Baseball Victory Journey

Baseball Victory Journey is an Japanese baseball shonen/seinen baseball manga series written by Terada Meiji and illustrated by Yabuta Megumi (the second manga series done by the duo). It started being serialized in the summer of 2003 in Weekly Shōnen Sunday by Shogakukan and went on hiatus starting in January 2008. The series returned in February 2013, now being published in Ultra Jump by Shueisha.

Two anime series were produced, one was a original story to promote the manga (as well as to cater to international audiences) in 2004, while the other one was an adaptation of the manga starting in December 2013.

Manga
The manga was first pitched in October of 2002 to Shonen Sunday, with a pilot chapter written and illustrated. Since Shonen Sunday and Meiji/Megumi were on good hands and were almost finishing up with their first collaboration Time Warriors, and thus started their first (and only) sports manga series. Due to declining interest in 2006, Meiji/Megumi announced that they would put the series in hiatus for a few years, until the time is right. Meiji/Megumi would announce a few years later, in October 2012, that starting in the February 2013 issue of Ultra Jump, due to Meiji's partnership and recent close relationship with Shueisha.

First anime
In November 2003, Shonen Sunday, Meiji/Megumi and OLM announced that a 52 episode anime based off an original story (focused in America) while also having some cameo moments from the characters will be made to air in international markets. The show will start airing in the spring of 2004 in Japan on AniNick (now SurgeAnime). MLB Advanced Media and Viz Media announced in 2004 as well that they will start producing a dub of the anime, outsourcing the dub to NYAV Post and Ocean Studios. The anime was shown on multiple sports networks in the early morning (4-5am, 5-6am, or 6-7am). The anime was received mixed, with praise towards the story, and music but criticized the characters, voice acting, and animation. The critics blamed it on MLB wanting to push the anime right after the end of the 2004 World Series, that made it into a bad quality dub.