Prince of Stride: Alternative Episode 6: Let’s Connect Our Damn Feelings!

Let’s just…connect our feelings. Feel all the feelings and emotions in the wind, in the water, in your hair, in your sweat. Do you get it? CONNECT OUR EMOTIONS! CONNECT. OUR. EMOTIONS. Let’s connect our fucking emotions oh my god…please stop it. Please.

Okay so we’re at the halfway mark of this show and if you haven’t noticed I’m on the brink of insanity. The fun and wonder I felt in the first episode disappeared pretty quickly and now I’m at the point where I’m just forcing myself to watch this. It’s not that this show is terrible, but it messes up in a lot of parts where I kind of indifferent? Like I’m not cheering but I’m not yelling curses either. Things are just happening and I’m watching, that’s it. But…I’m about to lose it.

I guess I should appreciate that they’re really pushing the sport aspect with so little episodes. But with that comes little character development. We’re halfway into the show and I can still say that I don’t know who the hell these characters are. I know their names, a couple of their pasts, but we haven’t dug deep into any of them. Where did Nana watch that video of Honan and why does she resonate so much with Stride? What kind of relationship does Riku have with his older brother that causes his mind to go frantic whenever anyone compares him to Tomoe? What the hell is up with Takeru and how did he have a Sonic moment in the end? Why should I care about anyone? You need to tell me more! I guess I’m glad that Hozumi and Kuga are on a good standing, but…hm.

To the actual episode! Honan goes up against the shittiest school ever, and that’s fine because OOH SURPRISE SURPRISE Honan beats them. Good, so I don’t have to look at their ugly faces again. Honan had some missteps but were saved by Kuga and Takeru. The pink and black team’s Relationer was a little shit but at least Nana stood up to him and talked back at him, staying calm while this idiot was having a tantrum. Because I thought Nana was going to start getting flustered again but she did well. Of course before the race we had the usual smack talking and then boom the race. Okay, awesome. The race was okay, it entertained me. But again since I don’t feel any emotional connection to the characters (I do like Heath tho) I’m not jumping out of my seat and cheering. It’s because of how predictable this show is, and the fact that I never feel any intense suspenceful moments, I just know they’re going to win. And they did.

So yay.

I think to make this anime more fun to watch, you should make a drinking game out of this. Take a shot any time someone says something about “connecting feelings”. If you’re under legal drinking age, drink something else because follow the law…also you’ll die.

Okay so next week Charibo should be happy because it looks like Honan is going to be joining Saisei in a training camp, as we saw in the end the idols are going to be in a training camp and they can invite any school they want. So yeah, Reiji-sama and the other dudes whose names I don’t know are back. I think it’ll be good to take a break from racing, for both the teams and me.