One of the hallmarks of a really good sports anime is that it can do an all-competition episode and a no-competition episode, and have both be compelling.  That’s the past two weeks on Overtake!, and it passes the test.  I’ve already accepted that not many English-speakers are going to follow this show –  it’s just not the sort of sports anime that gets much attention outside Japan (MF Ghost is hitting that crowd harder).  But for the specialists among us who wait impatiently for this sort of series to come around, it’s a cause for celebration.

This episode is all about Haruka and Kouya, with a side helping of Sae.  Haruka’s commercial is out, and it closes with Kouya’s candid shot of him crying in arthouse fashion.  This is on Sae of course, as she was the one who showed it to the client without Kouya’s (and by extension, Haruka’s) permission.  And despite Haru’s understandable discomfort it might even have been for the best, in the end.  A racing team is a business, even in the shallow end of the pool like F4.  But it’s still something of a violation of the boy’s trust, and it’s Kouya that he holds responsible.

What we have here is a good old-fashioned bromance, mentor style.  Kouya is wounded and burned out, Haruka is angry and self-loathing.  Each have their reasons, though the other party doesn’t know them.  Kouya can offer Haru experience – of how the money-driven world of the media works.  But in return he gets a sense of inspiration and purpose that’s been missing in his life since- well, since the incident that’s finally revealed this week.

Haruka blocking Kouya is quite a blow for the latter (though it’s actually Satsuki that’s responsible).  That doesn’t stop Kouya from trying to protect Haruka at his next commercial shoot.  The client wants to show him up on a winner’s podium, but Kouya understands that Haruka would never go for that, and why.  He never even tells Haru about this, which Sae informs the latter is very much his style.  When the client tries to strong-arm Kouya into taking over the photography side of the shoot, he bails, the pressure of the moment too much for him.

Sae takes it on herself to explain to Haru (who she’s never even spoken to before) why Kouya is the way he is.  She may claim she has no idea what his Kouya’s good points are, but that’s clearly a lie – and she still has feelings for him.  His trauma all stems back to 3/11 (which I speculated might be the case way back in week 1).  He was in Tohoku on a shoot when the disaster happened, stayed behind for months to help out, and eventually released a photo he’d taken of a girl about to be swept away by the tsunami.  That brought down a firestorm of criticism on Kouya and the rest is history, as it were, but I’d like to know more about the circumstances surrounding this photo (and perhaps we will, eventually).

Kouya is obviously a guy who’s too nice for his own good, who lets himself be carried away by the emotion of the moment.  Haruka seems like the opposite if anything (which is why that photo was so compelling).  But he has his reasons, and his involve his father’s death in a fiery crash.  Haruka blames himself for pushing his father too hard with his relentless cheering for him, and makes a very wise statement for a kid  – “All I know is when we cheer for people we’re not doing it for them.  We’re doing it for ourselves.”  This is basically true as far as I’m concerned, though you rarely hear it framed that way.  And it suggests the double-edged sword that is the nature of fandom.

So we have two nice but troubled guys in search of redemption here, each filling a void in each other’s lives (merely being another father figure is surely a way Kouya can impact the situation).  In the end each seems likely to figure out that they have to do what they’re trying to do for themselves – Kouya can’t do it for Haruka, and Haruka can’t do it for his father.  That’s a rock-solid basis for this sort of relationship., and this sort of relationship is a rock-solid basis for a sports series.