Rinkai!, Episode 12 [END]: Strive, Struggle, Win!

Tsutsuji drives Izumi to the Rookie Final racetrack but takes a detour for her nerves. Who will win, Nana or Izumi?

Episode 12 — “Strive For the Future!”

Hmm.

Have you ever watched coverage of athletes’ rituals before a big game like the World Series? Superstition is the usual angle, referring to a lucky sock or not washing a glove. However, the underlying reason is mental health. The set steps for mindset preparation are like a mantra to lock in motivation and soothe nerves. I like hearing the stories behind the pre-game rituals because they humanize celebrities and reveal their personalities. Is Rinkai! showing a future ritual for Izumi, where she visits her home bank to remember her journey as a pro cyclist? Izumi has come from simply being a spectator to the heights of racing in her first championship. The anime’s season has been this journey for the Tackle Channel friends.

Rinkai! Makes Me Say Heh.

Fun! The entire Ito family can watch Izumi’s Rookie Final race. Carpool! Convoy! Oh. Everyone noticed Izumi’s wilted demeanor about negative online comments. Tsutsuji has a plan, though. Uh oh. Coach Sono thinks she made a mistake letting Tsutsuji handle sports psychology. Let’s visit Izumi’s home bank. It’s where her whole cycling story began in Rinkai!. Oh, good. Headpats and tickling solve everything in anime. Tsutsuji’s advice is good for drowning out the haters: ride for your fans and repay them with victory. The haters will still buy betting tickets, too. Monetize the hate! Haha. Remu similarly had to endure Tsutsuji tickling attacks. The memories gave her perspective. Also, the betting windows are open. Several of Izumi’s fans are in the stands, already cheering for her.

Hoho. Izumi joins the ranks of cyclists going through rough patches, either mentally or physically. Tsutsuji fills her in on the nickname the pros gave Coach Tsubonosuke: Dotsubonosuke! 土壺 (どつぼ, dotsubo) means “bad condition, awful state, terrible situation, in the shit.” You’re not alone, Izumi.

Rinkai League rookies, assemble! Tsutsuji and Remi Hiroshima provide the color commentary for the Rookie Final race. Oh no. Remi can’t get her words in. Look at all the fan club banners for the riders. Why did Izumi ever care about a few online comments? You can’t even hear the detractors through all the positive cheering.

Two Minutes Feels Like Forever

Rookie Final start! Rinkai! is cycling anime now. A keirin race is six laps around a 250-meter track, translating to typically two minutes of racing as the derny or pacer ramps up to 50 kph. Here, the show takes six minutes of broadcast time, which is nowhere near the stuff Yowamushi Pedal got away with. Two episodes stretch for 200 meters! Everyone gets their moment of inspiration, but the focus is on Izumi and Nana. Oops! Remi said Nana would surge at the last moment, but the race favorite broke away already. Ooh. Ai Kumamoto showed up at the end.

Aha! Izumi used her mind-reading powers. Aw. She has time inside the race to appreciate the crowd. Who wins? Izumi? Nana? Shoot. I wanted to see the photo finish. Officially, Nana won, Izumi placed, and Midori showed. Nana attained her revenge! But look how quickly Izumi caught up to Nana.

Rinkai! Epilogue and Hiratsuka Flavor

Celebratory ramune for everyone! Midori thought she needed to win the Rookie Final to join the international team, but the team called her anyway. Poor Papa Gunma. Ha! Nana brought Hiratsuka fluffy omelets for everyone. She also has Izumi’s number: the Ito girl needs the crowd’s energy. Toasting with ramune and omelets! Hey, Izumi, you’re not that great. Aw. The L14 Term has its own inside joke. Confirmed: Ai joined the L15 class. Will she meet her L14 friends at next year’s Rookie Final? The End.

Final Thoughts.

Earnest. That is the one word I would use to sum up the voice of Rinkai!. It openly promoted the keirin racetracks in each city the main characters came from. The girls’ surnames were the cities themselves! The racetracks and buildings were real places. Heck, the main character, Izumi Ito, lived at the hot spring inn that sponsored Ito’s velodrome! As Hokkaido Gals earlier this year and Bartender Glass of God in the spring season, Rinkai! put fictional characters in real-life places to tell its story. The settings were as much a cast member as the cycling girls. The purpose? Come visit our racetracks, root for our athletes, and think about becoming a pro cyclist yourself. Especially you young girls watching!

The openness and artlessness of Rinkai!’s sales pitch for local sites and tourism reminded me of anime as a promotional and advertising tool for products a generation ago. Back then, ecchi and eroge lured horny otaku into buying their software through anime like Shuffle!, School Days, and To Heart. Children’s cartoons still sell toys and merchandise, video game adaptations lure you into microtransactions and gacha pulls, and eroge still puts cat girls onto your video screens. So, anime has always sold something the production committees hope to make money on. But recently, promoting tourism and Japanese commercial products has become more prevalent. The third season of Yuru Camp, which supports real-life camping grounds with views of Mt. Fuji, started that trend before Hokkaido Gals, Bartender, and Rinkai!.

Was Rinkai! Too Local to be Global?

Unfortunately for Western cycling fans, Rinkai! was too Japanese to attract streaming licenses in the Western Hemisphere. The English subtitles, aimed at the Southeast Asian market centered around Hong Kong, often felt like the Japanese audio went through a Chinese filter before landing in English. The subtitles regularly used “games” for races and “players” for riders or cyclists. Although cycling fans could figure out the meaning in context, those moments still punted a viewer out of the watching experience.

The Uma Musume: Pretty Derby franchise is the closest analog to Rinkai! as an anime. The horse girls in it take the names of famous racehorses, the tracks all exist, and the racing schedule matches Japanese horse racing. Cygames aimed to suck its player’s wallets dry for accessories for the sexy little horse girls, so its anime adaptations reflect those goals. For Rinkai!, I expect the Ito Hot Springs Inn to see a few more reservations this year.

But what about the cycling action? I saw nothing here that detracted from professional track cycling. Keirin events usually take a whole day or an afternoon, full of elimination heats, qualification times, and tiers of competitors. I would have liked to have seen more attention paid to the equipment brands. But Rinkai!’s ultimate purpose was city tourism and racetrack promotion.

Fight for the Future of Women’s Japanese Track Cycling

What is next for Rinkai!? The franchise has a manga set seven years ago, telling how Tsutsuji became a tickle monster for Remu and how the pair ultimately became the world individual sprint and pursuit champions in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2023. And for the anime characters? Take a dip at the Ito Hot Springs Inn and enjoy some tanmen and fluffy omelets in Hiratsuka if you ever visit Shizuoka. What if you have a spare afternoon during your trip? Bet on a couple of keirin races as you enjoy thicc thigh-pumping action.

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