Birdie Wing Episode 20: Real Pro Challenge

With Aoi’s confidence restored it’s time to face her toughest challenge yet.

We began with a flashback of a young Amane meeting Aoi. The megane cutie was not thrilled about to become her caddie at first but Aoi’s unbridled joy and as we’d see in a followup flashback later on, lack of concern for the adults’ plans, sparked something inside Amane. More on this later.

At last it’s time for the Finals. Aoi vs Reika. Reika’s at a big advantage going into the duel. Aoi would have a to score at least an 8 Under Par to stand a chance. Reika showed early on she’s the current best in Japan. She’s like “You’re good enough to win a tournament and go pro…but that’s the next one because you’re not beating me.” Our heroines didn’t like their chances until it started raining.

Amane and Aoi’s strategy was to hang on till the rain arrived. We’d find out it’s because Reika’d had a tough time playing under rainy weather.

Aoi meanwhile had no such issue and went all out. Although Reika still put up a good fight the rain clearly messed with her game and she made big mistakes. Aoi took advantage and caught up with only 1 Under Par. Reika’s like “I-it’s cool. As long as the rain doesn’t stop the course will become too hard to play on, the judges will postpone the game and I’ll be back to full force when we resume.”

Unfortunately Amane’s good at reading the weather and knew the rain wouldn’t last long. No sooner had Reika finished plotting her comeback did the rain stop. Aoi took advantage and won the game with one of the biggest comebacks in Japanese golf history (in that universe). Our heroines may not have stood a chance against Reika during a sunny day, not with that strong of a lead, but using the “Ash Ketchum” method of thinking outside the box they were victorious.

After a long day of interviews along with Aoi giving Amane just as much credit for the big win our heroines had a touching moment in the hotel. As Amane was ready for what’s ahead Aoi revealed she knew about the deal between the megane babe and her mom. Amane would be freed of her contract once Aoi went Pro.

Amane basically said she wasn’t thrilled at first but thanks to Aoi showing her how beautiful golf was, specifically her golf, she realized how good she had it working for the Amawashis. She wanted to stay as Aoi’s permanent manager and caddie. It’s that or she’d go to Reika.

In an alternate timeline Amane would have accepted Aoi’s love and we’d have got a golfer x caddie couple but here she and the audience knew there’s only one person destined to win Aoi’s heart though she didn’t want to admit it.

Meanwhile our other pair of leads rejoiced to hear Aoi win the tournament though Eve was bummed her love rival won the challenge. Remember Eve challenged her to see who would go pro first. Does this technically count as Eve’s first on screen loss? No time to think about that as our heroines prepared for their own pro qualifier tournament.  As they studied the difficult foggy terrain they’re shocked by a speeding golf shot. Not just any golf shot but a Blue Bullet! A seemingly stronger Blue Bullet than Eve’s!

Out of the fog came Leo ready to have his convoluted revenge scheme against Eve Papa by having his new apprentice Aisha take her down. He trained Eve just so he could later train another girl with stronger techniques to beat our heroine once she recovered her memories and was at the top of her game. At least that’s what I gathered. We’ll see if that’s his plan all along. It’s the classic shonen trope of a main protagonist’s toughest opponent either being an evil/robot clone or someone with similar/the same moves as them. It’s similar to facing Rose but without handicaps this time. Has Eve finally met her match?

Good stuff as always.