Summary:
Haruhi bursts into the club room and announces that they’re going to be participating in a baseball tournament. She had originally found the baseball uninteresting, but the purpose of them entering is because it’s their chance to get their name out to the world. Haruhi of course does not want to lose (and expresses this by biting Mikuru’s ear). The SOS Brigade currently has five members (including Itsuki), so they’ll need to get four more people for the team. Mikuru has a friend she can bring and Kyon thinks that he can get Taniguchi and Kunikida to come, along with one other person. Haruhi then uses Mikuru to convince the baseball team to let them have the field for some practice, which ends up consisting of Haruhi hitting balls towards the other four members. Kyon has to help Mikuru off the field after she becomes afraid of getting hit by the ball. He asks Yuki if she can make it rain to cancel the game, but decides not to after hearing that there’d be effects on the ecosystem by doing so.
On game day, Haruhi finds out that the ninth member Kyon recruited is his little sister. He thinks that Haruhi will somehow win this game, but if he includes his little sister, no one would take their winning seriously. They decide the batting order and positions by amidakuji:
1. Pitcher – Haruhi
2. Right Field – Mikuru
3. Center Field – Yuki
4. Second Base – Kyon
5. Left Field – Kyon’s little sister
6. Catcher – Itsuki
7. First Base – Kunikida
8. Third Base – Tsuruya
9. Shortstop – Taniguchi
Their opponents are the Kamigahara Pirates, and the game is called at ten runs. First up is Haruhi, and she hits a double on the first pitch. The Pirates start pitching seriously to Mikuru, striking her out. Yuki and Kyon have no better luck hitting the ball. When the bottom of the inning arrives, Haruhi strikes out the first batter. The other team adjusts to her pitching and quickly gets two runs. The second inning consists of the three SOS batters striking out and the Pirates adding five more runs. By the third inning, Haruhi decides to dress herself and Mikuru in cheerleader outfits to motivate the team. The outfits distract the other team’s pitcher, allowing Haruhi to hit a triple. However, Mikuru isn’t able to do so well, especially not with Haruhi sending weird signals to her. She blames Mikuru afterwards, but Kyon steps in and tells her that it was her own fault because of the signs. Haruhi’s bad mood causes a lockdown dimension to occur. Furthermore, Itsuki blames Kyon for disappointing Haruhi with how he’s doing as the fourth batter. To prevent the game from ending, they have to keep the opponents to two runs in this next half inning. They manage to do exactly that after Kyon makes a diving catch on an outfield ball.
Since they need to win this game, Itsuki convinces Yuki to use an incantation on the bat, changing it to homing mode. The result is that the team hits eleven straight home runs. Kyon sees the other team’s strange look and decides that it’s enough. Three more SOS strikeouts later, it’s once again the other team’s turn to bat. And since there’s a time limit to the game, this will be the last inning. Itsuki decides that they should have Yuki manipulate the ball. With Kyon as the pitcher, Yuki attracts the ball to her glove as the catcher. They strike out two batters, but the final pitch to the third one hits the side of Yuki’s glove and bounces away. Yuki retrieves it and chucks it with such force that it hits Haruhi’s glove and the entire glove flies out of her hand. Fortunately, Itsuki is waiting in the outfield and catches both glove and ball. He tags out the runner and the game is officially over with the SOS Brigade as the winners. However, this is a tournament so there are more games. Itsuki has to go help his friends, so Kyon convinces Haruhi that they should give up at this point. Haruhi agrees because of Kyon and because she’s hungry. The group ends up at a family restaurant with Kyon treating them.
The next day, Haruhi has two tournament fliers for soccer and American football.

LOVED this episode, it was hilarious. Haruhi biting Mikuru’s ear was great 🙂
I didn’t really feel that the jump in timeline made all the much difference since I laughed pretty much through the entire episode. The only parts it’s noticeable is when Kyon and Itsuki are talking about what happened in the past, which I assume we’ll cover in the very near future. I’m enjoying this style of giving you hints of what happened, just enough to get you curious about what happened in the back-story while at the same time producing such a funny episode.
They are giving a lot of hints about how Haruhi feels towards Kyon, from her disappointment in him to the how she noticed him staring at Mikuru in the cheerleading outfit to how she allowed him to convince her to give up on the tournament. Of course there is a gap between the episodes, but it’s easy to conjecture that Haruhi has feelings for him.
Next week, we return to where we left off. It looks like it’ll be a Mikuru episode.

33 Comments

  1. >>enf.ejt
    Or you could learn Japanese while waiting..

    I have a skill to sub, and I have already sent my translations to my group. They will be releasing it shortly.. within 24hours probably.

    fumein;
  2. @fumein:

    if you’re from a.f.k: PLEASE encode it at 720p. PLEASE!

    if you’re not: see above

    too bad they skipped over a novel like that, I would love to know how Itsuki joined the club. I guess I have to wait for the novel translations to catch up…

    radda
  3. “too bad they skipped over a novel like that, I would love to know how Itsuki joined the club. I guess I have to wait for the novel translations to catch up…”

    Radda, They didn’t skeep anything… Next week, the story will go back to the time after Yuki’s explanation to Kyon. So you’ll see Itsuki’s introduction to the Club.

    Kazu-kun
  4. I guess they are rearranging the events. I was shocked last week by the sudden jump, but it’s fair enough I guess, given that this series is a short one.

    P.S. Haruhi is the most loveable short-haired character ever. Actually, all characters in SHnY are loveable (except for Ryouko, that evil b*tch).

    Rasmiel
  5. This time jump makes the series more entertaining because we dont know whats going to happen. Instead of explaining the plot outright, we get to ponder about it… that is before we start yearning for answers!

    Kenjinx
  6. Actually, the one I feel the most sorry for is Kyon…the unwilling buffer to all of the zaniness and just weirdness of the SOS brigade.

    I agree about the 720p raws. Someone release some SSA files so we can have the option of HD goodness ^_^. On another note, I found I couldnt even attempt to play it on my A64 3200+ system unless I had the CPU on full blast (2.2 ghz) O_O

    starcaptor
  7. this really is the league of extraordinary High School kids…

    Mikuru able to sorta read Yuki’s spell casting… Itsuki’s mention of Kyon & Haruhi’s venture into the great beyond… Haruhi’s unwitting causing a dimensional lockdown(?)… all this seemingly resting on Kyon’s judgement ( he even asks if Yuki could summon the rain on game day )… wow…

    tonbo
  8. Just as I thought this episode would not be as strange and funny as the previous ones … It hit me.
    Once again I have no idea what this whole thing is about. This is absolutely crazy and great at the same time.

    Ashura
  9. Heh, i think the look kyon gave mikuru was more due to his bafflement about how stupid haruhi’s idea was about the cheerleader costumes than starting at mikuru’s hotness.

    Drayen
  10. Did i miss an episode or what?
    When did itsuki join the club?
    And when did haruhi and kyon go to another world?

    meh..basically what happened is i think that to make more craziness, the creators mixedmatched the episodes. Like as far as i can tell, they’re doing something like 4,1,7,3 etc etc etc. anyways, this way it shows more of what we want 😉 and what we cant get XD. im waiting for ep 5 😀

    DAC

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