More than ever this season, Gurazeni seems to be a deconstruction of professional baseball. Specifically, if anyone was laboring under the impression that this was a glamorous sport, the series is intent on disabusing them of that notion. Piece by piece it’s showing the hardscrabble reality of the baseball industry – the challenges faced by everyone involved in it. In fiction most undertakings tend to be glamorized, but if anything one wonders if Gurazeni is doing the opposite here – making things seem grungier than they really are.
In this case the focus turns back to Toku-san, Bonda’s home prefecture buddy and color commentator for the Spiders. He works with the majime play-by-play man Matsumoto-san, who’s been impressed by the hard work Toku has put in – not just in researching baseball and preparing better, but becoming more well-read and erudite generally. He’s made such a good impression, in fact, that the director at the radio station promises Toku that his contract will be renewed, no problem.
We already knew that the color man was near the bottom of the totem pole in the NPB world – an ex-player working part-time and dead-lucky to have a gig. Toku’s dream is to eventually parlay this job into a coaching position with the Spiders, but that’s going to require a few years of impressing. Still, his success and the praise he’s receiving makes Toku confident enough to finalize plans with his fiancee Akemi-san, and to finally introduce him to Natsunosuke and Yukio.
Unfortunately for Toku, life ain’t fair, corporate weasels are everywhere and he’s so far down in the pecking order as to have no clout at all. So when a prominent ex-manager named Jinno-san becomes available as a color man, Toku is the one jettisoned to clear salary space for him. Being too much of a coward to tell Toku himself the president fobs the job off on the director, and being too much of a coward himself (especially after having spoken out of turn and made a promise he couldn’t keep) he passes it on to Matsumoto. But Toku is off in the mountains at an onsen out of wireless range, and eventually Matsumoto drags Natsunosuke along to tell him in person.
What all this boils down to, really, is validation for Bonda’s view that a ballplayer like him has no time to bask in the glory or enjoy the ride. For superstars it’s different, but for players like Natsunosuke it really is a race against the clock – earn as much money and clout as you can while your body holds up, because life for an ex-ballplayers can be a real struggle. As for Toku, he winds up missing Matsumoto and Bonda and leaves for Guam for a pre-honeymoon with Akemi blissfully unaware of how his fortunes have changed. Life certainly isn’t fair, but while one suspects that this is going to end up working out for Toku after all, seeing Akemi’s reaction when it looks bad is going to be a real test of their relationship.
