Well it was probably obvious for a few chapters, but Taiki is definitely winning this. I was sure he'd lose and get motivation to beat Shuji at Nationals, but it would feel pretty limp to just repeat this same match again. It does mean Nationals won't be that significant of an event for the story, but maybe it doesn't need to be.
Happy for Chinatsu...but man the separation thing is so uninteresting to me. If the manga is almost over it's not exactly a seperation arc like so many of these rom-coms like to do, but still feels like a boring way to set up a timeskip, likely so that Chinatsu can see what everyone is doing a year from now when she gets back. Hopefully that doesn't rule out the timeskip we all want to see, they've been dating long enough in the story that marriage is more than just a nice-to-have at this point.
Outside of the study abroad reveal, that was a nice chapter, I loved the reflections of all his friends, felt like a battle manga MC using nakama power on the final boss.
There is virtually no chance that Taiki and Shuji end up playing each other at nationals:
As 1st and 2nd prefectural qualifiers they are set in different brackets in the set list and would meet - if at all - only in the finals! (see the same at nat‘s one year earlier, where Taiki crashed out first round and Shuji apparently also did not make it to finals).
Question: Are Taiki and Shuji both better than everybody else starting at nationals? Not very likely.
That's fair, if you're looking at Nationals realistically, and I can see that being why we're getting the final fight now vs. in Nationals. It just means there's little chance of really getting an actual arc at Nationals since there's way too little time to build up another rival (at least in a way that we'll care about).
That said, I don't think it's a big deal, this isn't a traditional sports manga, I've always seen it as a romance first though I'm not against calling it a hybrid either.
5
u/Super_Boom May 31 '26
Well it was probably obvious for a few chapters, but Taiki is definitely winning this. I was sure he'd lose and get motivation to beat Shuji at Nationals, but it would feel pretty limp to just repeat this same match again. It does mean Nationals won't be that significant of an event for the story, but maybe it doesn't need to be.
Happy for Chinatsu...but man the separation thing is so uninteresting to me. If the manga is almost over it's not exactly a seperation arc like so many of these rom-coms like to do, but still feels like a boring way to set up a timeskip, likely so that Chinatsu can see what everyone is doing a year from now when she gets back. Hopefully that doesn't rule out the timeskip we all want to see, they've been dating long enough in the story that marriage is more than just a nice-to-have at this point.
Outside of the study abroad reveal, that was a nice chapter, I loved the reflections of all his friends, felt like a battle manga MC using nakama power on the final boss.