10 Second Anime - Yowamushi Pedal - Grande Road - Episode 4

Yowamushi Pedal - Grande Road - Episode 4



Fukutomi takes the sprint over Kinjou, and they share a personal moment of congratulation. Midousuji is shattered. The teams prepare for the next day.

Heh.

Man tears coming. Read this first. Watch the episode. Awkwardly tell your rival you're smiling as the tears flow.

You done yet? Me neither...

Fine, I'll write with bleary eyes. If there was ever a time for Elfman to shout "otoko!" this was it (Kinjou's voice actor is the same as Elfman from Fairy Tail). A year of hard work for Kinjou to overcome his injuries and build a team that could protect him in risky situations finally let him have his second chance for victory on the 2nd stage. For Fukotomi, having his honor regained with the man he wronged by his side, forgiving him and giving him a chance for redemption, made his joy and gratitude so strong, the tears had to fall. This is how men fight. This is how men struggle. Now they have a clean slate for the 3rd day.

Meanwhile, Midousuji was psychologically shattered. He had no one to share his almost victory. He experienced his loss where he should: alone, in the dark, in a corner, muttering to himself. He didn't even show up for the podium presentation, where he would have had his green and red numbered tags given to him. Just not the yellow ones that mattered.

We've been in pure sports anime action for 20 episodes. It's time for some levity and some recovery. Right Kinjou? Right Teshima? W-what are you doing?



Calm down fujoshi. Teshima is helping Kinjou realign his knee. They just need a bit of privacy...



Hah, it looks like the rest of the team walked in on an awkward situation, but they need privacy so the other teams don't see any sign of weakness.

Speaking of weakness, I liked how Makishima and Tadokoro showed a strong face to the juniors after a hard day, but amongst themselves, they just collapsed. They both had harder days than they thought they would have, with Tadokoro needing Onoda's help to pace him up the long climb with his heat exhaustion and Makishima doing Onoda's work of pulling for the team before he took on Toudou for the mountain points. That's bike racing, though. Your plans may all fall apart on the road.

Hmm.

There was a lot of foreshadowing for the aces on Sohoku and Hakone not figuring in the finale for the last stage. We've got Kinjou tweaking his left knee and we have Toudou telling Manami to ride his own style if the race plan falls apart on the hilly section. Of course, we have Midousuji telling his team that he's not riding the next day. He's not acting like his legs are injured, but I wonder if he's wearing that mask to hide his chipped tooth.

We've got another episode of downtime as Onoda volunteers to go to a convenience store to pick up tape and ice, which actually sounds bad for Kinjou's knee. I hope Fukutomi still has a chance to show off his plate spinning skills to his team after the third day. I heard he has a strong talent!

Cycling Porn.



We've got some good shots of Fukutomi's Giant, Kinjou's Trek, a Time and Kuota missing the time cut, and Naruko's Pinarello on the ground. Every stage race has a time cut, which is a certain percentage of the winner's time, usually between 10 to 15 percent. The hillier the stage, the bigger the time cut. I'm not sure how big a margin high school kids get, but in the Tour de France, even on days with huge mountains on them, the time cut is still usually less than 40 minutes.

Looks like Pocari Sweat still wants to do commercials for this show.

It's very poor form to miss a podium presentation like Midousuji did. Thomas Voeckler did that in the last race of his season, and he was fined 200 Swiss Francs. I'm curious to see if this show will mention any consequences that Midousuji would face from the judges. He not only missed the 3rd place presentation, but the Sprint Tag presentation too.