10 Second Anime - Yowamushi Pedal - Glory Line - Episode 21

Ashikiba positions Yuuto for the sprint finale. Imaizumi breaks through his limiter.

Line.21 - "Limiter"

Hmm.

Remember last week when I said that I hoped we weren't setting up for three climbers to fight for the win on the last stage? Welp! The only question is whether it's going to be Manami also trying to beat Yuuto as he tries to beat THE NATIONAL CHAMPION OF JAPAN, or whether Midousuji will last a little bit longer to the finish line than last year. Anyway, Yuuto will be the protected Ace heading into the last day of racing no matter how the sprint unfolds next episode.

One thing that bothered me about Imaizumi's breakthrough is the same kind of thing that bothered me about Midousuji's backstory with his dying mother. For Midousuji, we were introduced to this fluffy ball of light which represents his mother's love and affectionate praise whenever he won a race and he showed off his trophy to her at the hospital. This was an image we could have used much earlier in his character development so that we didn't totally hate him by the time he cracked his tooth by losing the 2nd day's final sprint to Fukutomi and Kinjou. Onoda's time with him on the last day mitigated a lot of that hate, so now he's just a predictable character with established traits, but at the time, the humanization flashback felt like a waste of time and was too obvious in trying to manipulate the audience's emotions.

Here for Imaizumi, we've only got the one small conversation he had with Miki about something wrong with his legs. And they keep repeating it too. So we know that the pressure and responsibilities of being a mentor made him feel like he couldn't allow himself to be selfish in going all out for wins. This is all fine, but then we got this image of a black shell covering Imaizumi that he shattered. What the hell was that?

The images of we've been shown of his limiter all dealt with his legs. He pointed at his thigh while talking to Miki and Komari felt his thigh before the first stage and noticed something off. But then in the middle of the final sprint we get this black brittle sludge he broke through. This felt like a generic image of cracking an eggshell, but we have no context for it. Plus, we never saw anything related to this kind of image in the past. Something better would have been some kind of bands around Imaizumi's thigh muscles finally snapping, or something like that, since we've only seen references to his thighs during the foreshadowing for this limiter breaking. This was a stumble in storytelling that could easily have been avoided.

Heh.

Continuing on from last episode, Ashikiba is going to put Yuuto some knowledge!

Yuuto thinks Ashikiba is an airhead motivated by rage? Hardly.

Look at Ashikiba's eyes. Cold. Calculating. He doesn't mind rubbing shoulders with Yuuto either.

Nice. Ashikiba wants Yuuto to pick up his litter if he wins.

I love this stuff. Seeing a brash upstart getting knocked down a peg.

Well, that wasn't even close. Ashikiba thrashed Yuuto. He even beat him at his own game by riding him into the gutter.

Ashikiba really is an airhead though, just not about music, cycling, teamwork, or tactics. Or hair length, apparently.

So, here we go. Back to racing. Ashikiba had a plan!

One of the rules of Hakone's Interhigh team is that everyone can be the ace. Ashikiba just made an audible to make Yuuto the ace!

And he was as sneaky about it as Midousuji! He even fooled Yuuto.

Oh, so now Yuuto listens to Ashikiba. He should have done that for the mountain sprint line.

Oh ho. Yuuto is discovering what amps his older brother up for the sprints. Peak Hornet is turning into Sprint Hornet.

Ah ha. He's attacking the sprint like he attacks a mountain top. Lots of variable stop and start attacks to draw out his opponents and tire them out. Of course, there's not enough time in 400 meters to do all this yapping about it.

Calorie mate chewing, just like his brother. He needs a kapow move right about now.

Midousuji doesn't like Hakogaku doing all this faking, fooling, and feinting. That's supposed to be his bag! Yuuto is on his radar now too. He's calling him gross! That's phase 1 before he starts calling him by his first name.

Imaizumi attacks while all that argy bargy is going on between those two lovebirds. That's how you do it.

Look! Girls! What kind of cheering is Sugimoto doing? It's like he's lecturing Imaizumi to do his best.

Imaizumi is finally going to get a power-up. Please let it be related to how he likes to hear only the wind by being at the front. I'm not holding my breath for that one, considering how they just gave him some black sludge to crack instead of dealing with his legs like all the foreshadowing did. Maybe the superpower will come from there?

And cliffhanger at 150 meters with Midousuji about to uncork his next oddball technique. Right on schedule so far.

Har. Now it can be told! The reason Yuuto bought that mask was to hide his bad haircut.

Special K gets his turn for the end card.

Cycling Porn.

This week, we got lots of loving looks at Ashikiba's Willier Triestina, Yuuto's Cervelo, Imaizumi's Scott, a bit of Midousuji's De Rosa, Shimano and Campagnolo brake levers, and some coasting by Yuuto.

I was once asked by a beginning rider after a long descent which foot I put forward while coasting downhill. I had never really thought about it before then, because I was always concentrating on the road in front of me and moving my feet around depending on which way the next turn was going to take me. I realized that I stick my right foot forward, because that's my dominant foot which I use to push off from a standstill, since I keep it clipped in when I put a foot down for a traffic stop. If you have to suddenly start pedaling again on a long straight downhill, avoiding a rock or a pothole, or sudden change in gradient, it makes sense to have your push-off foot forward for that first down stroke.