Did I not post this yet here? Oy. Well, still haven't managed to get my hands on AniPuri 111 yet, but here's the summary for 110. Warning: Spoilers ahoy!

Excuse for being late this time: The episode wasn't put up until late and Thanksgiving Day and then I had to go sleep for eight hours because I was EXHAUSTED. However, on the positive side, the quality was gorgeous this week, more along the lines of a l33t-raws encode than the usual SaiyaMan. Either way, pretty, pretty Ohimesama makes Becky very, very happy. The usual spoiler warnings apply, of course. (And a high content of fangirling over Atobe, because he's my precious and that's what I do. ^_~)

Note: I've noticed a lot of people like to directly link to my caps, since they're hotlinkable, and it generally doesn't bother me. However, please add a note with your links stating where the images are coming from and also link to the post the images are announced on. This way, when I shuffle things around my webspace (usually because I need the room), people will still be able to find the images. Thanks!

Prince of Tennis - Episode 110 - Let me start out by saying that I am not a screaming Hyotei fangirl any more than I am a screaming St. Rudolph's fangirl or a screaming Fudomine fangirl. (Okay, I will admit to being a screaming Atobe fangirl, but only because I luffles him so, so much.) Just because it's Hyotei does not automatically make it good. (And they do not fare well under extreme overexposure. ~_~) That said, I enjoyed the hell out of this episode because AniPuri seems to have gotten its sense of humor back. My favorite was Ohimesama (TM Hana) and the lawnchair, umbrella, and fruity drinks. I cannot stop giggling that he brought servents along on the trip over to Seigaku's little cabin in the woods. God bless AniPuri for milking the richboy thing like crazy. *hearts* XD

Right from the start, this episode cracked me the hell up because the pan shots of the characters were so melodramatic! Okay, so Hyotei shows up, poses a lot, and Seigaku is like, "Ehhhh?? Hyotei?" Precious preens for awhile (and damn is he adorable not putting his arms through the sleeves of his jacket like that XD), Momo gets riled up, Oshitari insults the condition of their cabin, Gakuto looks disdainfully at the courts and then a frog nearly beans him in the face. Gakuto pulls the BEST "GAAAHHH!!!" face, ducks, and the frog goes flying over his head, and lands straight on Ohtori's face. Don't ask me how it manages to stick there, but the frog is clinging to his head like crazy. Ohtori does the best spaz dance ever, Shishido is SO FREAKING CUTE when he asks Choutarou if he's okay, and I take about a million and one caps.

Even Oshitari loses his cool over the frogs jumping all over the place and I snicker like crazy right along with Momo as he watches the whole thing. (I really had trouble picking just a small handful of caps to embed in this post, because they got some hysterical expressions in this episode. *cuddles Ohtori*) Ohimesama then snaps his fingers and servents rush to set up a chair, an umbrella, and fruity drinks for him to sit comfortably and watch the games. I still can't stop laughing and/or wanting to pounce on him. Oh, yeah. And he does the Sparkly Hair Flip of Gay. Take THAT, Mizuki. >:P You may have done the gay hair thing first, but does yours have SPARKLES? Yeah, I didn't think so. XD

Okay, so they draw... errr... chopsticks?... to see who is going to play who and Eiji draws first, pulling out the one with Kabaji's name on it. Cute expressions up the wazoo from Eiji as he realizes he has to play the big, hulking guy. Inui draws Hiyoshi's name and Hiyoshi is a pissy little brat, which is a huge shock, really. He does his odd little poses as he's about to serve and no one really cares too much about the match. Back to Kabaji and Eiji! I cannot wait for this episode to be subtitled because Eiji's reactions to Kabaji are already absolutely hysterical (especially with Kabaji's complete lack of reaction as Eiji is yelling at him XD) and I take about another million and one caps of the range of Eiji's expressions.

So, the match goes about how you think it would go. Kabaji starts off with his super-powerful shots, Eiji goes O_O and falls flat on his face to lose the first game. Atobe continues to look gayer than a gay thing that is really really gay (No, I will never get tired of that. XD) sipping his little orange, iced drink through a straw. Reaction shots from Shishido, Gakuto, and Oshitari as they all smirk, confident in Kabaji's victory. Eiji gets out the Determined Face of Cute and starts playing seriously, winning back a game from Kabaji. The Seigaku regulars cheer him on, they knew he could do it! We also get the frogs cheering Seigaku on. XD XD XD

Eiji fights back for a bit and then we get the BEST SHOT IN THE ENTIRE EPISODE. Seriously. I can't even mock it, that's how hysterical it is. It doesn't even NEED me to say anything. *points* (I'm pretty sure, that's what Shishido, Gakuto, and Oshitari are going O_O over in picture #112. They can't believe someone would be even gayer than their own captain. ^_~)(Atobe smirks and continues to sip his fruity drink because he knows his title of Reigning Queen of AniPuri Gay isn't in danger from an upstart little pipsqueak like this.)

I continue to laugh and sparkle my ass off as Atobe finishes his drink, doesn't even look as he holds it out and a servent comes by with a tray to take it away. He leans back in his chair and just when you think the gay can't get any stronger with Atobe, he lounges in the chair with his, "Come fuck me now." look. I weep that Tezuka's off in Germany, I really do.

Then he snaps his fingers and Kabaji goes into demon!mode and Eiji's all, "Oh, shit!" and I laugh because it's SO CHEESY. XD Oishi and Taka's reactionary expressions are hysterical, too. As is another servent bringing Ohimesama another fruity drink. God, AniPuri, I totally forgive you for the crappy filler episodes lately just for this episode alone.

Back to Inui and Hiyoshi and I still don't really care. Apparently, neither does anyone else, so back to Kabaji and Eiji we go. Kabaji's specialty (besides being a powerhouse player) is to copy the moves of other players, so he starts doing Eiji's acrobatic play, which really pisses Eiji off. (But delights me, because it's funny to see Kabaji mirroring Eiji's moves. XD) Eiji yells at Kabaji some more (who continues to not react) and there are a couple of funny shots of the little green frog sweatdropping as he notices this HUGE brown frog next to him. I dunno, that just amused me. XD

They keep playing, Eiji's fighting hard, but it's difficult when Kabaji is mirroring all his shots. Even Eiji's SUPER-HIGH jump is no match for Kabaji, who returns it easily. However, just as Eiji looks like he's out of options, he pulls out his mad cheetah skillz and dives for the ball super-fast, managing to return it. Hyotei goes O_O, Kabaji tries to mirror the same move, but falls a few inches short, losing the point. Hyotei gets pissy, Atobe's still not worried. He snaps his fingers again and this time Kabaji's eyes go demon-red, making me ponder batshit Kabaji - Kirihara relation thoughts. ^_~

However, Kabaji's legs can't take the strain of all of this and he shakes like a leaf, stumbling as he tries to reach the balls, falling on his face when he can't. Ohimesama is Not Pleased and looks adorable. Once again I weep that Tezuka is in Germany and missing the cuteness. In a stunning turn of events Eiji wins the match against Kabaji, surprising absolutely no one. The little green frog hops on top of the big brown frog, totally making it its bitch, I guess...?

Back to Inui and Hiyoshi, Inui completely predicting every move Hiyoshi makes. I will give them that I didn't expect Hiyoshi to win (which he does) Inui and Hiyoshi to tie (Dammit! I knew this, too! >_< Thanks to ee970 for reminding me!), but the match really belongs to Inui because as they're shaking hands (after much reluctance on Hiyoshi's part), he notices that Inui is wearing wrist weights. Some pretty heavy ones, too. Then I laugh like a hyena as Hiyoshi lifts Inui's shirt up so that he can see that Inui is wearing even more weights around his waist, which kept him from reacting as fast as he could have. Which is an interesting strategy and I don't mind that Inui lost here, because he had a different purpose in mind and it makes sense for him to play this way.

Those two matches over, we have pan shots of both groups and Jiroh is still the most adorable thing ever as he sleeps his way through the entire episode. Well. Almost the most adorable thing ever. Because we have Atobe in the cutest little pose EVER in this pan shot. Good lord, I just want to pounce on him and molest him, I really do. He's lounging in that chair and he knows it, too. *___* Next up, as mentioned before, Fuji plays Oshitari and Oishi plays Shishido. I'm actually kinda looking forward to those matches. Promo for next week makes it look interesting, especially with Fuji's ultra-high jump and Oshitari doing Fuji's hysterical new move. Oishi also continues to look absolutely friggin' adorable all dirtied up and I wanna see him play! Now!

Anyway, that's about it for what happened in this episode and... I will grant that I enjoyed this episode quite a lot because the series actually seems to be back on the right track and genuinely funny/sensical again. I will also grant that the Kabaji - Eiji match made more sense than I thought it would and was actually entertaining to watch. I still think it would have been better to match him up with someone who challenged his stamina rather than power, but Eiji seems to have come away having grown a little stronger for this match. Inui's match made sense as well, given that he was using it to get more powerful, which is something he works very dilligently on.

The interesting thing about Inui is that he's not really a very gifted player naturally, he has to work for any skill he has. His natural gift is his ability to calculate and remember numbers, percentages, and factoids that help him predict how the game is going to go. However, he has few physical skills and it's interesting to note that, despite being the tallest member on the team, he cannot run for shit. He really can't. This is one thing I noticed playing the GBA games, which are surprisingly accurate when it comes to the players. Inui was a bitch to play as because you couldn't make him run very fast to get the balls. >_< And watching the anime, you'll see that he's never been a very fast runner, even in the previous episode where he had to get to the ball as Kachirou dropped it, he had to dive to reach it in time. His accuracy is hard won, not gifted--he sucked in Bowling no Ohjisama because he hadn't had experience with it. He can gather tennis data on the fly (note the match against Ohtori and Shishido, where they defied his numbers, but he managed to gather the data as they played), but he seems to have trouble in other areas. Inui trains about as hard as Kaidoh to get his strength up and spends ungodly amounts of time with his data. Which just... I dunno, makes him interesting to me, in a lot of ways. ^_^

Anyway. This episode was a lot better than I was expecting (I was also in a great mood thanks to Hana, because she kept making me laugh with various stuff, so that helped my viewing of this episode.) and I'm looking forward to next week's episode. Fuji vs Oshitari is one of the few matches I'm genuinely interested in, because a) Oshitari's intensity is one of the few who could match up to Fuji's and if I can't have my Fuji vs Atobe match, this isn't a bad second choice and b) tensai vs tensai, smack him down Fuji! XD I'm also looking forward to Oishi vs Shishido, because I like both characters and I want to see them play.

I'm curious about who's going to play who after that, we still have Momo, Ryoma, Taka, and Kaidoh for Seigaku and Jiroh, Ohtori, Gakuto, and Atobe for Hyotei. I suppose that means we'll get at least three more episodes of this arc, I hope the next few live up to this one. (And I still can't decide if I want to see Atobe play or not. >_< Waaahhh! I wanted an Atobe vs Oishi match! *SULK*)

....Becky last moved along the sine curve at 9:48 AM