I've never considered myself a feminist . . .
Episode 27 of Touch made me cry, too, even though it was mostly flashbacks.
But . . . did I say I wanted to see Minami doing the whole rhythmic gymnastics thing? That was a mistake.
I didn't think she could get more annoying. Seriously . . . if she were a fanfic character, she'd definitely qualify as a Mary Sue. Since she's an original character, the only labels I can give her are "extremely annoying" and "unrealistic."
The captain of the gymnastics team is injured, so she talks Minami into taking her place. After a month training, Minami goes to regionals and . . . gets third place. -_- And, and she had an almost perfect score until she screwed up with her ribbon routine! -_- At least there was a character on my side. Tatsuya made a comment like, "That made it look so easy. What the hell are the other girls doing?!" Indeed. If someone can come along and beat the majority of the competition (and almost win it all) with just a month of practice . . . well, there's something wrong with the competition. It's not like she's ever done this before, either. She played frickin' volleyball in junior high. But the minute she starts doing gymnastics, she's perfect.
I've also got a problem with the name "gymnastics." I first became familiar with the Japanese version in Ranma 1/2, where Takahashi poked fun at the sport by turning it into a battle. The English release translated it as "rhythmic gymnastics." Apparently, the real title is just plain "gymnastics." I'm sorry, but gymnastics involves flips and balance beams and high bars and stuff--not fluidly moving to music with a ball/juggling pins/hoop/ribbon and posing so that everyone can see every detail of your body. What they were doing was dancing. On top of all that, it was obvious that the entire point of the sport is to let men see women's bodies. Ugh. Sure, it takes great control of your body, but still . . .
Then there was the extreme media hype surrounding her results at regionals. At the first baseball game of the season, Minami (who is still a manager) gets held up at gymnastics practice, then because the newspaper wants to interview her for an article. The other team keeps asking about her and why she hasn't shown up yet, commenting that they'd been hoping to meet her. When she finally does arrive, a couple of batters from the other team get struck out, and they both turn to Minami and shyly say, "Doomo" (Hello). Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Of course, she smiles sweetly at them. Ugh. Why didn't she tell them to pay attention to the damn game? Ugh. At least Tatsuya was on my side again. He was disgusted at the guys and wondered out loud what they came for.
I've never really considered myself a feminist. At least, not by today's standards. Still--I cannot stand this character! I'm kind of sad, because you know that she's going to end up with Tatsuya at the end, and I'm only watching the series for him. I'd love it if they didn't end up together, but I know how impossible that is.
In other news, I'm starting training for my crap job on Monday. Hopefully, it's just a temporary job, because even if I get 40 hours a week, I'll be making about half of what I did each year when attending college. That's counting my scholarships, but still. Blegh. I'm so glad I graduated during the worst economic crisis the US has seen since The Great Depression. Lovely.