Well well. Fairly brief-ish episode. I must admit, I wasnt expecting these uh, plot twists. And dat preview. First half was largely just a fuji flashback, interesting to see him of all people changed his playstyle. The match itself was mostly glossed over, as was the second match. Funny because apparently the scene with watanabe was in the ed as well, I wonder if anything else from the ed is going to happen as well. The op is also pretty good I wont deny, neither the song or the visual is overly outstanding by itself but they make a decent combo.
So team usa, I dunno what to say, their match happened offscreen. We are told ryoma was playing and it was doubles, so uh. Come to think of it, when was the last time ryoma played doubles?? Definitely not in genius 10 (he didnt even play), new prince of tennis, and not in the nationals either, so it must have been an eternity(?) ago, if ever. Even in the main series anime during the kanto tourney, etc there was literally like only one doubles match. It does seem that, with new prince of tennis and genius10 the series seems(?) to be shifting towards doubles matches, whether its the cause or effect its hard to say. (Also rip all the players that got left behind)
Having three countries is kind of awkward, germany had very little screentime so almost all the screentime is focused on japan right now. Fuji and atobe plot twist aside, I wonder who will be next. Of course next ep we're getting both tokugawa and yukimura, so thats gonna be spicy, just left sanada and a few others. I'm assuming they will come back to fuji and atobe at some point as well, but depending on how many eps and the progression I'm worried about the tail end of the series.
Tezuka stomping atobe wasnt exactly surprising, atobe and irie played almost evenly and atobe knew he had no chance against tezuka even way back in the nationals. Even back in the original kanto tourney they were roughly evenly tied if not for tezuka's injury. Poor fuji forever living in tezuka's shadow. It seems they're conserving byodoin at least, and oni isnt shabby himself. Can japan (or say, usa) actually stop germany in the main event?? We might not even get that far. We still know basically nothing about team usa either.
At the moment im assuming the exhibitions will wrap up next episode, and then we should get to know the full format. Presumably we wont be facing germany again soon, so it'll be japan vs someone and usa vs someone. We have the swiss, australia, france and greece team so uh. And considering how large the japan team is. Not even sure how they're gonna fit everything, but there's still some episodes to go I guess.
Edit: Random extra comments. I havent paid much attention, but funny thing is apparently QP is voiced by mitsuki saiga. Otherwise.
The strange thing is the german names are announced in normal western order, but apparently watanabe is announced in western order. While all the other japanese players are announced in japanese order.
Ryoma and ryoga aside, how exactly is tezuka playing for germany again? Pretty sure he's not a german citizen, or did he?
Looking back at the episode ratio, majority of the ep was spent on fuji yeah. Oishi is primarily a doubles player but even then, there's only so much attention to go around.
Sanada, the other players, the high schoolers. Fuji also didnt play in the genius 10 so he's not had a full match since nationals. And who knows how the other format will be. Hell it could be a round robin for all we know (of course manga readers would know the format by now)
If the season really is only 13 eps it'll probably be cliffhanged like 2012, though im expecting it to be continuous matches like genius10/nationals/kanto tourney.
CocoaGalaxyJul 15, 2022 10:45 AM
