Suzuka – episodes 19-22

April 2, 2006 on 2:27 pm | In Suzuka | 2 Comments

I won’t complain about how contrived all of this drama is. Okay, I will. Also I find the idea of instilling Yamato with a selfish dedication to track with only four episodes left to be a semi-insult. Simply put, how can one guy manage to say entirely the wrong thing on so many occasions? I can’t comprehend.

Spoilers yonder. Additional warning: editorialising even in episode summary.



Honoka and Yamato arrive at an amicable break up. When Suzuka asks about it, Yamato tells her, naturally, that he dropped Honoka because he was too bothersome. Great move, stratego!
Thing is, Honoka realises that she should make up with Yamato and reverts to her original “I want to spend as much time with Yamato as possible” type. Then, through the influence of Miki, Yamato decides to tell Suzuka the truth of the break up.
Then because he’s too afraid to confess to Suzuka again (and, to be honest, when you’ve done so many stupid things, why wouldn’t you?) he decides to become the number one track-and-field athlete in Japan.

Yes, this has become a “nipponichi” show, yet Yamato’s resolve does not seem believable at all. I can believe other people striving to be the best, and maybe I could in this instance if we didn’t get Yamato’s constant voice over – but then Suzuka would consist of silent shots of Yamato’s face and pans of Suzuka in the field and the dialogue would be even more stilted.

I can’t bring myself to hate Suzuka as so many others before me have, but I spend a lot of time questioning its validity. The only character left with a modicum of interest – as she is not involved in the vicious cycle of this love triangle – is Miki. Miki is easily the most mature character, able to consider the emotions of others and a good counsellor. Because Yamato is generally represented as an uncertain fool who always says and does the wrong thing, it’s normally hard to see what she sees in him, but whenever they’re together he seems slightly more natural and human.
The problem with having an external voice of reason in Miki is that none of the characters manage to secure themselves internal voices of reason. This simply means that they can do whatever the hell they want with no regards for the consequences because Miki can simply come along and fix it up.

Suzuka‘s major problem is that it’s largely arbitrary, and that calling Yamato “irresponsible” ultimately means nothing. Love’s fortunes are far too fickle, and that’s why I don’t normally watch straight romance shows – I was expecting more sport.* This is par for the course, though, and that’s exactly the problem: this far into the series, Suzuka has become bog standard.

*I feel I should clarify here that I was talking about the “romance” genre, not saying “I normally watch shounen-ai to get my romance fix”. I find a lot of the romance genre to be along the lines of pulling teeth – that’s why you’ve got to mix it with something, like incest, or soul-searching, or being the last human on Earth. Not exactly a gimmick, but the suggestion that love is a natural part of proceedings rather than all there is, as is the case in this show.

2 Comments

  1. they are the cutest character ive ever seen….

    Comment by dulce — November 3, 2007 #

  2. the story was very beautiful….

    Comment by dulce — November 3, 2007 #

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