I’ll be damned if Yowapeda didn’t cross me up again with this double episode thing.  I knew it was running behind this season’s other series, and it’s not on a short episode count for a two-cour like Fumetsu no Anata e.  So I guess it’s not surprising as that ground had to be made up somewhere, and so it was.  We should be on pace to finish normally at this point, so I’m guessing it’ll be back to a single ep next week.  But I’ll be checking before I start watching, you can believe that.

The first of these episodes is basically Naruko’s swan song.  It sucks for him to not finish the Inter-high two years in a row, that’s for sure.  But he wouldn’t necessarily have expected to finish it as a sprinter – now, as an all-rounder, it’s a different story.  But the dream of riding three abreast across the finish line was just that, a dream (sorry Makishima).  In road racing teams exist for one purpose, to help their ace finish first.  There may be some question as to who that is with Sohoku, but ultimately everyone not destined to be that ace is expendable.

With Chimera-kun having opened a 150-meter gap someone had to be the sacrificial lamb.  Unless Sohoku wanted to wait for Hakone and try to reel in Midousuji as a quintet, which I thought they might opt for even if that would have been a high risk strategy.  No, it’s basically Naruko using everything in the tank to drag his teammates back to the leader, knowing he doesn’t have to worry about finishing the race.  He even throws away his water bottle and saddle (that has to get expensive) to save weight.  I’ve never seen a rider actually do that but hey, it makes good drama.

Meanwhile, the three Sohoku alums are driving at the head of the race, having barely beaten the race officials’ car before it closed the road to traffic.  Along the way they pick up old frenemy Arakita Yasutomo, now of course a college teammate of Kinjou-san but previously HakoGaku’s vice-captain.  Notably, Arakita is the only Hakone rider we see this week (apart from recycled footage).  But truthfully there’s no way Manami isn’t going to be involved in the drama before it’s all said and done.  Kuroda may not be falling on his sword yet, but his role is as clear as Naruko’s – he’s there to do whatever he can to get Manami onto the podium.  At some point he’ll spend everything he has to do so and fall back.

There’s plenty of action between Midousuji and Imaizumi, for whom he seems to have a particular disdain.  Some of that action is full-contact cycling in fact, which plays pretty fast and loose with the rules of the sport, never mind the unwritten ones.  But to me the real drama here is inside the Sohoku team.  This is personal for Imaizumi, and that’s fine and all.  But he’s assuming a lot here, and at some point as the sap was rising he started riding for himself.  Onoda became irrelevant.  And for all Chimera-kun talks about throwing away friendship (you can’t throw away what you don’t have, but never mind) Onoda-kun is the defending champion.  He’s the best climber and the race finishes on a steep climb.  Imaizumi is overstepping himself here if you ask me.

Before that, though, there’s one short downhill stretch.  And Shunsuke, having taken everything Midousuji can throw at him, attacks himself and carves out a three-second lead.  The blood has rushed to the head and he’s in the zone – but 4.5 km is a long way.  And fate decides to rain on his parade, a mountain shower hitting just as the pair of them hit the downhill.  If descending is all about sack and how many risks you’re willing to take, doing so in the rain is that times ten.  And as we know Midousuji-kun seems never to have seen a risk he wasn’t willing to take.  He’s a master bike handler but Imaizumi-kun is no slouch either, and very experienced.

Sakamichi, however, is not that experienced.  He’s a climber and not a skilled descender, wears glasses, and doesn’t especially like the rain.  His lieutenant (if we’re honest) has left him behind to stage a grudge match.  This is a real test for Onoda-kun, as that slip reveals.  Once again I wonder if he might not end up riding with Hakone, at least Manami, and catching up that way.  Whoever “summoned” that shower, it will pass – and so will the downhill.  When the final climb begins, Onoda (and Manami) would seem to be in a position to claw back a lot of ground in a hurry on an exhausted lead pair.  But they have to stay upright until it happens or it won’t matter…