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Enter Watanabae Wataru’s cycling geek persona…
There are times when I wonder if a keen interest in road race (especially grand tour) cycling isn’t a major component of enjoying Yowamushi Pedal. It’s obviously not a prerequisite given how popular the series has become – I’ve been seeing it advertised at pachinko parlors and host clubs now – given that very few people follow cycling as a competitive sport. The answer, I suppose, is that there’s plenty here with the strong cast and sharp humor to keep folks hooked in anyway, but Watanabe-sensei’s love for the minutiae of the sport definitely shines through in episodes like this one.
I don’t know if we can call Midousuji a good guy now, but he’s clearly been supplanted as the chief adversary by Machimiya-kun and Kureminami Tech. Machimiya is creepy in a totally different way from Midousuji, who’s like a Chimera Ant – Machimiya strikes you as a guy who sits in his van and takes pictures of kids on the playground. He made a highly skeevy introduction by hitting on Miki (and maybe worse) and if he didn’t manage to cop a feel then, he certainly did so with Kinjou and Fuku-chan.
Are we to make anything of Machimiya’s talk of “stars”, and his ability to suck out the lucky ones from anyone he touches? Well, this isn’t Majimoji Rurumo and I’ll assume this really amounts to a good job psyching out his opponents – it seems to work on Kinjou in fact (though Sakamichi is too blissfully sincere to be snared) and indeed, Machimiya shows himself to be a master manipulator when he takes charge of the peloton later. But make no mistake – the BS he pulled at the start line was horrendously bad sportsmanship if nothing else, as bush league as it gets (though I suppose it doesn’t compare to yanking someone off their bike when they pass you).
Once the race begins, the strategy component Watanabe loves so dearly really kicks in. Kinjou’s orders are the same as day two – regroup the team as quickly as possible – and in this case, Sohoku and Hakogaku have a shared goal, and their trailers cooperate to draft each other up to the leaders. This is indeed quite normal in tour racing, and especially given that the third leader, Kyoto Fushimi, has already lost a third of their team it makes even more sense for Hakone and Chiba to team up. Was Ishigaki a part of that group the Sohoku and Hakogaku riders formed to catch up? I didn’t see him there – though if he was able to hang on to the pack, there’s really nothing they could do to stop him. At best Midousuji would have one lieutenant while Fukutomi and Kinjou would have their full teams, so this alliance is a win-win for both teams.
The headline, here, though, is the even bigger alliance Machimiya forms with the main peloton. They’re fifteen minutes behind, a huge number – but he is right that the larger a group, the more speed they can generate over long distances. Is it realistic for them to catch up on this day of racing? If the day is long and hard enough, I would guess it might be possible – the psychological pressure of a huge pack of riders (depicted here as a giant snake, swallowing up the breakaways) getting closer and closer can wear on a breakaway group.
While the inter-high is a three-day race, in many ways it seems to behave like a very long single-stage of the Tour de France. While the winners of the first and second days get to keep their advantage in the next day’s start times, they’re almost like groups that have broken away from the peloton on one of those long days. The Peloton will slowly start to reel them in – sometimes from much father back than 15 minutes – and on a flat stage, usually catch them. But this is a stage with mountains, and at that point the wheat will be separated from the chaff. And I suppose that’s what Machimiya – whose team was good enough for a podium finish in the last inter-high – is planning on. Use the peloton to catch the leaders on the flats, then leave the bulk of them behind on the climbs.
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Omake:
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whemleh
November 11, 2014 at 2:26 pmThat snake sequence was sooo odd. I know Yowapeda skirts realism at best, but that was such a strange thing to see. I could not take it seriously at all. Fine episode otherwise though. And yeah, Green is a creepo. I kinda like that there's another team in the running, though. It feels more right that there are more than just the two left..
Are the omakes all anime original? I wonder if there's any coincidence that they've been stepping up the bromance in them lately..
admin
November 11, 2014 at 2:45 pmWell, the snake thing was just symbolic – it's not like you were supposed to think there was an anaconda in the race or anything.
whemleh
November 11, 2014 at 2:50 pmYeah, it was just such a bizarre choice that I was left going "…what?"
admin
November 11, 2014 at 2:52 pmHeh, I have to say it sort of worked for me. If you see the faces of guys in a Tour de France breakaway when a huge peloton has reeled in a huge margin and almost caught up, it really is like they're about to be swallowed by a giant beast.
Rita
November 11, 2014 at 7:11 pmI like to call that fujoshi bait.
Like YowaPedal is good enough without it, but seriously there's no denying that a large amount of the DVD sales comes from the female fanbase XD; Ah the curse of every shounen sports series ever, I swear. Although if it gives good series the chance to gain popularity and keep going, I'd say it's fine.
And to be completely fair, I'm just as guilty of jumping into some really good sports series simply because one of the my favorite artists draws pretty pictures of guys from it WHOOPS
Setsuken
November 11, 2014 at 5:51 pmI've followed cycling races before, and I was actually quite impressed with how Yowpeda upped the stakes on the third day with Machimiya and his whole group manipulation thing.
Although I think the last season did a disservice in some ways by showing that little preview at the end of the three riders. I'm so excited for that bit, that I kind of wish we'd get some traction on that front, and see how things get to that point.
If anything, the whole Machimiya thing seems like a bit of a distraction. I personally wasn't too bothered by the snake imagery myself. Anime can use visual aids like that to dramatize stuff as long as its interesting XD
Linuss
November 11, 2014 at 11:50 pmthe ultimate bush league award goes to blondie for grabbing onto another rider. and yet somehow blondie and kinjou are now best friends. it doesn't make sense for the story to go that way except to move the plot to where it is now.
Rita
November 12, 2014 at 6:43 amStretching some things a bit, but it is shounen and to be fair Fuku-chan seems to have been utterly disgusted with himself too for doing something like that. Then he spent the entire next year dedicating himself to becoming someone who wouldn't have another moment of weakness, so I give him a pass on character growth.
Kinjou and him being buddies can seem a bit silly given that Kinjou got the worst of it, but considering the kind of guy he is, he doesn't seem like he would hold grudges. I guess it's best summed up as the type of person they are now seem like the type who would be pretty good friends.
Plus like, shounen runs on the power of friendship man. I've seen crazier turn arounds in my shounen manga reading career.