Prince of Stride: Alternative Episode 8: Wall – Chasing, Still So Far Away

Oh my oh dear we actually got some backstory from a character who I thought the anime forgot all about.

Now we really know why Nana is so engrossed in all this Stride business. Looks like when she was little she did a little bit of Stride herself, and she attended some races with her father to see his job. It’s understandable why Nana was really excited for the EOS, and now she’s there. But I didn’t expect Nana’s father to be a famous coach, and even more, the coach for Kakyoin High School, the school Honan would go up against! Like…wow, for once I’m surprised. We all knew Riku’s brother would end up in Kakyoin because of the opening, but I didn’t know there would be more family issues with Nana’s father being the coach for that team. Thanks, show, you actually made me interested.

Hoo boy, a lot of family issues this time around. The team are at the EOS and they’re going to prepare their time trial with their opponents, Kakyoin High School. Before all of this, Kuga got a call from Tomoe saying he came back to Japan. Then later Nana got a call from her father saying he came back from the USA as well and that she should transfer to the school he’s working at. I guess at this point I should have put two and two together, but I just didn’t expect Nana’s father getting caught up in all this because we’ve never gotten any family info on Nana until now. When the names of the runners were being broadcast with their portraits, team Honan were stunned to see Nana’s father as the King (making her the Princess, how cute) and then seeing Tomoe. Riku was the most surprised of course, but he reassured the team he would be fine. But he has some issues with his brother.

Riku seems to have an inferiority complex when it comes to his brother. I thought his attitude towards his brother was because Tomoe was a shitty guy but he doesn’t seem that way at all. Riku was just bewildered at the fact this Tomoe was so passionate about Stride, as he would run every single day no matter what kind of weather. Tomoe would invite Riku because he knew of the talent he possessed but whenever Riku would run with him, he would always be left behind and it started eating away at him. That he would always be left behind, that he would never be as good as his brother. And then one day when Tomoe invited him for a run, Riku lashed out at him and said running with him was never fun, and that he’d quit. All of these negative feelings came back when the time trial match began and he watched his brother cross the finish line. Riku then later yelled at Takeru who tried cheering him up, saying that he was too similar to Tomoe. Which we can really see as Takeru runs all the time like Tomoe does. Riku just isn’t in the right, but it looks like next episode he’ll have a talk with Tomoe.

Tomoe himself is an interesting fellow. He seems really chill, and a very skilled runner. He, Kuga, and Heath were a strong trio when it came to Stride. He really looked forward to racing against Kuga again. We’ve seen him repeatedly invite Kuga to race Stride with him at his school but Kuga always shot him down, first with him not wanting anything to do with Stride, but this time because he wants to race with Honan and no other school. Tomoe is persistent but sometime in the race in the last leg, he realized through some weird dramatic imagery that trying to grab Kuga all to himself (ohoho~) would be futile, as he realized how strongly he felt for Honan. He apologized after the race, and he left it with that. He just wanted to make the same strong team as before with Kuga but he knows that won’t happen and he’ll leave Kuga be. I was afraid Tomoe was gonna be an asshole, I mean please look at that emo hair, I mean how can this boy race with all that hair in front of his face? Well, Tomoe’s more normal than I thought. I still hate his hair.

Okay, so to the actual race. Kakyoin’s team is full of new teammates all coached by Nana’s papa and these guys are ridiculous, honestly these boys must be on steroids or something. That race was ridiculous. In the end, Honan lost kinda badly, they were really behind. Whenever any of the boys would catch up to their runner, the runner would just accelerate out of nowhere and they’d be left behind. They would read their actions and block them with ease, and Honan could do nothing. Even though their times have improved since the camp, there’s still a huge gap in skill. I mean holy crap Kakyoin High School has circus twins….circus twins! And one twin wall jumped like it was nothing! That’s not fair. Now Honan needs to figure out how they’re going to beat them in the actual tournament.

I actually found this episode better than the previous ones we’ve been getting. It’s not amazing but it’s better. We got some drama and some backstory with Nana WHICH IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WANTING. Sucks that she had to see her dad for the first time in a long time in this match her team lost badly in. Also, her dad is a jerk. Her mom dies, he’s the only one in her life and he leaves just because he felt his job was more important than his daughter, and no matter how long she yelled, begging for him to stay with her, he leaves anyway.