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MLB's Latest Anime Ad Imagines More Baseball Superheroes — Set to Ado's Music
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Hot of the heels of its anime collaboration with ufotable, Major League Baseball unveiled a new anime ad showcasing players as heroes with larger-than-life abilities — starting with Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Paul Skenes, and Juan Soto.
The end of the video teases even more players, easily identifiable by the names and numbers on their jerseys. MLB has dubbed the campaign as "Heroes of the Game," and promises more videos on more players as the season develops.
Great Britain's Passion Pictures and Japan's Echelle Studios animated the ad with Hiroshi Shimizu as the animation director. Shimizu's works stretch from Studio Ghibli films in the '90s to recent hits like Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece Film Red, and Pluto, MLB took care to emphasize that the staff "hand-drew every scene" in the campaign. Singer Ado lent her talents to the music.
MLB's previous anime collaboration saw some famous players animated by ufotable in the style of Demon Slayer, even down to the anime's Urokodaki commenting on the evolution of Japanese baseball. That collab tied into four Tokyo Dome exhibition games and two regular games on March 15 to 19 to mark the start of the MLB 2025 season.
