Ok, remember when I wrote my final notes of Cross Manage? When you thought I was done with the series for good? Joke’s on you!…Of course I had to cover the special one shot. I mean, I wrote about the series for a good couple of months, so might as well. I left all my criticisms/praise in that piece, so I’m only keeping things to the one shot. Ok? Excellent. Now let’s get this party started.
- Summary: Sakurai and the Fujioka Girls Lacrosse Team is preparing for the Autumn Tournament, so in order to prep, they’ll be having a training camp. One problem: Ryu finds out about it and immediately changes things up, and has everyone go to the pool — all except Misora, who’s still has an injured knee. With Sakurai telling her not to do any physical activity, she avoids him whenever she sees him, making him feel bad about having Misora sit out, and only makes him hesitate in giving her a gift for helping him regain his passion for something. Thankfully for him then he manages to “lose” the gift, goes on a search for it, only for Misora to hand his own gift right back to him. That is when Sakura confesses his feelings to Misora, but the moment gets ruined when the rest of the lacrosse team falls out of the bushes.
- My Take: Well, this would have been a nice ending to the series had Sakurai and Misora managed to kiss and ultimately confirm their feelings without getting interrupted by outsiders, but in getting interrupted by outsiders, it’s another reminder that this is a shounen manga, so of course I should’ve expected an ending like this. I guess my only problem is that this is a special. This is the final chapter, and for all intents and purposes, it should be done after this. You would think Kaito would’ve been able to have it end it in a manner that adds an extra layer to the climax, but instead it goes to the standard non-committal ending. And in theory, it’s fine since it is confirmed Misora and Sakurai seem to be together…in our heads…
- …Yeah, maybbbeee just wanted to have it more solidified. I blame Wakamoto for this.
- With a special, lots of crazy things can happen that kind of turns it into giving what the people want. I…I unfortunately don’t know why Kaito thought it was cool to have everyone go to the pool. I think someone told him/her that we might as well have everyone in their swimsuits at the end. And I mean everyone, since Chiumi and Namine also manage to get in their swimsuits. I guess if I had seen this in the actual manga, I’d be ok with it. But this nonsense didn’t happen in the manga. I’ll just have to accept that this part happened, and that there was nothing crazy obscene. Aside from Ryu proving to be a pedophile.
- One more bit of nonsense I’d like to talk about is with Chiumi. Again, I had my issues with her appearance in the manga, but in this case, this was fine. She ends up getting herself drunk and complaining about Sakurai not seeing her advances (and they were there). What else she revealed to Namine, who knows since because of Ryu, she didn’t want to say anymore. But…she got drunk off of a juice. That’s right, juice. I’ve seen this in some works where people get drunk off of non-alcoholic beverages. Can this trend die out? It…it’s kind of annoying and not all that funny. And for Chiumi to get drunk off of that is kind of dumb.
- Anyways, as you can see, I’ve complained about this chapter. I’m chalking that up to reliving past memories of what could have been with the series. This was actually a fun little chapter overall. Once Wakamoto revealed what Sakurai was supposed to do at the beginning of the chapter, it wasn’t going to be anything super serious, it was intended to be entertaining. And well, with seeing some of the characters again, to Ryu and Teruki bickering, to Chiumi and Namine actually talking to each other, to Sakurai and Misora kind of together at the end, I can say I liked the chapter. It was pretty fun.
- So, now we’re done! Good bye Cross Manage! I’ll be on the lookout for you again, Kaito!
Until we meet again…maybe!
