Since the main manga is on a hiatus until December, I’m having a bit of a Saki withdrawal. I wish Ritz stopped at Chapter 159, then I can pretend that I barely care for the match.
Stopping at Chapter 160 is just cruel. Having a long break when my interest is newly rekindled… Beyond more exposition on the Miyanaga family, we get more possible future plot threads such as the World Cup. (Just don’t think about how long THAT will take).
So to alleviate my Saki pangs, we are going to talk about the Toshi’s pick for the World Tournament.
Toshi’s possible roster for the World Cup has only three players as of yet: the Miyanaga sisters and Arakawa Kei.
Miyanaga Teru is probably a no-brainer. While we have not seen anything out of Arakawa Kei, I’m okay with giving her the benefit of the doubt considering she is the top 2 high school player in the country. The two of them would not be a questionable pick from any spectator. Saki, though, that would be a question mark…
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Saki is weak. Far from it. Saki’s feats shows that at her very best she can give her older sister a run for her money.If there is a world cup tournament, I would also put Saki somewhere on the roster.
Its just result-wise Saki’s strength is entirely misleading. (Most of Saki’s bullshittery need a play by play look at the hands to get a full effect on how scary she is as well as knowledge of her mental state at that time.)
Just look at the matches that Toshi would know.
The quarterfinals have Saki doing a silent +/- zero and the semifinals have her for most of the match dealing with the lost of her Rinshan. Even the Koromo match has Saki cowering for the first hanchan. And the less said about the individuals the better considering Saki threw some of her matches.
Just from Saki’s results, I won’t put her as an automatic pick for Japan’s roster.
Toshi has an eye for talent (or research). But, then again, considering Toshi has the power scouter monocle that is probably par on course. The fact said power scouter monocle broke due to whatever Saki did on the quarterfinals match may have something to do with it as well. It seemed to be entirely intact on other matches; so maybe Saki breaking it is a plot point.
Anyway, I think this is a good thing to keep in mind considering the world cup prospective team manager is probably questionable from both the audience inside and outside of the work.
[su_heading size=”20″] Akado Harue [/su_heading]
Yeah. I know.
Harue is not by any stretch of the imagination a prominent pro player so its very unlikely she would be given a prominent job like the coach of the World Japan Highschool Team. But, I’ve already expounded that Toshi seems not not care about appearance and Harue is the only person that Toshi has “sounded out” in the series. (That and it neatly ties the spin-off toward what I’m assuming will be the climax of the series if Ritz has her way)
And while it have rubbed us wrong a couple of times during the Achiga anime run (Ritz should never rush anything ever again), Harue is apparently a good coach. A bit TOO GOOD actually. I remember my friend complaining about how Harue magically seemed to have the perfect strategy in the semifinal Side-A match (barring the Vanguard and the Captain matches). Upon reflection, ut would probably not much of an exaggeration to say that Achiga won because of Harue’s coaching than the strength of its players.
Beside that, Ritz is also building up Harue’s coaching abilities in Shinohayu. Kokoro was able to win the Children’s National Tournament partially due to Harue’s advice.
So yeah, even though, many might not like the development. It seems to be the direction that Ritz is building upon. No other pro-coach has been expounded upon and the ones that did is probably unavailable.
For example, Zenno’s motivational speech from Himematsu, a few chapters ago, makes me feel that she can give Harue some competition. But, the fact that Zenno is sick enough that she bowed out of coaching the Himematsu team could be a factor why she isn’t asked.
The other pro-coach that impressed me is Toshi herself. But, Toshi seemed to be doing the weeding and scouting for the roster. It might show some bias if she picked herself. That or since Toshi appears to be the highest authority in the world tournament scouting department, she might be the team manager of the pro teams or college team or something.
After these two, the picking for a good pro coach seemed to be slim. The only other in the running are students like Hisa and Kyouko who showed good strategy for their team though, in different ways…. Hisa is good at maximizing the team members she has while Kyouko is basically Harue-lite…
If students are allowed though, it would be nice to see them as assistant coaches. If nothing else it would be fun seeing Kyouko have a near aneurysm by being surrounded by monster players. lol
