I guess there could hardly be a less surprising development than “Bonda can’t catch a break” in the  Gurazeni-verse.  But I was still a bit surprised with some of the directions this week’s episode charted.  Bonda was at the same time quite familiar yet someone who we’ve never seem before, which I suppose one could take as a sneak preview of what it might be like if he ever became a legit famous ballplayer.

What was familiar here is that when Natsunosuke gets in trouble, it tends to be of his own making.  He makes a big deal of how untalented he is but in truth, it’s clear this guy actual has a lot of ability – he’s great at analyzing situations, knows the game of baseball encyclopedically, and has pinpoint control.  But on some level there’s a fundamental lack of belief in himself, which he uses the salary issue (“I can’t get out guys who make too much more than me”) as a convenient cover to avoid confronting.  Maybe that lack of belief is why he felt compelled to hammer a “jolt” of Yamazaki in the men’s room before his first radio appearance.

Or who knows, maybe he was just really nervous.  In any event that tipple proves to be a big mistake, though it’s a stretch for me to believe a 20o-pound (I’m guessing) man would be effected that strongly by one swig of 80 proof whisky.  Tokunaga has gotten Bonda the gig as a favor to help build his profile (and motivation), and he’s on the panel with two other middle-relievers.  The surprising part here is that this is after the Japan postseason (the “Climax” series) and Japan Series (“World Series”) are over.  I’m not sure I feel about that happening off-screen – for a baseball series that’s actually kind of shocking.  And it leaves me feeling a bit cheated.

What happens in the studio is pretty straightforward.  A nervous and tipsy Natsunosuke starts saying things he shouldn’t – some of them self-deprecating bits about how much he sucks, which the director finds amusing.  But then Natsunosuke touches a third rail in Japan, publicly discussing your salary – this is just not done, and apparently ballplayers’ contracts are not common knowledge as they are in the States (or at least, the lack of discussion means most fans don’t know them).  This really knocks Toku-san and the team PR guy for a loop, but the genie is out of the bottle here and Bonda can’t put it back, digging even deeper griping about his panel-mate’s foreign – almost always German – cars (a sign of ostentatious wealth here).

The kicker comes when Bonda says the Japan Series is “dead” – on the grounds that the only “real” Japan series comes when the Central and Pacific League champs meet in the finals.  In the modern era of wild card baseball, that doesn’t always happen.  If this argument seems familiar it should – traditionalists used the exact same one to argue against the wild card for decades in America, and now use it in sour grapes.  It amuses but does not surprise me that this debate exists in identical form in both capitals of the pro baseball world, and the argument is a valid one from both sides.  The problem is that as a member of a league champion that lost to a wild card team in the Climax series, coming from Bonda it sounds like sour grapes.  And compounding it is that a pitcher from the WC team that beat them – the Tempters – is sitting next to him (and pissed off).

Lots of interesting elements to be sure.  Is it sour grapes, or really what Bonda thinks?  And more importantly, does this debacle have fallout (at least it will give him a bit of fame, or infamy) for Natsunosuke’s career (and all-important contract talks)?  It seems as if Bonda did quite well in the Climax series, allowing no hits or earned runs – but he did allow a bases-loaded walk which allowed the series-winning run to score.  In Japanese baseball walking a premium hitter with the bases juices is far more acceptable than in MLB, especially when – as in this case – his team has plenty of time to even the score.  But this is Bonda – of course he gnaws at this bone till his teeth are worn, and blames himself.  Next week takes a turn to the romance side of the story, but it sounds like another setback ep for our everyman hero.