English Dub Review: Salaryman’s Club “Priority”

Overview

Mikoto is confused when Tatsuru suddenly announces he wants to dissolve their doubles team. Tatsuru leaves on a business trip and meets up with his former partner Izumo Naohiro in Kyoto. Meanwhile, Mikoto coincidentally discovers Tatsuru’s situation and runs into the world’s number one ranked singles player, Ibuki Sentaro of Mitsuhoshi Bank. He becomes distressed when his true feelings are identified. What conclusions will Mikoto and Tatsuru arrive at…?

Our Take

This episode reminds people why some are into sports anime more than others, it gives breathing room and makes a situation of comradery for two (or more) individuals to be as close as possible. And unlike the fighting genre which also creates that situation, no one has to die from fighting. Mikoto is worrying so much if Tatsuru has a girlfriend or not, but why is this even an Issue? I find this weird that Mikoto doesn’t believe a guy like Tatsuru can get a girlfriend than Mikoto wants to own Tatsuru to himself, but these two need to put their petty issues aside…

As for the executive director subplot, I don’t think he’s cartoonishly evil, but he’s callous in his business decisions, considering his profit-minded attitude. If you recall, he briefly mentions how the beverage company was facing fiscal losses, and strongly questioned if Mikoto’s beverage will even bring in the revenue they desperately need, and perhaps saw an opportunity to scapegoat the badminton team as a primary factor that contributed to their losses in profits. And given that Tatsuru is no longer there to protect the team, seeing their poor win-loss ratio, the director has the go-ahead to threaten to shut the team down to cut their losses unless they actually provide an excellent performance out there in the tournament.

Overall, this episode was favorably more on the dramatic side than what we’ve seen so far, but I think the show handled it pretty well. We got to see more insight into the past of Tatsuru and how he came to play with a young Mikoto when his form back then was in the gutter. Along with Mikoto re-discovering his diaries back at his family home, it led to a nice scene between the two doubles teammates and how they re-affirm each other by doing their best to play to their best strengths while covering for each of their weaknesses.

And given the recent news of what Warner Bros. is doing right now after their Discovery merger, it isn’t far from reality that companies can and will shut down divisions/projects if they perceive them as the main cause of their losses, so they slash the costs to lessen the blow of the loss at the expense of the employees’ livelihoods. Hopefully, the team can turn this around…