天下制覇

I believe God made me for a purpose… but he also made me fast.

Impressions:

I really hope I’m not the only one who got Chariots of Fire vibes from the music during Taiga’s little training montage. On the other hand, I think I’m probably one of the few people in the potential ToraDora viewing audience who has seen Chariots of Fire. Get off my lawn, you damn kids!

Anyway, I wasn’t really a huge fan of this episode. I don’t like at all that they spent the entire episode showing Taiga working hard to learn how to swim, finally more or less succeeding (plus boogy board), and she/Ryuuji having a nice little bonding moment, only for her to attempt to cheat her way to victory. Then they copped out of showing whether or not she would have even won if not for Ryuuji drowning (or if it would have even been close) which I thought took away some of the impact of that ending scene. Was it already hopeless? Or did she give up on her chance to keep Ami out of Ryuuji’s life in order to save him? I think the difference there is a little important.

I did like both the Minori and the Ami scenes between Ryuuji. They’re both getting much better rounded out than they were for a long while and actually developing some form of likeable personality beyond wearing radars on their heads or covering themselves with buckets of pudding. Kitamura, on the other hand, remains as useless as ever. It’s a good thing that he’s become almost completely extraneous to… well… everything by this point, because he really does kind of suck… a lot.

Preview:

Fivesome vacation retreat.