Yowamushi Pedal - Episode 19
It's time to catch up on classwork, and catch up on slice-of-life jokes. Onoda feels the weight of the team jersey, but realizes he doesn't carry it alone.
The cycling team spent a week away from school, so that means an even worse hell than 1,000 kilometers awaits them: make-up lectures. Before the classes start, they have time for Miki to notice that Imaizumi and Naruko have gotten stronger, maybe even grown a little. Naruko says that Miki has grown for sure... Smack! We haven't seen Naruko make a breast joke since the
5th Episode. It's been too long, too long *sniff*. Miki compliments Onoda too, and he gets really nervous like a good otaku should. Imaizumi and Naruko are still riding that train that they're not close, yet they're joined at the hip. Keep denying it, guys. Give the fujoshi some inspiration.
Their last period of the day is English, and their lecturer is Coach Pierre! Well, it's Mr. Pierre while they're sitting at their desks. Now we have his circumstances revealed, about some random gaijin hanging around a high school cycling team. That only took 19 episodes, but the payoff from the 1st-years' surprise was gold. He promptly tells them it's too nice of a Saturday to sit around; it's time to get on your bikes! Onoda lingers, because he's unsure if he made the inter-high team or not. Kinjou, back at training camp, had a conversation with him, and he was in the middle of rattling off all of Onoda's weak points, and then he got called away. You can't leave a socially inept otaku hanging like that.
It's up to Coach Pierre to finish the conversation. He tells Onoda, a safe strong team can get Kinjou on the podium, but to win, they need to be unpredictable. The course conditions themselves on race day are unpredictable enough, which is why you need a strong team, but if you have your own unpredictability, you can unleash that on the other teams. Onoda has already surprised Kinjou 3 times, by winning the mountain sprint at the Welcome Race, finishing 1,000 kilometers, and beating the 2nd-years in their sprint at the end of the 3rd night of training camp. With his climbing and fast-cadence chase, he can be their wildcard. Onoda's uncertainty evaporates, and he puts on the Sohoku team kit for their first training ride.
Unfortunately, socially inept otaku feelings quickly hit the backswing of the pendulum, and Onoda begins to feel the weight of his responsibilities for the team. Imaizumi is happy he can shift again, Naruko is happy he can get low in the drops again, but Onoda is not moving faster now that he has his regular light wheels again. The team jersey is weighing him down. The rest of the team makes it up to the top of their local climb way before Onoda does, and when they finally see him approaching, he looks totally bonked and about to crash in big gulley on the side of the road. Kinjou acts swiftly, pulls a radical maneuver employing countersteer and a pivot slide, and catches Onoda.
Kinjou tells Onoda how Team Sohoku works: if you fall, I'll catch you; but if I fall, you catch me. Road racing is a team sport, so you don't have to do it all by yourself. What you have to do is support your teammates with all your might, and they'll do the same for each other. This jibes well with Onoda's goal to ride with his friends, but now he's added riding
for his friends too. Onoda, fight-o! And we end the episode with an embarrassing team huddle in a rest stop.
Hot-blooded morale building, whether you like it or not!
