Dear Boys 13-14

Kabitzin on October 6, 2004 · in Dear Boys

Now that training camp is over, it’s time for Mizuho to play some real games in the regional tournament. Their first game is against Oosaki Technical, a donut team with a decent backcourt, but no real inside presence (hmmm, sounds familiar). Playing a team with a worse frontcourt seems like a gift, but the Mizuho squad is so wound up that they are down 15-0 before they even know what hit them. Add to this the fact that Oosaki Technical plays very dirty, and it begins to look like Mizuho’s complete lack of mental toughness will doom them. Fortunately it’s Aikawa to the rescue. He takes a hard foul driving to the basket to show his team to calm down and play through the fouls, and by the time the game ends Mizuho has won 117-31. They follow the success up with a 150-53 win in the regional finals, and everything’s looking rosy en route to the prefecture tournament.

Unfortunately, there are some serious stirrings underneath the calm surface. Miura realizes that he and Ishii are placing too much of a burden on Aikawa after he hears a fugly reporter talking trash about the Mizuho team in the bathroom after the game. Ishii constantly gets 4 fouls, most of which come on rebounds after missing easy baskets. Miura has no endurance/stamina and gets passed more than the Taco Bell drive-through window on defense in the second half. Miura’s lack of stamina also causes his shooting percentage to decrease over time, essentially rendering him worthless in the second half. While Miura tries to work on this problem by running with the track team after basketball practice, Ishii is too proud and stubborn to admit he is a burden. Eventually Ishii comes around, though, after he sees Miura panting and practically puking all over himself in order to get into shape.

Meanwhile, there are some stirrings on the lovu front. On a tip from Mutsumi, Moritaka lures Aikawa into her web of lust by convincing him to pick out basketball shoes with her. She parlays this short shopping jaunt into dinner at WcDonalds (lol, check the bag out), an Initial D movie, and even some lovu lovu karaoke. Nicely done Moritaka! She also gets his scarf as snow begins to fall, but is denied a kissu when Aikawa has to suddenly rush to his crappy part-time job at the video store. Foiled!

Episode 13 was a pretty standard episode, though Aikawa did get that one flashy scene. Episode 14, however, was way more interesting as it dwelled on life outside of the actual games. Both the stories of Miura and Ishii trying to get better, and Moritaka trying to get Aikawa were entertaining. The only bad part of 14, however, was that the production value was at rock bottom, even by Dear Boys’ (extremely low) standards. It’s like the poorly paid animation staff took a vacation and left their kids to finish the animation. The art all has a different style, and even the everyday life scenes look bad!