Look, it’s no secret – this subplot isn’t doing it for me.  I don’t care about either of these characters much – Teshima certainly, and Ashikiba not much more.  This is going on way too long – way, way, way too long.  There must be a subset of fans who disagree with me or, I suppose, Watanabe-sensei wouldn’t pursue this course.  But at this stage I’m pretty much checked out until they clear the summit checkpoint and one (Teshima, most likely) or both of them drop out.

What really irks me, though, is that I could swear we’ve been through all that stuff this episode.  I know we’ve had 5 seasons spread out over a decade or more so I don’t remember every detail, but – didn’t we get this whole AshiTeshi backstory already?  I guess we’ve had so many boring Teshima flashback episodes that they’re running together in my mind, but this one had a strong sense of deja vu about it.  In any event I can only hope next week is the end of it, one of them gets the polka dot jersey and they reaffirm their love for each other, and the plot moves on to stuff – and people – I actually give a flip about.