I’m not sure if I should feel pleased at this week’s development or unhappy at this week’s development. On the one hand, this ended up having two characters with different mentalities clashing on how to solve a general problem. We have Misora, who’s insistent on playing despite her knee swelling, and we know that all that practice and the fact that this would be the last time she would be able to play with some of her teammates and opponents since they would be graduating would end right here. We then have Sakurai, who’s already dealt with knee issues and is also the manager of the team. He has to take into account a number of things, but his experience with his knee only clouds his judgment as to how to take care of Misora, and hence, why there’s a struggle with what to do Misora. This is also actually realistic: there are always stories in sports where players try and do whatever it takes to get back and play, just to not let their teammates down or to be with them, win or lose.
This moment provides the impetus for Hayami, who I’ve had my issues with, and Ryo to actually feel like they’re involved in the story for the first time and not actually useless. This also leads to the real goal of facing Choran: to experience the moment. Fujioka is now down 4-1. There’s no way they can come back and win this game, unless Kaito wants to get the readers to quit reading his manga forever. But their hard work in getting to this point, the tough practices, and all that team bonding, and now Misora can’t experience it with the members she’s been with? That might be even tougher than losing this match.
But what makes me unhappy is that it resorted to using Sakurai’s injury and then magnifying it to a degree where it felt cheap. From the players commenting about that to Sakurai himself, something about it came across as weak, story-telling wise. The issue I think is the case is it happened at this moment, this stage, and after Sakurai had trained her properly so she wouldn’t be getting these sorts of injuries. Yeah, in a live match injuries can happen so it’s not his fault but considering the goal was to see how Fujioka would be after losing to Choran, to get Misora injured then to highlight again Sakurai’s past after it has been built up so many times, I find this pretty disappointing. Is this really how the story would go? What happened to making sure the lacrosse was focused on? This is what makes me go, what exactly will the next chapter bring?
And no really, that’s what I wonder. It seems like Misora’s gonna try and play, but it also seems Sakurai’s going to once again confront his fears with Ryo. I think now you wonder if this event will take the fun out of Fujioka, and then also wonder if Nanime will accept that to be the case. Otherwise, I think the only expectation I have for next week’s chapter is for this match to finally be over. Yes, I’m starting to think with this development (and the fact that they rushed through the match) that this match will finally conclude. Will this happen with Misora on the field or Misora on the bench?
…Eh, who knows.
