Yowamushi Pedal : I don't have any friends

Ride 3

Will Onoda catch up with Imaizumi?

The end of the race, the END OF THE RACE!!!

***SPOILERS***

I've been spelling this dudes name wrong he has a i on the end of it Imaizumi.... I promise I will learn how to spell his name.

So Onoda uses his cadence to climb the hills, he doesn't stand up or "dance" on the bike he sits and pedals. And he's gaining on Imaizumi.

We find out just how well Onoda is doing when we find out that his front gear has been made smaller so he can't go as far (not that it works!) by his mum and dad.

So this episode seems to be finding the inner racer in Onoda as well as giving us a lot of technical jargon. And at the start finish line the actual cycling team are watching and waiting.

Awwwwwwww....... It was adorable! He asks Onoda why he won't give up and he tells him that he hasn't got any friends and just wants to revive the anime club. So cute! He did so bloody well.

He's impressed everyone though, the cycling group, Miki and her brother and Imaizumi.

Next day Onoda goes to give Imaizumi back the stuff he gave him the day before for the race and Imaizumi asks why he doesn't just join the bicycle club. He then tells Onoda that he has talked to people from his old middle school to try and get him more members for the anime group. What a lovely guy!

At Akiba Onoda gets a compliment on his bike from some strange pointy teethed kid. Who is this person?

I think it was a great idea to spread the race over two episodes for a number of reasons. First off for people that know nothing about riding it didn't dump a lot of information about bikes and all that into one episode, it spread it out. You now know simple terminology for the rest of the series. We know about the saddle height, gears, dancing, cadence amongst other things and it was given to us in easily digestible pieces.

Secondly we went on a journey with Onoda, we know that he doesn't have friends and he wanted the anime and manga group to make friends. But we are now on this journey with Onoda, he's made friends with Imaizumi whether or not he wanted it and the bicycle gang will give him what he needs not what he thinks he wants. But not only that it brought out a racing side to Onoda that he didn't know he had to begin with, he doesn't like athletic clubs but then again he's never been in one and doesn't know much about people in them he just is worried they are all going to be mindless and too into their sport.

Thirdly it gave three of the main characters a chance to shine. We got to know a vulnerable side to Imaizumi, his big defeat and his fears that he won't be able to beat the guy if he met him again, we got to grow with Onoda from a anime lover who has no competitive streak to a guy that just won't give up! And we got to see just how intelligent and bike loving Miki is.

Not to mention the race was actually awesome!

The thing that could have happened with this is that it got crammed into one episode and it wouldn't have worked. Character development would have been lost, terminology would have been thrown at you at break neck speeds and you just wouldn't be able to figure out what was going on.

Spread out it gave us a nice race, great character building, some wonderful scenes and a thirst to know what will happen to Onoda.

I keep comparing it to Free! mainly because that is the only other sports anime I've seen so I will do it once more. The problem I had with Free! was that it took so long to get a feel for each character, in the first few episodes everyone seemed to have a cliché'd role to play and Haruka was just difficult to like. Haruka and Imaizumi are basically similar characters but with Imaizumi it isn't a mystery why he's the way he is, he trains hard he wants to do well and he was beaten in his last race and it kind of haunts him. Haruka you spent all your time wondering if he was being a dick for a reason or not then by the time you fell in love with him you could see him in a better light. I nearly gave up on Free! during the first few episodes because of Haru, Imaizumi on the other hand is very enjoyable as a character.

I loved the episode and thought it captured the spirit of sports very well, there was no over the top dramatics and after the race had finished instead of beating himself up about nearly being beaten by a amateur Imaizumi praised Onoda and told hi to join the bicycle racing team so that he could improve his racing, something that sometimes is missing in sports programs. The fact is all these people LOVE bikes and cycling so it is only obvious they'd share that with other people. I like that.