10 Second Anime - Yowamushi Pedal - Episode 20

Yowamushi Pedal - Episode 20

Manami makes the Hakone Inter-High squad. Makishima's house is huge. Tadokoro records TV old-school.

We take a little side trip to Hakone Academy to see what the favored team is up to. The Inter-High race is a 3-day event, all around Hakone's training roads, so it's no surprised for them to be the favorite, plus being famous for their cycling team anyway. They're deciding on their 6th man, and they have a playoff between Manami and a strong 2nd-year. Manami's given name is Sangaku (山岳), which means mountains, naturally. His childhood friend, who introduced him to bicycle riding as a way to get over his sickliness, is trying to get him to do his makeup homework. She'll help him, of course, but it's not like she's doing it because she wants to! But Manami has a bit of club duties before he can do that, which is beat the 2nd-year on a straight-away ramp because he can tell when a tailwind is coming. Tailwinds give you wings!

Manami is like an angel, sigh... as if I needed another reminder that this is a popular show with the fujoshi. Manami has to win anyway, otherwise his Onoda bromance will end up never going further than promising to give each other water bottles. Did that last bit sound dirty to you? Just asking. For a friend...

Meanwhile, we find out that the Hakone guys are pretty funny with each other, and like making fun of Toudou, the climber. He's getting a little worried about the attention Manami is getting, and is beginning to notice a dip in his new girlfriends per week rate. Manami only cares about feeling alive on the bike, however, much to the frustration of his childhood friend. S-she doesn't have a c-crush on him,  i-it's just someone has to take c-care of him like she's been doing since grade school! Yes, we believe you... but now you have extra competition between his "Lock" bike and Onoda. Poor thing.

Thankfully, we get back to the Sohoku guys, and the Big Three 2.0 along with Tadokoro are paying Makishima a visit. Apparently his family is pretty rich, and while Naruko and Onoda ogle at the house, Imaizumi is nonplussed and thinks it looks like a normal house. Makishima is hilariously protective of his family's belongings and comes off as a neat-freak. This does not translate to a sense of style. Best line: "Only his right sleeve is blue..." Imaizumi is a little more impressed when they get inside the house and the kitchen appears bigger than his own mansion.

Anyway, they're visiting to watch something Tadokoro has recorded on videotape. He's old-school like that. They get everything set up, and it turns out they're looking at a college Road Relay, not a bike race. Huh? Tadokoro says to pay attention to the road, because this foot race's course covers the hilly portions of the Inter-high course. Their plan is to get to know the roads around Hakone better than Hakone Academy does. Witness the scary preparation Sohoku is famous for! And Hakone is only Day 1 of the 3 day stage race. They want to make sure they don't get caught out like Hakone's captain did last year and crash out, because that crash also took out Kinjou, their own captain. The Big Three 2.0 now have a taste of the stakes the Big Three care about, and their rivalry with Hakone Academy. Revenge!

This week's cycling porn features some different bike brands, more food, and DVD's of road races.

We've got Manami's Look, of course, but we also have a Giant, a Bianchi, a BH, and a Kuota. This time we have a Calorie Mate Block, instead of the jelly, and some DVD's of the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, and something recorded on 10/20. What's that last one? Oh, just the Japan Cup, a classic one-day race, usually the last pro race of the year. The last one, on October 20th, 2013, had Mick Rogers of Saxo-Tinkoff as the winner, his only victory of the year. That victory might be taken away, though, because he tested positive for clenbuterol after the race. He claims contaminated meat from China caused the positive because he raced the Tour of Beijing just prior. Clenbuterol is used mainly for livestock to gain lean muscle, but doping endurance athletes use it to trim fat. Alberto Contador tried to use the contaminated meat defense for his 2010 Tour de France doping defense, but his title was stripped along with all his other wins for a 2 year period after.