On this week’s Gurazeni plenty of interesting things happened! First off, once again we have a story that spans the whole length of the episode instead of being divided into two parts. One puzzling thing is that there was no mention of contracts and a player’s worth in the whole episode, it was the first episode where that happened since the show premiered, but the most exciting thing of all is that the episode went down a bit of a meta route!
This time around Natsunosuke Bonda is contacted by a manga artist who is very interested in writing a baseball manga for a shounen magazine and rather than using a pitcher, he’s more inspired by the position of a middle reliever pitcher, like Bonda. 
The interview they had was once again another interesting display of Japanese polite culture, the manga artist kept asking very direct questions that Bonda had a hard time answering without feeling awkward about it and being very careful about his image. Even after being enthusiastically praised for his hard work and the fact that starter pitchers make more money being pointed out, Bonda was still hesitant to badmouth the starting pitcher position and he was also very careful not to directly admit he’d like to be a starter some day, instead, he put the wish on a group: all middle relievers. It’s important to say though, that the shock Bonda experiments when he gets asked that questions is being deliberately shown to viewers.
It was really educational to learn all the pressure that middle relievers are under and all the work they actually do! It’s incredible that Bonda has to pitch so much out of the game and constantly being in and out of the bullpen without even knowing for sure if he’ll get to play officially or not. I was impressed and touched and I felt like someone trying t make that know to an audience is a wonderful thing. You can tell I’m easily moved by shounen tropes, the underdog and so on.
The funny thing is that the interview ends with Bonda being roped into a very bothersome agreements. All on his own the manga artist declares he’ll make his baseball manga a hit while Bonda tries to become a starter pitcher before the baseball season ends. That’s quite some shounen manga goal right there, I’m suddenly reminded of Bakuman, but although Bonda does not protest, he’s definitely annoyed.
Soon enough Bonda gets a copy from the magazine where the new series of the manga artist is being published, but lo and behold! No baseball manga is being published in it and instead there’s a battle manga starting by the same artist and Bonda is confused, but also a little relieved. Eventually the manga artist comes by again to talk to Bonda and apologize personally. This part was really interesting because they made a comparison between how competitive both the pro baseball and the pro manga world can be. Both are extremely results focused, so newcomers get less loyalty, a little mistake can send you right back out and high risk experimentation is frown upon and avoided. I found the comparison pretty cool and I liked that they could bond over it.
Either way, manga artist-san was still rooting for Bonda wholeheartedly, so when the closing pitcher got demoted for a mistake and the position was up for grabs, he came to the game to see if Bonda would get it. 
I found it a little weird that the Spiders played against the same team two nights in a row, but well that goes to show that I don’t actually know that much about the world of baseball besides the basic game rules. Bonda made an interesting comment about it being even harder for a south paw pitcher to close the game, but in the end there’s a great moment where Bonda gets on the mound and, without even pitching once, he gets the win in just one play. Truly exciting and inspiring! The closing moment where he walks off satisfied and his inner narration savors the win put a smile on my face.