Keyakizaka46: "Keyakitte, Kakenai?" episode 103 recap

 Been a while since I made it through an entire episode, think the last one was #96. As many Keya fans are aware of there were some additions made to the Hiragana team, nine new members have recently joined. The past few 'Keyakitte' shows were devoted to meeting the new members, many are kind of young so wasn't interested in viewing those shows. However them being part of Hitagana means we'll meet a few of them today in this grudge match and also will see them in the next show.

 We'll be seeing every member again next week as this was only part one of the 'Fall Athletics Festival'. Didn't know that until the very end, all of a sudden Hiragana started to perform a song and then realized what was going on. That was okay as this wasn't that exciting of a duel, the main reasons were.... Hiragana members are good athletically while the Kanji members.... not so!!!!
 These gals were truly so bad at simple athletic things though so far there's only been two kinds of competition. The winning team in the event gets to choose a theme for a future episode, anything goes and they can even visit an amusement park. First competition was a rather long one as it consisted of nine races, distance in them was 50 meters or 164 feet.
 Simple rules for it, there are two teams with two members each from Hiragana and Kanji. The winner of the race gets ten points for their team, no other points for the other positions. But there are negative points involved, the last place finisher gets minus ten points thus even if your teammate wins the team gets zero plus a team can also get minus ten which happened often with Kanji.

 Before we go on do have a quick observation(s). The Kanji member's ages on average are a little bit older than the long term gals from Hiragana but not by a huge amount. But in real life a twenty year old is usually going to be better at athletics than a sixteen or seventeen year old whether it's running or just sports in general. So the Kanji members can't use the excuse they're older which is what they said a few times when they lost which was almost every race.
 On to race one and the pair trying to bring home a victory for Kanji is Nanako and Neru who is supposed to be one of the group's faster runners. After watching her not sure about that but do know she makes our blood run very fast!!!! Nanako was totally out of her league, how can a twenty year old be so bad at running 50 meters? Hiragana wasn't out of their league as Miku brought home the first win with a time of 8.1 seconds to run 164 feet, woman's record for that length is 5.96 seconds.

 Neru ran somewhat fast but once she saw she couldn't win she gave up. On to match two, won't give a detailed account of every one as there's no DST tonight. As you can see above the Kanji duo for race two is Minami and Nijika who are going up against Memi and Suzuka, she's a new addition to Hiragana. Once again it wasn't all that close with Kanji taking another last place finish as that's the position Minami ended up she did lose both her sneakers running(!) and now Kanji is at minus twenty points which will get much lower.
 That means Hiragana is at plus twenty as now the hope rest with Miyu who the hosts seem to think is fast. We'll find out as her and Nana's opponents are Hina and Akari, both new members. It's really gotten embarrassing for the Kanji team as that pair finished third and fourth, I thought Nogi members were quite bad at running but the Kanji members have easily set a new standard for ineptness.

 The races were an okay watch but would have been better if there were fewer of them, five would have been a good number. That way there would have been time for another activity, personally was hoping there would be a fifty meter swimming event....
 Six more races to go and the winning streak will hit four for the Hiragana team. Rika O. paired up with Nanami to go against Sarina and Manamo. There was sadly no close finish in the match, Rika O. was a heavy favorite who disappointed the bettors who waged their life savings on her as she naturally finished dead last. For Hiragana Sarina was quite impressive and had the race won with the first two steps, not the fastest time but she had the largest margin of victory.

 The streak finishes at four victories as up next for Kanji is Manaka and Rika, most expect her to have the worst time of any runner. They faced off against Ayaka and Kumi who I thought had the strongest team but their opponent was quite impressive. That was Manaka who perhaps thought(was hoping) the prize for winning was a date with Nao as she narrowly edged out Kumi and it was a photo finish.
 So finally Kanji gets a needed victory though it didn't help their cause, as expected Rika was last so the ten points for the victory were taken away.  But the first victory is always the hardest so perhaps that will start Kanji on their own winning streak. Wishful thinking as the next two pairs went down so easily and the margin in points is now getting close to a hundred.

 The eighth race had a different lineup as three runners on each team took part, it was the only race featuring six. Representing the incompetent Kanji team was Fukuya, Mizuho and Yurina, to me they all could be worse athletes than Rika. Their tough competition was against the trio of Nao, Hiyori and Konoka who are all new members.
 Think Kanji made a mistake going up against Hiragana, they may have had a better chance of victory against a class of first graders though bet the outcome still would have been in doubt. This race wasn't as Nao blew away the field and as it turned out the the Hiragana members took the first three positions, can the situation get any dire for team Kanji?

 To a person the Kanji team thought Akane was their best runner or actually all around athlete, she's a hard nosed gal as they kept calling her 'Sarge" She was paired up with Aoi who to me fits perfectly on the Kanji team as appears to be no athlete. The duo is going up against the dynamic duo of Kyoko and Shiho who have been Hiragana members since their inception.
 Akane was impressive and would have beaten most other runners. But as luck would have it she had to top Shiho and that was an impossible task as she had the fastest time of the day as she ran fifty meters in 7.62 seconds, Hiragana ended up winning eight of the nine races. The difference going into the next competition is 120 points.

 This show lasted for 25 minutes but the last three and a half featured a song. Those races took up about eighteen minutes which meant there wasn't much time for the next challenge which only had two duels, perhaps there will be more in the next show. Next up was 'Giant Ball Battle', it's easy to figure out what that means but it is quite a massive ball.
 They didn't give the dimensions but looks like it's about ten feet tall, perhaps 5-6 feet in width. The object is another simple one, that's to push the ball into your opponents zone or to have it cross a goal line. Least we can say this first match was much more closer than the races but the outcome was the same. That's of the Hiragana team coming out on top, how about a match versus Nogi's Undergirls?

 One more match with the huge ball and it doesn't take much thinking do figure out who came on top again. That's Hiragana and when part two of this non-intense competition begins next week Kanji is trailing by 180(!) points, seems like an insurmountable lead. We saw Yuuka often in the background and did hear her say some words but she didn't take part in any of the races nor the two huge ball games, are they saving her to be the team's secret weapon?
 The last few minutes featured the Hiragana members performing a tune and think we need to see more of them. It was a song off the fifth single titled "Soredemo Aruiteru" which was an okay song. To me it sounds like a Nogi tune as it starts off slow for a minute, then the beat picks up and repeats that style throughout. It's okay but kind of wish their group song on the single was a bit more upbeat like Nogi's Undergirls usually have, least watching them was enjoyable.

 The second part of the competition aired tonight, had I known the athletic festival was going to be two episodes would have waited and done two posts back to back. No big deal though and will be back in a few days then to let you all fans know how it ended up. Should be a given who ends up winning as you would think that there's no way Hiragana can lose that massive lead.