I’d be lying if I said that episode wasn’t a bit of a disappointment.  But not, notably, a surprise.  Just to reflect on what I wrote after Episode 8:

If I were a betting man, I’d say that izakaya scene is setting up a scenario where the E.D. and Mikoto make a “bet” where the team will be disbanded unless it wins the S/J League – which would be pretty on the nose, but still potentially entertaining.

And last week:

The one potentially off element is the business with the badminton-hating executive director.  It has the feel of tacked-on drama potentially, though that’s all conjecture at this point.

I take no particular pleasure in being right in this instance.  Because, of course, the implication there is that this was a very predictable turn.  That’s OK in itself, because it can mean a story is following the internal logic it’s set up for itself.  In this instance though the turn we’ve taken is kind of wearisome – a lot less interesting and fresh than most of what Ryman’s Club has done so far.  It feels, as I said, like tacked-on drama.  It’s not necessary for this to be a compelling narrative.  And what’s more, it’s played in much broader and lazier terms than the rest of the story.  The cartoon villain nature of the executive director character is the proof of that.

So, Ryman’s followed up probably its best episode with probably its worst.  But it was still by far the best sports anime episode of the day, so that’s all relative.  There were some good moments here – I enjoyed seeing the Saeki Brothers in action, forced to be the A doubles team against Unisics because Tatsu was on trial (effectively) for supposedly injuring an important client.  The little trick with Touya using Souta’s head as a screen for his smashes was clever if (I’m guessing) unrealistic.  The net-cord bit?  Well, I don’t know badminton but I do know tennis, and if that’s anything to go by the idea that a player could intentionally cause net-cord winners at will is pretty ludicrous.  But hey, it was still fun.

As to the whole courtroom scene, well, it wasn’t great.  The E.D. being able to get away with obviously fabricating the whole thing seems ludicrous (that word again) to me.  But then, I don’t know exactly how boardroom situations work here, never having been in one.  The caveat is that I do know that Japanese corporations are generally pretty awful, that due process is pretty much nonexistent, and that the preferred method of getting rid of someone (whether for just cause or not) is to shame them into quitting rather than fire them.

I would also say, for the record, that skipping over Usuyama-san’s first match with the team seemed like an odd choice – especially given that it was such an important one.  And double especially because his opponent, Misora-kun, had gotten some exposition and now presumably disappears from the narrative.  Sunshine beating Unisics 2-0 without having their top doubles team is unlikely to say the least, but clearly the series is saving the big expenditures in time and animation for the Mitsuhoshi match. They’ve been built up as the big bad all along but rarely seen, so they come into the final tie as something of a mystery team.  It does include Tatsu’s old partner Izumo, so that will presumably be one of the emotional crescendoes of the final two episodes.