I think this season of Tsurune has been pretty good on the whole. More consistent than the first, if perhaps not reaching the same heights at at its best. But it does work at a disadvantage, I think, in that it’s recurring drama centers around Nikaidou rather than Minato and Masa. He’s not a main character, first of all, and inherently a little harder to care about. It also doesn’t help that his arc is written in pretty heavy-handed fashion – there was a lot more nuance to what was happening to Minato.
The whole dynamic between Nikaidou and Shigeyuki (his uncle) feels a lot more conventionally “dramatic” than the Masa-Minato relationship, and not nearly as organic. Nikaidou isn’t all that likable to put it bluntly – we’re shown how he got that way, but he’s still kind of a pill. His whole grudge against Minato and Shuu is completely misguided – they had no notion of anything going on with Shigeyuki. But you don’t have a season without it. It’s a little forced, and that’s a bit of drag on the season as a whole for me.
Was Nikaidou really willing to let his teammate cheat (albeit said teammate didn’t know it was cheating) in a practice match? Well, it kind of seems that way. I guess that’s not out of character but it’s the sort of thing that makes it harder to feel much sympathy for him. Fuwa-sempai is the only one who seems to try and get close to Eisuke, and here he’s consorting with the enemy. He agrees to answer Minato’s inquiry about how he deals with Tsujimine’s whack but effective ikiai in exchange for Minato asking Shuu if he knows why Nikaidou is nursing such a nasty grudge.
That exchange leads to a little Heike Monogatari reference – Natsu no Yoichi and the famous “arrow and the fan” incident. Fuwa sounds mystical enough, though TBH I couldn’t make much sense of it. Meanwhile Masa and Nikaidou have yet another encounter, this time in the bath (Masa was in there first, so no stalking implications this time). Masa lets it slip that he once made 211 shots in a row – which even to a noob like me is clearly a pretty impressive feat. Masa is being Masa, trying to nudge Nikaidou off the path of self-destruction he’s on, but this is a lot less receptive audience than Masa had in Minato (and still has).
The whole elevator thing was, again, a little forced. Especially when paired with the timing of Eisuke getting the news about Shigeyuki collapsing and being taken to the hospital. Eisuke doesn’t want help, and he doesn’t want guidance – and I suppose that won’t change until he’s forced to confront life without his uncle (which it’s foreshadowed he may have to do by the time nationals roll around). Tsurune doesn’t do villains (as I’ve noted before), but it’ll be interesting to see if Eisuke gets a total redemption by the time the end of the season rolls around.
