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Yowamushi Pedal Grande Road
Episode 20

by Lauren Orsini,

This is the part of Yowamushi Pedal Grande Road that always makes me antsy. There's four kilometers to the finish line, but it's dragging on to the point that we're covering perhaps one kilometer per episode. It seems like the closer we get to the end of the race, the slower the show gets. It's Yowamushi Pedal's worst habit, and it never gets any shorter. Since season one, there's always been a character noting “there's four kilometers to the finish,” and that's when I hunker down for another three or four episodes of monotony.

Indeed, the theme of the day seemed to be repetition. But while some reiteration works to strengthen the show's themes, other times it's just tiring. (Did anyone else catch just how long the introductory recap was? It was a full two minutes, twice as long as usual.) Let me count the ways this drags.

First off, it's yet another episode about Midousuji. Whether he's battling Manami or Onoda or Imaizumi, the spotlight has been on this spindly Lizardman for a while now. Ghoulish purple backdrops and repulsive sound effects reinforce the cyclist's icky aura as he continues to contort the abilities of the human body. In a show that constantly features cyclists' butts as they lift themselves off their saddles to cycle uphill, I should have guessed that eventually somebody would smack someone else's butt, and I should have guessed it would be Midousuji, the character with the fewest boundaries. Watching Midousuji is never boring, but I'm wondering what's up with the constant spotlight on him besides shock value. Episode three, “Akira,” was supposed to humanize Midousuji and give, if not an excuse, an explanation for his antagonizing behavior. These past few episodes have reverted him back into a name-calling, body-slamming caricature.

About halfway through the episode, we meet Hiroshi again, an extremely minor character who made his debut during the First Years' Welcome Race sometime before episode 10. Hiroshi isn't very interesting and he isn't worth bringing back just for his personality, which is basically what Sugimoto is going to be like in about 20 years. I think the show has brought back Hiroshi—and his CAP-wearing friend—as another effort to bookend the series. As we get closer to the third day's finish line, we are watching more and more flashback clips from way back when, and the more there are, the less forgivable it is. Combined with the long beginning recap, I think the show is just biding time for the heck of it.

The strongest part of the episode was Imaizumi's speech about his friendship with Onoda and Naruko. It's hard to believe, but at the beginning of the series we were supposed to believe that neither Onoda or Imaizumi had any friends (and Naruko, as a transfer student, probably didn't either). To hear aloof, serious Imaizumi talking about how much he loves his friends indicates some marked character development. Although when the ghost of Naruko came out to symbolically push him along, things got too melodramatic for my tastes. I guess when you die in the InterHigh you die in real life—how else would Naruko have a ghost?

Next episode is titled “#91” after Midousuji's race number. That means it'll be yet another Midousuji-focused episode. I'm resigning myself to a couple more repetitive episodes before the finish line, but you never know with that weirdo.

Rating: C

Yowamushi Pedal Grande Road is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.


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