If nothing else, I can now go through life knowing what a “lona” is thanks to Burning Kabaddi.  It’s now popped up twice in this series, though the lona this time was taking by the opponents, Kouyou (it’s kinda funny that the character Sakura goes to Kouyou).  That’s why it kind of surprised me that Date and Misume didn’t seem to know about it – it was their own team we saw use it before.  It’s either a continuity error or a memory (mine) error.

What we’re seeing now, I think, it a bit of a lull symptomatic of the problems of a long-running sports manga being crammed into one cour.  All of the stuff we’ve been getting the last few weeks – introducing rivals and opponents, bringing in new team members – is purely setup material.  But because Shakunetsu Kabaddi is ending in two weeks it has to be the destination, not the journey.  And on some level that doesn’t quite work.  This is still an entertaining ride but the only material that really had weight was Tatsuya’s personal journey and his mentor-disciple relationship with Ojou.

In the fullness of time, Sakura and Kouyou could probably become compelling enough characters.  And the new team members might too (Seki actually gets a chance to play in this match after the captain is injured).  But we’re just not going to get enough of them to find out.  I’m not sure the series had a choice in the matter – it had to move beyond Tatsuya at some point.  But there’s a reason series like this were never designed to run for one cour.

Nevertheless, the match itself has had moments of interest.  We got to see Sakura perform the kabaddi equivalent of a nutmeg – they call it a “Dubki”, apparently, though why I have no idea.  Tatsuya tried out his new signature raiding move – a full-speed 90-degree turn, which he executes successfully despite musing that he still has another layer he can unleash.  In fact Nokuin rather dominates the early stages of the match, building an 11-2 lead – but Ojou is forced to sit after a tackle attempt by Sakura.  This is when Kouyou performs their lona, an interesting bit of strategy – giving up 4 points when already 7-2 down in order to get Sakura back on the court while Ojou is missing.