バッテリー 1

A slice-of-life about a talented young pitcher who moves to a new town and meets a boy who can catch his pitches. The first volume can be read as a stand-alone by itself, but if you enjoy it there are 5 more in the series. The story is more about the characters than the sports, so you don’t need to be a baseball expert, but it helps to have some familiarity with baseball.

In general Asano’s writing style is straightforward and uncomplicated, at least for the descriptive passages. However, it’s set in a rural town in Western Japan, and only 3 characters speak standard Japanese. All the local characters use dialect. I found it helpful to read over the grammar explanations at kansaiben.com

(EDIT) This isn’t a fast-paced book. Vol. 1 covers maybe 1 week in time, exploring the psychology of the characters and their relationships. I’d say the main theme is about the protagonist starting to break down the wall around his emotions, and so sometimes 20 pages might go by with vague conversation and the protagonist fumbling through his disorganized, incoherent teenage thoughts that he himself doesn’t understand and can’t express. If you’re reading at the pace of 5 pages per hour, that’s probably going to be very frustrating.