We’ve made it to Tokyo and the tensions are already slowly raising! We haven’t even played a match with this new team yet, but oh boy, it’s going to take some time before they are all ready to play on the same team together. But I am ready for the fighting spirit and growth that these boys have!!
I’ll be honest, I don’t really know if I have too much to say about this episode. After last week’s phenomenal episode, this one cycled back around to build up. There was some exposition, but there wasn’t really anything that stood out as being particularly great or particularly bad. We need to learn more about the youth team, the members who were promoted, and of course the one who was scouted. I’m sure once the newbie match kicks up, things are going to start making more sense and all the pieces will fall together.
With all that said, I still enjoyed the episode!! It was really cute to see Ohtomo, Tachibana, and Aoi all meet up again! I knew it was going to be those three that made it, but it was still nice to see them all together again! In addition, I really appreciate the two fan girls talking with Ashito. They definitely could have played it off like he was just some weirdo watching the team, but they acknowledged him from the tryouts and were super excited to see that the had made it. Plus, they even got all of their autographs!! Good for them!!
We were introduced to a lot of new characters this episode, Asari, Kuribayashi, Kuroda, Yuma and Togashi. All of which are super unique from each other (but I will be honest, that it will take me a little while to remember all of their names). Asari and Yuma are the first ones to greet the trio once they arrive at the dorm. Yuma is definitely a friendly individual who seems like he can get along with everyone, but who knows? Maybe Ashito will start a fight with him since they are playing the same positions. Asari on the other hand is a little bit more standoffish. It sounds like he has some personal stuff that will be revealed later, but for now he might be a tough nut to crack. As Ohtomo said “he’s good looking and good at soccer? he is [the] enemy.” Kuribayashi doesn’t actually say anything to our characters in this episode, but instead he is someone for Ashito to strive to be like. A senpai who is only one year older and actively practicing with the A team.
Kuroda and Togashi are the two who caught my eye the most, and I think those two are going to have the hardest time getting along. Kuroda is someone who was promoted from the youth team and seems to be the one providing a lot of exposition for us. I get the feeling he’s a little bit sneaky and someone who could cause chaos along the way, but he won’t outright be a vicious character. Togashi on the other hand made quite the appearance today after being brought in by the motorcycle gang, and he’s got a pompadour (this might be an unpopular opinion, but I personally think pompadours are PEAK character design), so maybe I’m a little biased. He was sobbing when he arrived, but when Ashito introduced himself as his roommate, the first question was whether or not he was promoted and becoming incredibly happy to find out that Ashito had made it in via the tryouts. Hmmm…. hmmmm…. much to think about with that.
Ah, but in addition to these new characters we also get to hear from some of the coaches which…. I haven’t quite decided how I feel about that. Particularly the end of the episode with coach Nozomi. Of course, Ashito happens to be right outside the window when this is happening, but essentially Nozomi declares that he’s not fit to be on the team and needs to make leaps and bounds of improvements going as far to declare that he might be Fukuda’s first failure. Ouch…. I’m actually really curious how this impacts Ashito during the match but shout out to Hana for declaring herself his first fan.
This is definitely one of those series that I wish I would have picked up after the season because I just want to keep on watching!! I can’t deal with the stress of waiting a WHOLE week for the next episode. Looking forward to seeing this newbie match !!
