Taiso Samurai – 03 [Dueling Samurai]

Here’s a more conventional sports anime episode for you. Leo still refuses to take off his ninja headgear and Big Bird is still squawking up a storm in the Aragaki household, but those oddities were baked into the show from the outset. If you were to tinker with the structure of this week’s Taiso Samurai, you’d be hard-pressed to make it more ordinary. There was a strategy session between Jotaro and his coach, an 80s training montage, an injury surmounted by hard work and dedication, and a showdown with an angry rival (whose constant outbursts were the low point of the episode). If straightforwardness is what you wanted from this very quirky show, congrats on the fulfillment of your wish. Here’s an equally straightforward blog post to match.

Let’s cut right to the meat of this thing – how was the showdown between Jotaro and Tetsuo? I’d love to say that I reached Leo levels of excitement while watching Joe’s routine, but that definitely wasn’t the case. Coach Amakusa’s game plan coming into the match was solidity over flashiness, so there was no way the show would deliver anything else. The slow-mo peak of his biggest jump attempted to raise the tension, but can you imagine a universe where he misses the bar during a measured comeback performance in episode 3? I certainly couldn’t. No, the wild card here was Tetsuo. Plenty of sports broadcasting scenes have clued us in to his status as the Future of Japanese Gymnastics, but apart from a preview of his abrasive personality, we don’t know much about him as an individual. How badly would he try to crush the former poster boy of his beloved sport, and more importantly, why does he have such a hate boner for the guy?

As soon as Jotaro’s signature move (a triple flip called the Aragaki) was introduced, the answer became obvious. I scribbled it down in my notes a little past the halfway point: “Eren is gonna do the special flip to win.” I call him Eren because both characters are voiced by Yuki Kaji, AKA the personification of impotent teenage fury. Kaji is at his loudest and least tolerable here, giving Tetsuo a hateable quality that killed my interest after half a minute. The script doesn’t deem it necessary to explain Tetsuo’s anger just yet, preferring to lean on exaggerated vocal delivery and the mere presence of a generation gap. (‘Of course he’d hate old man Jotaro!’) To make a short story even shorter, Tetsuo does the super move and wins no contest, but abandons his initial demand that Jotaro retire from gymnastics – after a couple folks placate his ego by bowing and asking for mercy.

Leo is one of those two people, and I’m more convinced than ever that he’s a serious gymnast in disguise. During the Top Gun-inspired montage, he does all Jotaro’s training exercises with a big grin on his face, so he must be in peak physical condition. After Tetsuo declares war at the very start of the episode, Leo is adamant that Joe accept, seemingly desperate for a chance to watch his idol in action. He has to refrain from raising a triumphant fist after Jotaro’s routine at the end, indicating sufficient knowledge of gymnastics scoring to recognize a great performance. And then there’s his aforementioned willingness to prostrate himself for a chance at keeping Joe’s career alive. The fact that those Matrix-looking agents from the premiere were chasing him could mean that he’s a gymnast who fled his home country, and their mission is to bring him back before the Summer Olympics begin. Does that sound crazy? If so, good – this show is nuts at heart, and needs to get back to that place before it’s swallowed by slavish devotion to the fundamentals of sports anime. (Just keep the acupuncturist visits to a minimum, please.)