"Gurazeni" is a work that depicts the protagonist, Bonta Natsunosuke, a left-handed relief pitcher, focusing on the real money involved in the professional baseball industry. As it depicts the real world of professional baseball so realistically, it has been highly praised by industry insiders and is said to have many avid readers among professional baseball players. Among baseball manga that have traditionally focused on the world of competition, "Gurazeni" is a unique manga that focuses mainly on financial accounting. In this article, we would like to introduce 10 charms of Bonta Natsunosuke, the protagonist of "Gurazeni". 
Source: Gurazeni ©Yuji Moritaka, Keiji Adachi/Sky PerfecTV!, Kodansha
1. He plays an important role as a valuable left-handed reliever.
Source: Gurazeni © Moritaka Yuji, Adachi Keiji / SKY PerfecTV!, Kodansha
Bonda Natsunosuke is a left-handed pitcher. He mainly plays as a reliever, using his unique sidearm pitching style. As a player, Bonta Natsunosuke is a left-handed sidearm pitcher, and taking advantage of the fact that there are only a few of them, he also plays an important role as a one-point pitcher for left-handed batters. Sometimes, the expectation is placed on left-handed batters, saying, "It's got to be Bonta." Although he is a reasonably skilled player, it can be said that the reason why Bonta Natsunosuke has been able to survive in the tough world of professional baseball is solely due to this pitching style.
2. His condition changes depending on the opponent's annual salary
Source: Gurazeni © Moritaka Yuji, Adachi Keiji / SKY PerfecTV!, Kodansha
As a pitcher, Bonda Natsunosuke has a fair amount of skill, but his pitching style changes depending on the annual salary of the batter he is facing. For example, he can easily hold batters who earn less than his own annual salary of 18 million yen because he can pitch down to them. On the other hand, when facing players with higher salaries than himself, he becomes intimidated and gets hit. However, when facing players with annual salaries of over 50 million yen, he is able to pitch with a more determined attitude, and is able to hold them off with a high success rate. His coach, Sakoda, has noticed this personality trait and, in a bad way, evaluates him as being suited to being a relief pitcher.
3. He actually suffers from the yips
Source: Gurazeni © Moritaka Yuji, Adachi Keiji / SKY PerfecTV!, Kodansha
Bonda Natsunosuke has an image of being skillful, suppressing batters with his control and curveballs, but there is actually one play he is not good at. That is, throwing a loose ball from a close distance to first base on a grounder to the pitcher, which always ends up being a bad throw. This is a common problem for real baseball players, and for Natsunosuke Bonta, whose specialty is pitching by forcing the batter to hit the ball, it could be said to be a serious weakness.
4. Familiar with the annual salaries of professional baseball players
Source: Gurazeni ©Yuji Moritaka, Keiji Adachi/Sky PerfecTV!・Kodansha
As a professional baseball player, Natsunosuke Bonta has an abnormal obsession with making money. He believes that being professional equals money, and he is very concerned not only about his own salary, but also the salaries of players on other teams. For this reason, he always carries a player directory with him, and he reads it during breaks in games, to the point where he can recite the salaries of first-string players from all 12 teams off the top of his head. In fact, it can be said that this salary obsession is affecting his pitching.
5. He actually has excellent athletic ability
Source: Gurazeni © Moritaka Yuji, Adachi Keiji / SKY PerfecTV!, Kodansha
Even though he is a professional baseball player, he looks like a dull old man, so he doesn't have the image of being agile, but he is a professional baseball player who has survived in a tough competitive society. Even though he is Natsunosuke Bonda, he has excellent athletic ability. One episode that supports this is when Natsunosuke Onda was playing soccer with the team staff at a casual moment, and even an amateur could tell that he had considerable skill when just lifting the ball with ease.
6. Think and make decisions with your own head
Source: Gurazeni ©Yuji Moritaka, Keiji Adachi/Sky PerfecTV!・Kodansha
Natsunosuke Bonta, whose first priority is to survive as a professional baseball player, sometimes receives advice from those around him, but he decides for himself whether to put it into practice and continue it. For example, he was advised by Kuriki, a senior pitcher who is now a scorer, to increase the power of his pitches, but Natsunosuke Bonta was worried that increasing the power of his pitches would cause his control to decrease, so he decided to give up on his obsession with pitch speed.
7. He can also play as a starting pitcher
Source: Gurazeni © Moritaka Yuji, Adachi Keiji / SKY PerfecTV!, Kodansha
Bonda Natsunosuke has been active as a left-handed relief pitcher for a long time, but he also has a handyman side, and when the team does not have enough starting pitchers, he can take on the starting role and safely end the game. Although it has always been said that Natsunosuke Bonta is not suited to being a starting pitcher in professional baseball, he is surprisingly reliable.
8. He has had the brains of a pitcher since high school
Source: Gurazeni ©Yuji Moritaka, Keiji Adachi/Sky PerfecTV!, Kodansha
The story of Natsunosuke Bonta's high school days is depicted as the "Nuts Edition," and even from this time on, Natsunosuke Bonta's pitching style using his head was characteristic. Although his pitching power was only moderate, he had excellent control and clever pitching, which caught the eye of a scout and led to him going pro.
9. Always thinking about what he will do after retirement
Source: Gurazeni ©Yuji Moritaka, Keiji Adachi/Sky PerfecTV!・Kodansha
Professional baseball players can receive an annual salary of tens or hundreds of millions of yen, but their actual working time is only a few years, or at most 15 years, so many players find it tough to make a living from a lifetime perspective. One of them is Natsunosuke Bonta, who earns 18 million yen a year. He is always looking at his seniors who have retired and thinking about what he will do when he retires and how much he will earn while he is still a professional.
Has achieved a 10.0 pitch save
Source: Gurazeni ©Moritaka Yuji, Adachi Keiji/Sky PerfecTV!, Kodansha
In his third season after transferring to Bunkyo Mopps, he achieved a "0 pitch save," which only two players have achieved in real professional baseball up until 2012. This record is quite rare, and is achieved in the final inning by substituting with runners on base and getting the third out without pitching to the batter, such as a pickoff attempt. Looking at it this way, we can say that Natsunosuke Onda is a man with a lot of talent.
Summary
Source: Gurazeni ©Yuji Moritaka, Keiji Adachi/Sky PerfecTV!・Kodansha
Natsunosuke Bonta is a man who struggles to survive in the harsh world of professional baseball while holding his own unique values. His charm is that while his main goal is to make as much money as possible, he somehow lives an upstanding life as a baseball player. We'd like to keep an eye on Natsunosuke Bonta, who is active in "Gurazeni," which was made into an anime in 2018.
