I realize that there is a danger of repetitiveness with some of my critiques of Yowapeda at this point.  In fairness we are something over 100 episodes in and that’s a lot of writing on my part – and I think, on the whole, the series has done an excellent job of varying its cadence over the course of that time.  It’s just that certain things are consistent – Onoda is always the beating heart of the show, Midousuji always a weirdly compelling freak, etc. – and this season, we’re seeing some patterns repeat themselves quite a lot.

One of those is, of course, Teshima’s rank incompetence as a captain.  I will say this – Izumida has a much easier job of it, given that he captains a deeper and more experienced team, and Midousuji for all practical purposes isn’t even trying to be a captain.  But that doesn’t excuse Teshima’s lapses in judgment – it just highlights the absence of leadership they result in that much more inescapable.

It’s also never really struck me that Kaburagi served much of a purpose in this dynamic.  All of the Sohoku cyclists are oddballs in their own way, but his combination of arrogance, cluelessness and modest ability makes his place seem especially dubious.  I’ve never escaped the notion that Sohoku would have been better off with Koga (probably as captain) and Sugimoto (though I admit that’s sentimental) on the squad, and that hangs over the events of this Inter-high to a certain extent.  The heart and soul of Sohoku will always be the second-year trio, but Watanabe-sensei’s insistence on giving the other three members so much focus detracts from the narrative impact on occasion.

What we see play out here on the second day really points up (again) the difference between this year’s Hakone and Sohoku squads.  As the quartet of riders who led the field take off with their three-minute head start (the one positive in Imaizumi’s ill-advised hero-ball move), Sohoku and Hakone have different priorities.  For Hakone it’s to re-form with Kuroda, who (obviously) finished well behind the others on day one but is apparently healthy enough to continue.  Sohoku has to play a sort of desperation card and try to race to the front and form up before Hakone can make up the ground waiting for Kuroda will cause them to lose (it’s worth nothing that Midousuji is riding basically solo through all this).

Hakone isn’t too worried, of course, as they’re rightfully confident that their five-man peloton can easily reel in the leaders in due course (especially given that this is the longest stage in the race).  But Sohoku – again – makes a fatal error and drops Kaburagi-kun.  It’s certainly possible that he would have been dropped anyway – he was clearly suffering, the weakest antelope in the herd.  But for TeshimAoyagi to allow him to slip away unnoticed is a shocking lapse in leadership.  Aoyagi even suspected Kaburagi was hurting, but rather than take up a place behind him and keep him in his sights, he turned his head back towards the front and let the little airhead drop off the train.

That leaves Sohoku in an even bigger pickle than the one they were in when this day started.  Onoda wants to go back for Kaburagi – naturally, he’s Onoda – but for once Teshima makes the right decision, and refuses to let him go.  Onoda is indispensable to any chance Sohoku has of staying with the leaders on the climb and beyond, Kaburagi is not.  Is it worth letting Aoyagi drop back and try to rescue Kaburagi?  That’s dubious in my view – abandoning him or sending Aoyagi back for him and both bad options, but if anyone is to be sacrificed it makes sense that it would be Aoyagi,  But the hard truth is, Sohoku is trying to keep up with Hakone Gakuen using effectively a three-man team – yeah, maybe Kyoto Fushimi is even worse off, but it just highlights what a huge advantage HakoGaku really has.

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