Maki and Toudou watching their kouhai final battle.

Time for Hakone flashback next time

Are you bored ?

Then let's reminisce about the past.

DEAR GOD PLEASE NO!

next episode: a recap, a flashback and the some more recap

500 klm left. Time for some recap and flashbacks

I swear i quit if: "10 meter left .... how about Recap ark now ..."

realll

flashbacks and more flashbacks :v

Switches and humming next time, are we finally going to hear hime hime again?
I fear it won't be in this season at all

of course hime is kept for the last seconds lol

Sigh fuck this show

You're telling me a shrimp fried this rice?

Season 4 and 5 really annoyed me the fk up. Too many freaking flashbacks.

I wanted to see more yowaizumi and mifosuji fight, these 2 are so boring

1.5 km, another f.. back is coming :(

Bruh, race y'all.

It would be funny if that perm guy, "If you find yourself in a difficult situation, say this loud. Eris pad her chest!"

They reached the mountains episode 5. I was wondering how the sole mountains could last 20 episodes. Now, i know. The usual recipe, but worse: blahblahblah + flashback + and two weeks ago mommy was cooking a cake how about we talk about it + flashback + let's say yet again what we say every episode since season 1 because you know since cycling is boring we need people to make some noise + more flashbacks + some screaming.

Oh... i see. This is the usual shounen recipe, inspired directly from One Piece.

🧌 👹👿

fail 22:58 he say sohoke the sub write hakone academy but still thanks for the great subs as always

its fun to see the mc isnt even ace, but still going for 1st twice

wish he would sing more puripuriprincess songs

Yes exactly!

Hakone Flashback time how the mc met his rival in the aquarium

THEY ALL WENT IN DATES AT THE BEGINNING. I WANTED TO SEE IMAIZUMI AND NARUKO UGHHHHHHHHHH

I BELIEVE IN FATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Haha like I get 4 episodes left they have to make it longer but ahh come on just end the race XD there done

200 meters for episode

i really dont like the opening

Flashback until ep 23

I already held back on shitting on this anime, but that line about reminiscing about the past killed me. At this point, they could have made a linear story. They could have put all the flashback material together and they could have shown it in the first part of the season, even if it will take a lot of time. It would have been much better.

Just imagine the hype it could have built. It will have tons of foreshadowing. Compared to this nonstop flashbacks that make it seems every event that happened in the past was conveniently set up and ass pulled somewhere.

And if Toudou was correct with his calculations (10 minutes with 1.7km left), it means that Onoda and Manami are pedaling as fast as 10.2kph (6.3mph) and that's slow compared to the animation and intensity they're showing. While it's true that they're climbing, it's still too slow for a race.

Though, they've accidentally addressed this by conveniently not letting Onoda look at his speedometer, and they shouldn't have done that. Nobody in this race cared about their numbers in their speedo—most don't have one on their bikes anyway.

Aside from that, they really needed to stress out that their race would feel like an eternity and those who don't cycle can't understand that. Oh please.

This race and season was too painful to watch. Too many reasons to mention, but the show is on its last leg. I was hoping that the race would be over in episodes 19–20, and the last episodes will be focused on tying up lose ends. Rant over.

"At this point, they could have made a linear story. They could have put all the flashback material together and they could have shown it in the first part of the season, even if it will take a lot of time. It would have been much better."
Yeah no. That would be worse, a lot worse.
If you put all flashback material together, you would think like this on some part of the flashback "Why are they showing this? It got nothing to do with the story?". Flashback need to be put in the right time to show that they are connected to current important event, or it would be feel like a normal moment which doesn't need to be put in the story.

"Aside from that, they really needed to stress out that their race would feel like an eternity and those who don't cycle can't understand that. Oh please."??? This was a pattern of every single sport series, not just here, why are you complaining about it now?
Plus, this is anime series that want us to know the character better too. Its not some kind of real world sport event where we just look at it for the competition.

You are right with Toudou calculations part though.

Not sure if we watched the same anime, but you do know that most story are sequential and there's often little need to perform flashbacks. And if they use flashbacks sparingly to remind people of what they may have forgotten, then it's a welcome sight. Instead, this season overdid it with most episodes having half of them focused on flashbacks that, which instead of providing additional information or reminders, appeared like ass pulls.

So as you said, flashbacks need to be put in the right time. It should not be a required storytelling device. Also, it could have been bearable if the format of this anime was already like this before—same with the US TV show Lost.

This season abused flashbacks unnecessarily.

This pattern is applicable in most anime and is often utilized perfectly. However, you do know that too much of anything can be bad.

I understand that they want people to know the characters better, too. But the execution was bad. They were able to successfully pull it off in the first inter-high. You can see the stark differences between the two and how the two have a similar structure, plot wise.

Again, it's unfortunate that the execution for this season was just that bad. The story is already suffering from introducing completely new and underwhelming characters. And it's also sad that the most interesting ones were sidelined heavily for the sake of these characters.

If I were to have an input to the story, I would have just let the first year members (both in Shohoku and Hakone) to have little screen time. They have two more years after all. Reduce the screen time of the two third years or compile their "flashbacks" in one to three episodes before the race. And give more time to the three main cyclists, even if they're not fully on the spotlight. I believe that these potential changes alone will surely balance out this season. And as few other commenters said before, a few episodes with the Hime song should have been mandatory.

bullshit-wamushi no pedal