Episode 45: The Devil on the Court



So let's make a recap. Last episode, Ryoma and Akutsu's game started with a bang. Ryoma's Drive A hit Akutsu right on the face. Which made Akutsu very angry, but very happy too. Don't ask me why, because I don't understand Akutsu's demented trail of thought. Anyway, Ryoma told Akutsu to stand up quickly since only his debt to Kachiro was repaid (aka. ball hitting his face). Akutsu smirked and stood up. He walked at the back of the court and did his strange posture in playing tennis which baffled everybody. Dan was surprised since this is the first time he saw Akutsu be playing with that kind of stance. Ryoma just shrugged it off and turned to walk to his side of the court to prepare for his next serve. He held his racket on his right hand, therefore, a Twist Serve is being served next! Ryoma hit a twist and to his surprise, Akutsu managed to hit it from his previous stance which seemed a very difficult thing to do.

Ryoma was even more surprised by the irregularity in which Akutsu hits his returns (see the trail of smoke on the picture? that's how fast Akutsu is! XD). Banji told Coach Ryuzaki that the irregularity was Akutsu's greatest strength, and he thanked Coach Ryuzaki, for what, he didn't explain. The more surprising thing for Ryoma was the ability of Akutsu to change his direction of hits even after Ryoma jumped in sync with Akutsu's position. It's like he has great reflexes, when he sees Ryoma going to the right, he could hit the ball right-away towards the left. Or hit a cross when his stance is clearly for a straight.

Anyway, a scene change. We see a very young Akutsu standing on front of many older tennis players in what seemed to be a tennis club (young!Akutsu reminds me of Yanagi from Rikkaidai). Anyway, it seemed that the older tennis players were unimpressed with Akutsu's behaviour. They asked him to quit the club. Akutsu didn't want to quit the club even though he finds playing tennis to be incredibly boring since he's already very good at it. The older players insisted about Akutsu's resigning. Akutsu then made a challenge that he would leave the club if there would be anyone from the club to beat him in tennis. Suddenly, everyone was quiet, until a random person, named Shiritama, told him that he'd play him to the great relief of the other players. They knew that Shiritama is a very good player. Shiritama told Akutsu that if he defeated him, Akutsu would resign. Akutsu agreed, under one condition, if Shiritama loses, he would punch him on the face. Shiritama agreed. They started the match, it clearly seemed that Shiritama was losing, after being hit by Akutsu's Drive A, he ran away from the court. Leaving Akutsu incredibly pissed off.

Another scene change, it changed into Dan's perspective. The first time he saw Akutsu on the practice court in Yamabuki, he was fascinated by Akutsu's raw talent while practicing with Coach Banji, never missing a single ball. After a while, Akutsu got pissed (again) and walked away, throwing his green head band on the floor which Dan immediately scooped up. Akutsu told Dan to throw it away, but Dan asked if he could have it instead. It's now clear as to where Dan got that very loose head band.

Back to the game, it seemed that Ryoma's being supressed even further by Akutsu while his own father, Nanjiroh, watched on with a happy face. It seemed that Akutsu could see what Ryoma's next move would be and immediately hit the ball in the opposite direction. Ryoma couldn't even score a single point now, much to the worry of the Seigaku members. Akutsu told him that he would never ever score a single point on their match from then on. Ryoma appeared really pissed but remained quiet, what Akutsu said struck home since he wasn't able to score any points! Akutsu told Ryoma to stop kidding him about using tennis in revenge. Since, apparently, he couldn't and wouldn't be able to carry out that "revenge".