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Wait…no way…notes are back? Are you serious? What’s going on here? This is a miracle! But yeah, we’re finally bringing this particular format back. I don’t know why I stopped in the first place, but stuff happens. Now it’s back, and you should expect it for weekly anime or manga chapters. Now, let’s get things started!
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What happened in Ch. 38: Sakurai and Misora butt heads on whether she should play in the match again despite her swollen knee. This moment eventually leads to Misora having to deal with Hayami, and Sakurai having to deal with Ryu.
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Chapter 39 Summary: Ryo confronts Sakurai and admits he can’t understand what’s going on with him and his team because he hasn’t had to deal with that. He then says, after pointing out how “good” Misora is, that people are free to enjoy what they want, all while recounting his experiences as a lacrosse player and the number of people who lost their enjoyment of the sport and burned out quickly. Teruki shows up and ends up calming Ryu down. This exchange eventually aids Misora, as she manages to convince Sakurai, based on what she believes what results mean in sports, that she can play again. But she joins in with her team down 5-1; what exactly can Misora do with only 9:28 left in the second half?
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My Take: I’d like to think that I’ve hit on the main challenges of playing a sport while writing about Cross Manage — you know, how you always want to win, you have to try and play for fun, all that jazz — but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised the manga itself decided it wanted to jump in on that by first deciding to flashback very briefly to Chapter 1, but this time to the aftermath: what did Misora do after she yelled at Sakurai and walked way? Well, it seems she let it affect her more than we thought, and this type of question is right in Ryo’s wheelhouse. Remember, Ryo is a top college lacrosse player, and has played the sport for a good while. That means he’s seen some talented players, and he’s also seen talented players lose their enthusiasm for the sport. What sucks for him is that because of their failures, they take out their frustration on him by saying he wouldn’t understand. Did he have to understand? Not really. Not everyone is going to make big in sports, or in anything really. Things change. And Ryo is the one who can’t answer for those who enjoyed playing lacrosse but soon gave up, but he can say it’s because they tried to get serious with it that they lost their fun, but then lost their way.
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That said, Kaito failed to make me think Ryo was feeling anything. I mean just look at that face! Does that look like the face of someone who’s contrite? Instead, he looks angry, but not the good kind of angry. I wonder if Kaito just struggled to give an emotion to him because I can assure you, this just looks pretty silly. I know you can draw Kaito, but this was not your best moment.
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Otherwise, Misora’s response to what Namine and Sakurai said about sports being a results oriented business is the best answer and conclusion to that statement. It is true sports are a results oriented business — it literally starts at the high school level, where if you perform well, you’ll get scholarship offers from big time colleges. It then progresses to the college level, where if you perform well there, you’ll get drafted really high, and then paid really well. Of course, from there, you have to perform well enough so you’re not out of the league by then. But for the player, you can only worry about trying to play to the best of your ability not only for yourself, but for your teammates and your coaches. And eventually, the more you want to win, the more you want to play at a higher level. Basically think of your favorite sports player (if you haven’t watched any sports, think of one you’ve heard about) and imagine how hard they’ve had to work, then realize that they just wanted to win more than anybody else. That separates the ones who try vs the ones who are scrubs. This of course is not accurate, since not everyone can make it, but Misora’s response is probably the correct response in this situation.
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But that being said, exactly what in the world is she gonna do with the amount of time left in the game? All I know is that when she said “I won’t lose”, I can only guess that’s in retort to the fact that Namine claimed she would take all the fun out of Misora. Either that or Misora really believes they can win. This is the part where we say, send help!
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