10 Second Anime - Yowamushi Pedal - Episode 25

Yowamushi Pedal - Episode 25

The checkpoint sprint finishes the winter season. Sohoku shows how strong its spears are. All sprinters are losers, until they win.

21 seconds. That's how long this episode was. Wait, you say it still took about 24 minutes? Oh, you forgot to factor in sports anime time dilation. In the span of 21 seconds, we have time for two character flashbacks, a forced metaphor for sharp and blunt spears, a long explanation on how Andy and Frank (Izumida's pecs) balance his sprinting strength, a visit with side characters following the race, all before we get to the sprint line, winning on feelings and brashness.

How do I arrive at 21 seconds? Near the end of the episode, as some cones blow across the road, forcing Izumida to touch his brakes, allowing Tadokoro and Naruko the gap as they plow right through the cones, Izumida says they're going 50 km/h. That translates to a little under 14 meters per second, and if the show starts at the 300 meter mark, they cover that distance in 21.6 seconds. If a Bleach episode can take 24 minutes to cover 5 seconds of a fight, I can say that Yowapeda is being generous with its time.

The flashbacks for Tadokoro and Naruko give us an understanding of how far they've come as sprinters. Sprinters lose a lot of races. There can only be one winner out of over a hundred guys in a race, so the rest are losers. But the sprinters all have that strong desire to be at the front even after losing. Very similar to Izumida not posting impressive times over the last year as he was building to peak for the stage race, except we followed Naruko from when he was this little tiny guy on a Pinarello frame too big for him, and Tadokoro getting extra strength training from Kanzaki and Coach Pierre.

When the cones blow across the road right before the line, Izumida has his opportunity to explain how Andy and Frank work, and why he's always talking about them. When the important part of a race is over in a few seconds, there's extreme focus on the path ahead, but there's no time to analyze it.

Instincts, and practicing to react to your instincts, are vital to the fast men. Such as reacting to sudden obstacles in the road. Sprinters, descenders, and motorcyclists learn not to focus on the obstacle, but to either side of it, because the natural instinct is for the body to aim at what you're looking at. For Izumida, his pectoral muscles serve as his instincts. Frank is the cautious one, warning him of dangers, and Andy is the reckless one, finding holes or gaps to shoot through. Both are necessary in jockeying for position in the final run of a bunch sprint. With their help, and a little touch of the rear brake, Izumida gets around his cone with barely losing any speed.

Unfortunately, a touch of the brakes right before the line is all you need to lose. Tadokoro and Naruko, proving that when nobody has any advantage over the others, it comes down to feelings, or passion, or who wants it more, take their feelings, and their blunt spears and ram right through the cones. Lucky for them, the cones had bounced high enough to avoid their front wheels, but that means taking the polyurethane right in the face. Tadokoro takes the sprint line by less than half a wheel length over Naruko. Big lungs beat aerodynamics this time around, and they both beat abs.

This week's cycling porn features our sprinters' bike brands, and a really small frame.

We've got shots of Takokoro's Specialized, Izumida's BH, and of course, Naruko's Pinarello, even the itty-bitty one. It's a good thing the actual race time was only 21 seconds, because there's no way those three guys could keep sprinting out of the saddle like that for 24 minutes. I dunno, maybe they could, but not at 50 km/h. Sprinters usually can only go into oxygen debt from going all out for about 10 seconds. Any longer than that, and they will pass out. During that effort, they're pedaling in excess of 130 rpm, and their heart rates spike over 200 bpm. Quite stressful, huh?