OP: “Keep going” by 04 Limited Sazabys

They (well, Joni Mitchell anyway) say “you don’t know what you got til it’s gone”.  But it doesn’t always work that way with anime, because by its very nature there’s always something new just around the corner.  And sometimes something old, too.  Every season brings new combatants for our attention, sometimes sequels to favorites past.  And we tend to forget about the ones we don’t hear from for a while.  It’s only natural.

With something like Yowamushi Pedal, it’s more appropriate in my case to say “you don’t know how much you missed it til it’s back”.  It’s been nearly four and a half years since we had any Yowapeda on our TV screens – “Glory Line” ended in Summer 2018.  That’s a very long time between seasons (though Kingdom had it beat, among others).  And it so happens that season was the series’ weakest in my view (and not just mine).  So it was easy to sort of forget about it, but never totally – we’ve covered a lot of miles together, this series and I.

Getting back into an anime after that long is always an odd experience.  What sometimes happens, though, is that I feel totally transported back to the person I was the last time I watched it.  It’s a sort of time travel, at least as close as we can get in the real world.  All of the things I associate with Yowapeda are in the past, but I really felt like I was too in watching this premiere.  I have a real connection with (most of) these characters.  And Watanabe Wataru has a unique perspective in his work – an earnestness which feels totally unforced, and which as a sports manga and anime fan I always found irresistible.

For me, Yowamushi Pedal ranks as one of my favorite sports anime.  I like it better by a notch than Haikyuu, a series against which it’s often compared and whose fanbase has a lot of crossover with Yowapeda’s.  Cycling is pretty much unique amongst sports manga in that the sport it depicts is one a majority of adults still practice.  Naturally most of us aren’t racing up 9% climbs and taking screaming downhills at 80 KPH, but we still ride our bikes and even feel like we’re kids again sometimes doing so.  That’s a reason why I find this series so relatable, but no doubt the biggest is the tireless terrier at its (enormous) heart, Onoda Sakamichi.

One of the reasons why Glory Line didn’t quite live up to the first three seasons (especially the first two) is that it didn’t have enough Sakamichi.  Or indeed enough of the entire Sohoku team – much of the time the focus was on their rivals.  It also doesn’t help that the departure of the charismatic Sohoku third-years (especially Makishima) left a gap that’s never really been filled.  And certainly not by Teshima and Aoyagi, for me the two most uninteresting members of the cast.  With Limit Break covering the third and final day of the inter-high – yes, one day onscreen was 51 months off – my hope is that at the very least Onoda and Sohoku hog much of the glory in “Glory Line”.

Given that tremendous disparity in elapsed time I won’t bust the series’ chops for a bit of recap by explanation at the beginning – there wasn’t much choice.  Indeed, we dive right into the third day, which finds the riders going off the starting line in the order in which they finished on Day 2.  This is a team road race, though – the high school equivalent of a grand tour – so it’s not realistic for one or two riders to try and break away and hold out.  That means the focus is on team dynamics, and at the start that gives Hakone an advantage with their two riders at the front versus only Imaizumi for Sohuku and the unforgettable Midousuji-kun (who won the final sprint on day two) for Kyoto Fushimi.

Under the circumstances, it makes sense for Ashikiba and Shinkai-minor to at least try and run away.  That means it’s critical for Sakamichi – second out of the gate for Sohoku – to catch his teammate as quickly as possible.  Mizuta of KyoFushi starts at the same time, but Chimera-kun’s strategies are always opaque until fully enacted.  Rather than try and stay with the Hakone pair Shunsuke is smart enough to wait for Onoda, who’s as reliable as it gets, and then chase them down as a duo.  The remaining team members of the big three schools are well back, but Sohoku and Hakone form a pact to cooperate (exactly as they would in this situation) to reel in the frontrunners.  This comes as a shock to resident lunkhead Kaburagi-kun, who’s never seen team tactics play out in a road race before.

As always Kyoto Fushimi’s plans are a mystery, but Chimera-kun always has one.  He’s really grown on me, a fascinating take on an athlete so single-mindedly committed to winning at all costs that his villainy becomes sort of heroic.  I’ve missed him – I’ve missed all of these loveable goofs, Sakamichi most of all.  And missed Watanabe-sensei’s guileless charm and honesty as a writer.  The gang is all back together, including legendary director Nabeshima Osamu a Pedal-er since the beginning, and it feels great to draft in their slipstream again.  Hime, hime.

ED: “PRIDE” by Novelbright