Ride 751: Hakogaku's preliminary inspection
Pag 1
1: Plunging into a new chapter!!
Pag 2
1: The rivals standing in their way in the Inter High!!
Pag 3
1: Kanagawa Prefecture, Hakone city
3: Huh, a preliminary inspection
4: for the Inter High!?
5: Yeah... well... it's a usual thing
Now, really? Really?
Pag 4
1: Gwaaa hoii!!
2: I'll go, I'll go, I'll go!!
Yeeah!!
4: Huh, preliminary inspection? I might be a little interested
He's suddenly acting cool!?
5: Ah
Pag 5
1: Coough
Waaaa
He's suddenly vomiting blood!?
2: He definitely bit his tongue while jumping around in excitement earlier....
3: 'm ohey
It's obvious that your tongue hurts....
Yeah...
This guy is always injured....
4: If nohing!!
I get it, I get it!!
5: 'en u we 'eave? (When do we leave?)
In thirty minutes, before the clubroom... you'll take a car to the train station
'aight!!
6: It's so obvious he's happy about it
7: Was that right? They didn't give us details
I guess, it's what Manami-san told us
First year Tobirama
Pag 6
1: Last month, in the club's tournament he won the F-group climber race
Pag 7
1: Yeah, I see, and he's gonna run in this year's Inter High as the sixth regular member of Hakogaku!!
2: Seriously, I
3: I want to be considered cool by everyone!!
4: What's up with him, he looks so cheerful
Cool, cool, Kyuushu~
That Tobirama is so festive
Pag 8
5: Huh!? It's just me and Manami-san!?
Isn't- like, Doubashi-san coming!?
6: Hn.... I told Jou-kun and Yuuto, too, but they had their practice menu, so they said “no”
8: They said no!?
Huh!? But it's a preliminary inspection!?
9: For the Inter High!! A preliminary inspection, right!?
Yeah
Pag 9
1: A preliminary inspection for summer's great battle, right!?
2: That's right... the place we're going to now it's the biggest “mountain”.....
3: A mountain we absolutely have to overcome
4: And yet the other members didn't come!!
Ah... Manami... I'm seeing now that apparently the train stopped because of an accident
Ah
Should we just go there directly?
Is that okay? Thank you
5: Directly!? By car!?
Huh!?
6: To Kyuushu!?
7: The Inter High is in Kyuushu, right? How long will it take from here....
Hm? Around
Pag 10
1: Two hours and a half
Pag 11
4: Yeah... we arrived in two and a half hours, but- this is Chiba, isn't it!?
5: Where is Kyuushu!? Ah!? Is there a theme park like the park in Kyuushu here too?
And what abaout the splendid nature!? The big volcano...!!
6: Ah
7: Where will he have the preliminary inspection?
Cool
If you hurry up and get ready...?
Pag 12
1: We'll do our practice menu here, today
Pag 13
2: Our menu.... did you want to practice here just for a change of mood?
3: It's here, right? Where they do tournaments and stuff
It's Chiba's
4: Minegayama, right?
Yeah!!
5: Hakone is better though
6: I wanted to go to Kyuushu
7: Ah, by the way, speaking of Chiba, an acquaintance of mine lives here
Pag 14
1: You know, I was in the basketball club when I was in middle school
Ehh... I didn't know...
2: A good senpai of mine meddled with their basket club....
3: And apparently he was a good friend with my club's teacher advisor, and so they often organized practice matches with Chiba's middle school
4: I got injured a lot back then, too
So I often got injured and that guy from that middle school took care of me
5: He was so good at treating injuries that in my school they called him the “super manager”
6: I guess he's still in the basket club?
Pag 15
2: Ah, by the way, what's today's practice menu?
Fifteen minutes at a fixed output... three or something?
Nahh
3: Since they'll probably come, it's “do your best to win against that guy”!!
3: Huh!?
Who's gonna come!? You organized this with someone?
4: Any time now... probably
But we didn't
5: Organize it
6: Huh!?
The sound of wheels.... from behind us!? A bike!? …. no, more than one
Pag 16
2: They're here
Pag 17
1: Last year's champion, Sohoku High School!!
Pag 18
5: Teh!?
7: Yo
Pag 19
1: It's been a while, Sakamichi-kun
2: Hakogaku's captain, Manami Sangaku- why is he here!!
Pag 20
1: Wearing their jerseys and riding their bikes, there's no way they came here to sightsee!!
2: Manami-kun!!
3: The Inter High is next week already, isn't it? Bu before that.... I thought we should cross that “mountain*” once
(*NdT.: here, the kanji say “mountain king”, but the reading says “mountain”)
Pag 21
1: “Mountain”.....!! “That we absolutely have to overcome”- so this is the “preliminary inspection”!!
2: How about... that summit over there?
Your team... we're at an overwhelmind disadvantage, but
3: We don't plan on losing
It's a “preliminary battle”!?
5: Manami-san's concentration.....
Pag 22
1: it sprang up!!
Sounds interesting, doesn't it!?
Pag 23
1: A preliminary battle!?
He wants' to challenge us!?
2: Now!?
Here!?
3: You came here... on purpose... for this?
4: Yeah
5: I came here for this only?
7: Uh!! Sohoku's captain's.....
Pag 24
1: Onoda-san's concentration sprang up too!!
Got it!!
Pag 25
1: Onoda!!
2: Onoda-kun!!
3: Seriously!?
4: Waaa
5: We're starting a race against those two!? Teh!?
6: Oh, oh oh?
Pag 26
1: Really?
Those jerseys
2: It's Hakone Academy and Sohoku!!
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"...You are all about to perish, do as you wish! (I'm so sorry...)" is one of my favorite moments of Revenge of MK's dialogue, it's so damn rich. Cause Meta is obviously beyond stressed and furious with everything that's happened and he just wants his closest crew to leave so he can deal with the shame alone by battling Kirby as his dreams literally nosedive into the sea. But his crew aren't thinking of this as Meta Knight's personal failure, to them it was a group effort they all failed at and should have a last hurrah together, which is incredibly sweet. The problem is just that things are hectic and Meta Knight is emotionally constipated AF, so his response just comes out as an IDFC, which he INSTANTLY regrets. Even with that horrible response his crew decide to go fight Kirby one last time out of nothing but pure respect for their leader. It's only once they fail for the 3rd time they realize that he was right the first time and they leave him be.
It's especially interesting contrasted with Revenge of the King and how Dedede treats his right hand man, Bandana Dee. By the time he asks Bandee to go fight he's also just as stressed and cornered by failure as Meta Knight was, but here he openly shows his compassionate side. He doesn't snap at Bandee for being scared to go out, he understands and spares him because he wants to take responsibility for Kirby. This is actually exactly what Meta Knight was trying to do, but the canyon of difference between how he and Dedede expressed these wishes is obvious. And because of this compassion poor Bandee is inspired to go fight Kirby, even if he was no where near as skilled and determined as the Meta-Knights were. They were immediately willing to put their lives on the line before Meta even said anything, but Dedede’s words and actions being able to invigorate a scared little dee into doing his best is really amazing.
I think this parallel shows a really wonderful dichotomy between the way these two approach leadership. Meta Knight is more calculated and organized - having led the building of a ship, assembly of an effective army, and staging of a coup - but he lacks good emotional communication skills. But even with that flaw his followers have a deep respect for him due to his skills and intellect, and I like to imagine they've become aware that deep down he does really care. Dedede is far less technically skilled in leadership - his army is untrained, he's always on the defensive, and he's shown panicking a lot when things don't go right - but he is very charismatic and a lot more open than Meta. I think canonically its said that he got his army of waddle dees by feeding them which can be read as bribery, or you could read it as him being good at taking care of them and their needs. He’s depicted as lazy but that seems to just be the culture of the land, which means that Meta Knight was coming in and trying to rule people that he simply didn't understand the lifestyle of because he couldn't relate. But he clearly outclasses the King as someone capable of protecting the land through strength and action, its only Kirby’s meddling that ruins his takeover. They've both had their moments of poor judgement and selfishness, but I don't think it's meant to be that one of them is a good leader and the other isn't, just that they had strengths and weaknesses they needed to work on. This is clear with Dedede who is now the same laid-back king he always was, but has stepped up to taking his role more seriously. And with Meta Knight you can infer from his friendlier nature he has learned to be less controlling and more respectful of Dreamland (though I really wish we saw him interact with his crew more :[ ...).
Meta Knight and Dedede are such cool fleshed out characters for a series that could've been fine repeating the same "Meta is invading!"/"Dedede is stealing!" plot for every platforming adventure. And as the two biggest antihero-to-companion characters of the series I think it's really fun they've built them up to be interesting foils of each other, all coalescing in the Sworn Partners plot in KF2 which is built on all these deliberate moments of parallel. God these characters are so good!
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