It certainly wasn’t the main focus of Hinomaru Zumou this week, but since I finished with it last time I’ll address it first – Kei appears to be done.  That Tsuji would be stepping in for him in the final certainly isn’t unexpected, though it is disappointing in that it means Kei will likely finish the anime without having won a bout.  That’s as may be – when a chibi like him goes up against 300 pound behemoths, you can’t really accept miracles.  But there are two elements that kind of bother me here.

First of all, while there’s certainly a fair amount of drama in Kirihito jumping back into competition in the key moment, having him steal a win at the last while Kei has been fighting and losing for 20 episodes would kind of feel hollow.  And the fact that Chihiro lost his bout increases the likelihood of that happening.  But it also bothers me that there was no attention paid to this during the episode whatsoever – no conversation, no emotional moment when Kei realizes he’s done, no dramatic music when Kirihito declares himself fit to fight.  It just sort of happens – you notice that Kei is nowhere to be found when the team is walking through the corridors, and that Kirihito isn’t wearing a shirt under his warmup jacket.  Even if it was logical, this was inelegantly handled.

The main focus of this episode, though, is Chihiro’s match against Eigadai’s Hyodo-kun.  Before that, Reina has a couple of nice moments in the dressing room – first when she (rightfully) metaphorically bashes the team’s heads together when they seem resigned to the team competition being secondary to boosting Ushio’s profile.  And second, when she tells Ushio “Have fun” before he heads for the ring.  Reina has had quite a turnaround – I was pessimistic about her character when this series started, but she’s had an unusually well-defined arc for a sports anime supporting character.

The added spice to the match is that Hyodo turns out to be Chihiro’s brother, a rather hefty bit of anime coincidence.  The manga chapters detailing this bout are called “Idiot vs. Idiot” and it’s easy to see why – the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with these two.  It feels as if Chihiro let Hyodo get into his head here, never having beaten him at anything while they were growing up – while both of them are unconventional sumo wrestlers to say the least, Chihiro’s approach at least seems a bit less haphazard than his brother’s.  But Hyodo has been at it for an extra year, and I suppose that makes a difference.

I can’t imagine all those head butts in sumo are healthy, though I couldn’t quite decide if something deeper was being foreshadowed by so conspicuously showing us Chihiro’s nosebleeds.  In any event it’s Chihiro’s lack of proficiency at those which starts his downfall, which finishes when Hyodo predicts his finishing move and turns the tables.  The first thing Kirihito says to Chihiro after he leaves the ring is “You could have won that bout”, and I’m inclined to agree.  Now the underdogs need to win two of the next three to get the match to the deciding Ushio vs. Sousuke bout with everything on the line – so which two will it be?  My money is on Kirihito and Shinya (and I’m almost certain of the latter).  We’ll see.