Bakuon!! – 06
Have a seat, Onsa! It looks comfy!
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Time to prep for the school festival! |
Ladies! Start Your Engines!
Nice Eyebrows, shirt
So you’re the Bike-bu, and the school festival is coming up. What do you do? Well, you could just do a boring stand, like everyone else. But that doesn’t fulfill Hijiri’s desire to be a delinquent, nor does it really say anything about the Bike Club. No, you have a race, but not just any race. What kind of race will it be? Actually, er, they haven’t told us. Apparently it’ll be something that handicaps the different riders. Because otherwise, with the betting they’re going to have (Wait, betting on a high school race? This sounds like a baaaaad idea, and I don’t think it’ll go very well for the principal who schemed it up) it would just be Raimu-senpai winning.
No Rondel on this side, and don’t touch the bike, Raimu!
But we don’t need any details about the race, because we’ll get to that next time. And I’m sure it will be silly, because Hijiri thought of it, and because they’re trying to be some kind of ‘fair’ about it. Maybe they can get the principal to compete, who has gotten the motorcycling bug back so she’s gone and bought herself a BMW bike. At first I thought they didn’t get a license from BMW, but then you could see the logo on the side, but it doesn’t really matter. Everyone (who cares) knows what kind of bike that was, and they know what kind of character they were going for for the principal: The all-stock, all dealer-maintained “Money-spending rider of justice!” I’ll be honest, tho, I didn’t really care for the flashback to Raimu-senpai winning a bunch at the track and buying all the color combos of that Kawasaki GPZ250R. Sometimes companies just have a bad idea, you know. And it usually comes when you try to come up with the something ‘of the future!’.
You can pick one depending on your mood!
Personality Modification
No thanks, Hane
To me, the biggest draw this episode was the modification of their bikes. The different philosophies that the girls exhibit when they are induced to modify their bikes are interesting and definitely not limited to just motorcycle culture. Hane’s changes are mostly stuck in naivete, since she is happy enough with how her Su-Four rides as it is. But even if they’re naive, she really takes her sister’s advice to heart and tries to make modifications that make riding more ‘fun’, even if it’s perceived fun, like exaggerated speedos and lots of mirrors and turn signals to make you safer. Her problem with the stickers on the speedos is that she just doesn’t understand the role that belief plays in being happy with your modification.
One goes for bolt-on
The other goes for add-ins
If Onsa and Rin see a sticker on their speedometer, they are going to know that it’s not really what it’s saying. They will KNOW this: you can’t fool yourself into thinking it’s faster just because you taped over it. But there are a lot of things that you can convince yourself that are making a difference, and Onsa and Rin give us two examples from the world of woo. Onsa might disaparage Rin’s choice of “Gun Spark” and “Hot Plasma” as “occult”, but her oil additives are pretty much just as much woo as Rin’s. And you can find this kind of woo anywhere (especially in high end home audio with its hundred-dollar-per-foot and up cabling, points, power conditioners, and what have you) where so much of the experience is subjective. And Rin and Onsa have exactly this conversation, as Onsa tries to pin it down to numbers, and Rin talks about the unmeasurables (which just happen to be highly susceptible to confirmation bias). And just to show that everyone has their weak points, Onsa does have that same belief in oil additives.
Finally getting the revs up
But one point where there actually is a difference is what Onsa’s dad shows her later. Rolling out his old racing bike, a Yamaha TZR250 3MA, a 2-stroke 250 sportbike, it takes a while for Onsa to appreciate the differences between a modern 4-stroke and 2-strokes. And there are a lot of differences, most of them bad for the 2-stroke: They burn oil and smoke, you get a lot of pollution (unburnt hydrocarbons and particulate), they can barely idle, they’re noisy, on and on. But get them to where they’re good at high revs? They can make just bucketloads of power, and a glorious noise. Her dad has to nudge her a little bit towards this, and finally she gets the engine into a place where it’s happy, and finds that it makes her happy as well.
I think Onsa’s a little delusional if she thinks the Sanma is going to beat Raimu’s Ninja, but at least it would be closer than with the Serow. But we’ll see what kind of race it’s going to be, and I’m expecting it to be fairly ridiculous. But that should be what makes it fun.
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
To be fair, Onsa said she could beat the Katana and the Su-4 using the Sanma. And Raimu’s being handicapped, since the Ninja can go half-again as fast as any of the other bikes in the club, not even mentioning the fact that Raimu is unquestionably the best rider out of all of them. Hijiri’s intent is to try to set it up so everyone can start off on relatively even footing.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
All this stuff is 2technical5me
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
O_O That is… too suggestive.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I thought the same thing. I’m going to assume her brothers didn’t realize it, but Onsa must have.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Everyone thought the same thing. We know where this show’s mind is…
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
Onsa’s brothers are pervs. She thinks they’re young enough to not know what’s what, and she still takes baths with them, but evidence I’ve seen in the manga indicates they they’re plenty aware, and are arranging things specifically so they can keep getting chances to play with onee-san while she’s naked. Those drills are planted with deliberate precision.