Yowakutemo Katemasu : Episode 6

It’s Jotoku’s cultural festival and while cultural festivals are usually a fun part of Japanese high school scene, this particular episode gives me ambivalent feelings especially with the exit of one of my favorite character.

Here is quick recap of Yowakutemo Katemasu : Episode 6

Continuing from the last episode, Kamezawa tells Aoshi that he’s planning on quitting school. Aoshi is reluctant to see him go (aww…) and tells Kamezawa that he can’t quit school unless he has his parents’ permission since he’s still a minor.

Elsewhere, Akaiwa, Ebato, and Okatome are already panting by the time they reach the rooftop where Shirao practices his morning batting. I’m assuming that they joined Shirao for his morning run or that they were just finished helping Kamezawa delivering morning papers. Shirao tells them that they can’t rest yet as they must now practice their batting/swinging if they don’t want to lose again.

Not wanting to be defeated again, they practice their swinging with Shirao, and Tarumi happily looks at them from her place.

At Southern Wind, Aoshi is having a heap serving of vegetable curry courtesy of Tarumi-mama. She feels happy that even though Jotoku got defeated, Aoshi is able to turn it over to something bigger. Tarumi-mama says that she will not know what to do if Aoshi comes again in the restaurant with that depressing look he showed 13 years ago after quitting baseball. Tarumi-mama says that Aoshi looks like he has wasted his life back then and she’s clueless on what to do for him.

During their individual batting practice, Aoshi and Tarumi are talking on how the team has improved (wow! XD) when it comes to swinging. However, Aoshi also notice something else; the team is too laidback for their own good. He says that they even have less time to practice yet most of them are still pretty laidback.

Aoshi tells the guys how they seem surprise once they hit the ball or when the ball has come to them when they should have predicted it would happen.  Thus, he tells them not to be passive and don’t be late with their reactions and predictions. So, their mantras for this week is, “don’t be late!”

Aoshi talks to Kamezawa in the library and asks him if he has told the guys about his plans to withdraw from school. Kamezawa says he can’t tell his teammates because they might start acting weird again after what happened when they learned about his money issues.

Aoshi tells Kamezawa that he is opposed with Kamezawa’s plans on quitting school. After all, Kamezawa’s parents have promised that they’ll see to it that they can support Kamezawa until graduation. Kamezawa knows that but he doesn’t want his parents to force themselves. Aoshi says that Kamezawa should be thankful that his parents are responsible adults. However, Kamezawa decides to apply the “pride” that Aoshi told them about after they lost. He wants to challenge himself to have that pride as just like in baseball, he only has once chance to decide.

Unknown to them, Tarumi hears everything.

At faculty room, Masumoto is unusually lively as he take notes on what are other clubs will be doing for the school’s cultural festival. When he asks Aoshi, Aoshi says that they’ll be doing public training. Masumoto thinks that it’s no fun and Aoshi doesn’t care, they only have little practice time and preparing for cultural festival will be just time-consuming.

Before Masumoto has the chance to respond, Aoshi takes the call from Tone, who is complaining that their serialization is in a pinch. Aoshi says that it’s only her who is in a pinch until Tone says that her editor is planning to run a special feature on Yachida Kentaro.

This pique’s Aoshi interest and ire as he asks Tone on why it should be about Yachida when he is not even connected with Jotoku’s baseball club.

In the end, Aoshi decides to head to Trophy’s publishing to talk to Tone’s editor-in-chief leaving the team to practice on their own using the mantra, “don’t be late”.

At Trophy, Tone’s editor has another idea about the article, he wants Tone to write about the friendly match between Jotoku and Dou-Gaku where Aoshi and Yachida played against each other. Tone’s editor reasons-out that it will still be about Jotoku since the main article will feature their coach’s past.

Aoshi looks uncomfortable with the idea, but he and Tone still met at Southern Wind to talk about it. Aoshi says that it’s not really that interesting so he doesn’t want to talk about it. Tone asks if THAT game was really the reason for Aoshi to quit baseball because as far she knows, Aoshi genuinely loves baseball.

Tarumi and Tarumi-mama are nearby cleaning glasses, and Tarumi commented that it’s the same for Akaiwa when he stopped playing baseball after the school’s game with Dou-Gaku. Tone was like, “they quit just because of that?” and the women all agreed that men are weak when they (ego/pride) take the hit.

Speaking of taking the hit, Aoshi feels awkward to where the conversation is headed and Tone even adds that Jotoku guys, basically an elite group, can’t handle frustration. Aoshi has enough of what he’s hearing so he gets up to leave and Tarumi uses this as an example how they like to run-away after being frustrated.

Aoshi says that he is not running-away but Tarumi-mama says that the Aoshi now will not exist if it wasn’t for that frustration he experienced.

At Akaiwa’s mansion, Akaiwa is practicing his batting when he’s father arrives asking if his son resents him. Akaiwa deduces that his father did something again, and Akaiwa-papa says that he is only talking about the last game. Akaiwa says that he is pissed that Takemiya went easy on them (during the first 3 inning) but he is more pissed that they still lost even though Takemiya went easy on them.

At Kamezawa’s place, which I learned isn’t really in the mountains; he visits his parents at their metal parts factory. Kamezawa wants to tell his parents about withdrawing from school until his mother arrives with an old baseball bat. Kamezawa-mama tells him that the bat may be old but it’s better than the stick he was using to practice his swinging. In the end, Kamezawa wasn’t able to tell his parents about it.

During the batting practice, Kamezawa emotionally uses the bat given by his mother, and Tarumi decides to casually slide some words of courage that their team is already on the edge and it would be hard to miss-out any members.

Meanwhile, Masumoto is at the clubroom encouraging the team to give their proposals for the cultural festival. Aoshi asks if he’s proposal of public training has been rejected and while Shirao likes the idea, the rest of the team agrees that they’ll be ridiculed if they do that. XD

Masumoto is pleased with this development since he doesn’t want a public training too and proposes something like a café, Tarumi disagrees with this since her house is already a café, and directs the question to Kamezawa.

Kamezawa says that he’ll go with what everyone agreed upon and it’s quite a surprise to them since Kamezawa, being narcissistic, would definitely want to do something that will call attention to him.

Tarumi then suggests a play with Kamezawa on the leading role and Kamezawa was like, “why me?!” Ushimaru complains that doing a play is embarrassing and Tarumi suggests that he can do behind-the-scenes. Soon enough, all the guys start raising their hands that they want to be behind-the-scenes as well earning them a slap from Tarumi.

Masumoto then said that it’ll be Kamezawa’s one-man show and Kamezawa strongly disagrees with this and pleads the coach to think of something else. Aoshi says that he can’t remember participating in cultural festival during his 2^nd year and before he can say that it’s because he quit baseball, Akaiwa and Tarumi runs in front and decides with them that they’ll do the play with Kamezawa for the leading role.

Aoshi talks to Akaiwa and Tarumi and tells them that he has no plans in hiding that he quit baseball back then. However, Akaiwa reasons-out that for those guys (his teammates), Aoshi is like Yachida Kentaro and this didn’t bode well with Aoshi since he doesn’t want to be compared to Yachida.

During the club’s play-production conference, for some reason, Shikata gets to decide what they will do tells them that they’ll be doing “The Oil-Hell Murder” (LOL, what?!). The story is about Yohei who owes a huge debt and one day his parents decides to secretly help him and gives the money to Okichi, the prostitute. Okichi then gives the money to Yohei, but Yohei is still short of funds so she asks Okichi to let him borrow some but was refused. (FYI, Oil-Hell Murder is actually a Japanese movie. XD)

In the end, Yohei murders Okichi; Tarumi, being the only girl, will be playing victim and Kamezawa (Yohei) as the murderer. XD. Shikata is particularly excited with the part of where Yohei, son of oil merchant, will slip while killing Okichi because of the oil. The others argue that while the story is not interesting, the murder scene do has some impact. LOL, they actually want to do this.

When they presented the story to Aoshi, Aoshi thinks that it’s weird for them to do something gloomy for the cultural festival. My sentiments exactly. Moreover, they want Aoshi to do something about the script. Tarumi says that this is Aoshi’s chance to participate fully for the cultural festival to bring his youth back (since he wasn’t able to participate in the cultural festival after quitting baseball club).

Completely clueless about the script, Aoshi calls Tone for an emergency. Tone arrives at his apartment, only to be surprised that the so-called surprise is that he wants her to re-write the play that the club will be doing for the cultural festival. Tone doesn’t want to do the script but Aoshi says that the script will also affect her serialization because of Kamezawa’s plans on quitting school.

Elsewhere, Shirao, Ebato, Akaiwa, and Okatome are talking on how Kamezawa is being weird lately. Just like his attitude for the play, he would normally jump for the opportunity to be the center of attention but they also argue that maybe Kamezawa doesn’t want to play the role of a person having money problems. Tarumi has enough listening to them complaining about Kamezawa and eventually spill the beans.

Back at Aoshi’s apartment, Aoshi ends-up writing the script as Tone have fallen asleep writing about Aoshi, Yachida and THAT game that started it all. He reads a bit of what Tone has typed and he seems pretty please about it.

The next day, a sleepy Aoshi presents the revised script for the festival where he made some major changes. Since the murder scene is too gruesome, Yohei will tie Okichi using a rope instead of killing her with a knife, a change that didn’t bode well for Shikata. XD.

As for the oil problem, he changes it with balls falling and rolling as Yohei tries to tie Okichi. This makes Okichi a sport-shop owner instead of the original oil-shop owner. When Ushimaru questions the existence of sports shop during Edo period, Aoshi says that he is a Biology teacher and he has no specialization about that era. XD

Festival preparation has started and everyone is busy. Tarumi and Kamezawa have also started rehearsing and the balls falling on them where they pretend to slip and fall seem off. XD.

Everyone on the team must have learned about Kamezawa’s imminent departure and they look to Kamezawa with forlorn once he separates from them after their rehearsals.

On their dress rehearsal, the scene where Okichi gives the money to Yohei from his parents  took a different turn as Yohei refuses to take the money. Everyone seems aware of what is happening except for Masumoto who looks perplexed as to why Yohei (Kamezawa) keeps on refusing the money. Kamezawa, in his character as Yohei, says that he is thankful and while he desperately wants the money, he has decided a long time not to take it. Soon enough, Kamezawa gets a call at school that his father passed-out.

Since Kamezawa won’t be present for the cultural festival, Masumoto decides that the club will just be doing the café. While the guys were cleaning the room, they deduce that the reason Kamezawa always want to stand-out is because he wants to leave an impression since he always knew that he might quit from the beginning. Quit his studies or baseball? Shirao says that Kamezawa must have prepared all along.

Days after the cultural festival, Kamezawa goes to school and when he opens his club’s locker, his bat has a post-it note instructing him to go to the field. Upon arriving at the field, all the members are lined-up including Aoshi.

Kamezawa informs them that he has submitted his withdrawal from school. Tarumi instructs him to stand on the pitcher’s place and Aoshi tells him that because he wasn’t able to make Kamezawa stands on the batter box with a huge crowd, he’ll make him the conductor instead.

Aoshi orders them to sing Odawara Jotoku’s alma mater song and Kamezawa reluctantly raises his hand to start conducting as the guys began singing their school’s hymn.

“…To soar cutting the spring breeze

Odawara Jotoku, our Alma Mater,

In the mountains of Hakone,

This vast land, we inherited the wisdom of our ancestors...”

 

The next day, Kamezawa sits on the back of the bus as he reads Tone’s article, titled: “Weak, but can win” Tamo (Jotoku) vs. Yachida (Doutou)”. For some reason, he feels inspired reading about Aoshi quitting the baseball club back in high school and returning 13 years later to lead the weak team with possibilities in winning.

Comments

UGH. So they really axe Kamezawa (Hongo), huh? What were the writers thinking? I don’t understand the reason behind Kamezawa’s departure, it’s not like the team will improved more with Kamezawa gone. I mean, they still suck as far as I’m concern. Kamezawa and Shikata gives the much-needed humor in this drama, they just have the right timing and expression with comedy and now we have one less funny guy.

Anyway, my favorite part of this episode was when they sang Jotoku’s alma mater song. It was really a heartfelt scene as they sing their school song proudly. I think that every alma mater hymn can make someone emotional because it makes you reminisce of your own high school life. I played that part for three times because I really like the song especially the lyrics.

I also like the ending part where after Tarumi-mama thanks Tone for writing such an article and Aoshi, Tone, and Tarumi-mama were just sitting there when they all looked by the door. It’s like they were waiting for another Aoshi to arrive with a forlorn expression and they will know how to deal with it.

Overall, this is quite an uneventful episode with lots of reminiscing and little action. I’m not saying that Kamezawa’s departure holds little weight to this drama, but we’re already in the 6th episode and I don’t see anything that will worth winning for the team.

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Usual disclaimer applies.