One thing I’ll say about Tsurune: it has a distinct pattern of following up mediocre episodes with good ones.  There are a few more of the former than I’d like (which is why I like this series rather than love it), but that’s a nice quality to have.  I always feel as if the wait for something better to come along is manageable – especially since the second half of the first season, when the show pretty much leveled up to where it is now.

As I’ve said before on more than once occasion, the less conventional Tsurune is the better it is.  Part of this ep was pretty conventional, but it was at least a fresh sort of convention for this series (and very well-executed).  The other reason this episode really clicked is that it featured a lot of focus on the nature of mentorship, which is what Tsurune does better than anything else.  There are gazillions of sports series and school life ones, but series that really care about teaching and do it justice are pretty darn rare.

The conventional part here, of course, was the girls and the Kyoto city tournament.  That was very genre-driven but the fact is, the girls have been plugging along for almost twenty episodes and had almost no real showcase moments.  I’ll be frank, there’s no way I would even have been able to tell you their names (Yuuna, Noa, and Rika), because they simply weren’t treated as important enough for me to remember.  When they said “we’d be happy for you boys to come and support us” I was sure as hell glad there was no pushback – the girls have been supporting the boys team pretty ceaselessly since the very beginning.  It’s pretty much literally the least the guys could do to be there for them here.

To their credit, they were – and quite enthusiastically at that.  There was nothing groundbreaking in the girls’ performance and their back story was handled via flashback, but you can’t compensate for two seasons of neglect in twenty minutes.  I’m just glad when they finally got their moment it was really entertaining.  And plot-relevant too, though one might quibble that their performance (3rd place) is mainly here to help the bros get back on track.  They rose to the occasion and displayed the ikiai the boys have been lacking.  I hope there’s room in the narrative for the girls to have a few more tournament appearances.

No question, watching the girls so in sync was an eye-opener for the boys.  Especially Minato of course, who’s been grinding hard trying to take what Masa is teaching him to heart.  Also in attendance at the event (which may have been at Shimogamo Jinja, though I wouldn’t swear to it) was Saionji-sensei.  She was Minato and Sho’s first real teacher of course (she refused Seiya, ROFL), and Masa and Morioka-sensei know her well too.  There’s a lovely scene where she and Minato catch up while waiting for a taxi, and after he recounts his struggles she tells him of a man she once met who used the Shamen Uchiokoshi style who she refused to tinker with – who I assume was Nikaodou’s teacher (father?).

It’s no surprise that Masa-San would choose this moment to take the handcuffs off Minato and let him back onto the range.  The boy kept up his end of the bargain, hard as it was.  I really liked the conversation Masa had with his brother Ren – “I’m enjoying seeing the kids get better.  Way more than I ever enjoyed getting better myself”.  If you love teaching, you get it.  Masa is the teacher every young aspirant in their chosen art or vocation needs, but so few are actually lucky enough to have.  I’m sure the summer festival at his shrine is going to be a classic showcase for KyoAni artists gone wild, and I look forward to it.