Volume 31: A Clever Scheme!? Kikumaru’s Singles Match

Chapters 265-273

Plot Events: Kikumaru defeats Kai, sending Seigaku to the quarterfinals

--------1----Kelfin----1--------

Okaaaaaaaaay, since I was bad last week and played Gakuen Heaven instead of ‘blogging, I’m going to do a third volume! Plus this one has lots of Eiji in it, and as you know, he is my favorite! (Yeah, I know, there are like five characters who are my favorite, but that’s okay, right?)

Kikumaru’s opponent is Kai. Remember him? The one who hit Ojii in the face and then defeated Saeki? He must be pretty good if he defeated Saeki, so we should be intimidated.

Ooooh, Kikumaru has on his srsface. Don’t EVEN start with him, Kai. Whether or not he’s a doubles specialist… It is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Oh… Eiji is too srsface even to react to that kind of needling. D: This is a big deal. (Kite, of course, thinks that this is some kind of tricksy ploy.)

Kai tries to upset Eiji by making fun of Rokkaku, but it doesn’t work—serious serious serious. Eiji just plays, and he plays well. And guess what, children? He is actually good at playing tennis, thank you very much. And he can play singles, and he can play all around the court, and a giant fuck you to all of you. He’s learned from Saeki’s match, even, and is playing so as to avoid shukuchihō.

Kai’s not bad, either. But he isn’t expecting the self-multiplication. (Who would be, though? Considering how ridiculous of a trick it is. Still, Higa is suffering from its lack of a datawhore. …Starting today, I’m totally using “datawhore” to refer to… well, you know the type of character I mean.)

Kai: Dude, are you really a doubles player? You’ve got some pretty good stuff!
Ouch D:

Eiji: I’m never playing doubles again!
Yeah, he is honestly angry.

Awesome, flashback! I love GP flashbacks, you know I do… ♥ Of course, Eiji is wondering why Ōishi decided to pointlessly, stupidly sacrifice himself instead of Momo. It is a valid question. *sigh* But I’ve ranted about that already.

Stupid Seigaku Non-Regulars: Kikumaru-senpai can play singles as well!!
I want to make an angry face here, but because of the html, I can’t use the less than/greater than signs. So imagine my angry face right here: _______________________

Ōishi don’t even say his name, you huge traitor.

Eiji: If it’s not with Ōishi, then I don’t want to play doubles!
Omfg BL games have poisoned my brain, but… I’m pretty sure I’ve heard every uke use that exact line to justify the fact that he is about to have sex. :/  Well, obviously not the part about "playing doubles", but...

Stupid Ōishi didn’t even try to DEFEND himself when Eiji yelled at him, did he? Of course he didn’t—how could he? Dumbass. He should have explained. He should have told Eiji ahead of time, he should have—okay, I need to relax.

So far, Eiji is wiping the court with Kai’s face. Meanwhile, Kai’s strategy is to make Eiji run around until he gets tired. This has worked in the past against Eiji, so it’s a smart bet. But Eiji has been practicing to combat this exact weakness.
Eiji: Now I won’t be dragging you down anymore.
*arrow to heart*  He actually said this to Ōishi beforehand, and Ōishi didn’t tell him what he planned. I am appalled. How could he stand there and plan to betray Eiji while Eiji was going on and on, all excited about how hard he’d worked to support Ōishi better?! I can’t beli—

*deep breath* Okay, going to relax now… ^__________________^ (Zen face)

Well, here we go, Kai’s about to pull something magical out of his hat. It’d be too boring and not worthy of Eiji’s new skillz if the win was too easy… So, what’s the big reveal? Kai’s a “backward lefty”. (What does that even mean?)

LOL I remember this move. VIKING HORN! Crap, now that annoying song from the myū is playing repeatedly in my brain. Dammit, I’ll never get that song out of my head! XD

Right so, because his grip is backward, he waits until the last minute to hit the ball, so that gives him more time to read which way Eiji is going to run. This makes Kai much more impressive. Suddenly they’re tied, 4-4.

Oh Eiji. How long have you been planning to make this quip? :3333
Eiji: Looks like I’m no good for singles after all.
And now there are two of him. *pretending this makes sense* It’s so hard to turn off my bullshit alarm, but I love Eiji the best, and this is really important for him, character-development-wise, so I am trying.

Narration: No one at the stadium can believe their eyes.
I WONDER WHY. Okay, there is no way to explain the fact that he is doing Australian formation with himself. Sigh… Apparently, the bullshit alarm does not have an off button. :/

Okay, you guys, since I went searching for “Viking Horn”, I have been distracted by Dream Live 1st… You don’t even know how much I love this Ōishi (Tsuchiya). He is just capable and amazing and not sucky, and I don’t want to stuff his face with high-calorie foods… *happy sigh* Also this Inui… (Aoyama) and this Momo (Moriyama)… Why did first cast go away??? *weeps* Holy shit, I’m impressed by Eiji’s (Nagayama’s) splits! …WTF, Kelfin. Getting back to the manga now…

I actually like Serious-Mode!Eiji. He feels more honest. But even when he decides he’s going to lighten up his act a little bit, he’s still thinking seriously.
Eiji: Even I can’t believe that I could go so far… I can still move! And I still have not found the infinite possibilities in doubles! I still haven’t found it yet!! And until I find it… I…
He’ll never find it—it’s infinite. When you try to imagine that, it kinda makes your brain bleed, doesn’t it? ^________^

There is dramatic tennis playing in here… omg… the ball hits the net… it goes over… EIJI WON!!!! Yay!!!!!!!

Crowd: You’re totally good for singles after all!!
OUCH.

Eiji: Nyah, it’s no good… I know now that I was much happier when I was playing doubles. Singles is kinda lonely.
GIANT HEART OF LOVE.

OMG and he forgives Ōishi, and he tells him that he still wants to be part of Golden Pair, and he tells him to heal soon so they can play together in this tournament, and he calls him PARTNER, and I lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve them. I can’t even EXPRESS it. THEY SHARE A FIST SALUTE.

Right, so… Seigaku moves on to the quarterfinals. Wait, why are they still playing tennis? Are they playing all five matches—oh wait. I knew that already. WTF, Kelfin?!

Inui defeats Shiranui even though, according to Kite, he is “the person on our team who held out the longest during the underwater stamina exercises”. Clearly Higa is just gonna get swept away because they are bastards. I feel bad for Kite; he seems like he’s actually smart and stuff. He needs a team that isn’t made completely of punks.

Oh, wait, this is a doubles match, so it’s not just Inui and Shiranui; Kaidō and someone else (as yet unseen) have got to be there, too. Oh, Kaidō and Inui… Every time I see them together, my eyes go all soft and wibbly.

Higa’s coach is embarrassing. (I have contact embarrassment just from reading about him.) He’s making this all about him! I hope his kids deck him. He quits; his freshmen freak out; he gets hit in the stomach with a tennis ball, thanks to Kite. Well, at least you gotta have some respect for Kite.
Inui: All his team members have a deep trust in him.
Well, there’s that. Still, I can’t believe the refs don’t do anything about the fact that he just assaulted his own coach.

An increase in Kite’s face time is good, though, since we’re segueing into his match with Tezuka. After all, we don’t know that much about him yet. We do find out that his nickname is “the hitman”, which doesn’t lead me to expect him to be particularly honorable.

Why is Rikkai discussing him in the middle of their match with Murigaoka? I guess because Murigaoka is freaking bad at tennis and boring to play.
Sanada: Hey! Cut the small talk!
ILU Sanada. But, oh god, has Yagyū popped his collar? How does he manage to look so hot anyway? D:  Rikkai also advances to the quarterfinals, obviously. Oh… Yukimura is here! And he’s going to bitch them out.
Yukimura: Everyone, your movements were terrible!
Sanada: *bellowing* That’s right! It’s exactly as Yukimura said.
Sanada… You’re so obvious. ♥

Sanada is thinking about Kite, though… Possibly because it makes a good transition, but also possibly because he genuinely would like to play Kite. He has been lusting to defeat him since Volume 29, after all. I guess seeing Sanada respect Kite makes us respect Kite more. Since he’s about to play Tezuka, that’s important. I mean, it would be bad if someone unworthy got to play against Tezuka.

Of course, Kite doesn’t disappoint. He is, to use a favorite term from this manga, “Tezuka class”. He can use shukuchihō to move from side to side rather than just forward and back, which is impressive, given that Kai couldn’t. It seems he has achieved “the ultimate sense of balance”. Kite wins one game and tries to trash-talk Tezuka; Tezuka lectures him about not using the racket to hurt others. This is apparently a hobbyhorse of Tezuka’s.

Tezuka muga no kyōchis up; Kite is unimpressed. He still has more to try out—including all of his teammates’ moves; apparently he is the one who taught them everything they know. Can you imagine? A captain who actually teaches his team things. Hmm. *pointed look at Tezuka* Anyway, Tezuka can copy everything he does, so they just keep going back and forth.

I wish there would be some character development… something to write about… something besides, “They are both good at tennis”…

Not surprisingly, Seigaku is impressed. Rikkai is full of scorn, thinking about how dumb Seigaku is for not knowing their captain’s skill. For example, next Tezuka uses Hyaku Ren Jitoku no Kiwami. Sanada’s going to explain this because no one on Seigaku is at the level to understand it. Honestly, this doesn’t make sense as an explanation… he puts muga no kyōchi in his arm and then uses Tezuka Zone? Whatever, like it even matters. The key thing is that we have some technobabble that makes us feel like this makes sense to somebody.

WTF? Unexpectedly the scene cuts to Hyōtei. Here’s a shrieking girl with an uninvited bento for Atobe…
Atobe: That meddlesome minx! Come, let’s go, Kabaji...!
That comes off as a lot less bastardly than in the anime. Also, “meddlesome minx” is the best phrase ever. Alliteration FTW.

Awww, Hyōtei is getting all excited to play Seigaku. Gakuto and Oshitari are cute… And now we’re also looking at Shitenhōji…  What, how did Tezuka suddenly win while we were looking at other teams? We don’t even get to see that? Oh, fine, whatever. It’d just be more of Tezuka and Kite being amazing at each other, anyway.

Afterwards, Ryōma pulls Tezuka aside to talk about that one time when he told him to be Seigaku’s pillar of support.
Ryōma *with a flirty little glance*: Welcome back… Captain!

And after that flirty glance, this line seems oddly suggestive...

OMG REVERSE PANDA!?

Oh, St. Icarus… the team where everyone is a foreigner somehow, right? They are playing Yamabuki… Yamabuki wins, but… “Unfortunately, the void left by the absence of the wild youth Akutsu proved to be too great…” (Sengoku thinks mournfully of Akutsu for a few minutes.) They lose in the second round to Nagoya Seitoku. It will shock you to hear it, but Dan gets all teary-eyed and inspired. :/

Fudōmine cleared the first round, and in the second round, they play Makinofuji (last year’s runner-up). Shinji is very pretty, and he beats that Super Tennis guy. (He really wouldn’t have lasted 15 minutes with Tezuka, would he?)

Shinji: And what’s with that over-exaggerated collapse? Are you trying to get some sympathy points or something… *mumble mumble*
I’m totally going to get Shinji to help me ‘blog.

So the quarterfinalists are: Shitenhōji, Fudōmine, Seigaku, Hyōtei, Nagoya Seitoku, Kuroshio, Kabuto, and Rikkai. Seigaku is up against Hyōtei next. I wish it were Shitenhōji; they’re less interesting to me, so I’d rather get them out of the way first, but I understand why it can’t be that way from a storytelling perspective. And I understand why Rikkai is last.

Hyōtei still has its legions of screaming fanboys.
Momo: It’s as if we’re playing on their home court.
Awww Rokkaku has come to cheer for Seigaku in return.

You know, I bet they’re getting tired. How many matches have they played today? Like billions! By which I mean three. Well, only two for Seigaku. But three for Hyōtei!

Anyway, I’m excited to keep reading, because Hyōtei is coming up! :D

And also… it’s my birthday tomorrow! ♥