro. Great series.