WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Tribe Nine Episode 6, now streaming on Funimation.
Tribe Nine's saga of Extreme Baseball in the dystopian city of Neo-Tokyo continued in Episode 6 with the newly reformed Minato Tribe. Episode 5 provided some hope for the team as their game against Adachi Tribe motivated them and reminded them of their former greatness. However, Ojiro Otori's stranglehold over the game continued as Adachi challenged him and lost.
Taiga knew he had to become stronger even than the late, great Shun Kamiya, who also lost to Otori's tribe. After Taiga isolated himself from Minato to train, Haru Shirokane offered to teach him how to hit, but he anxiously accused him of showing off. Instead, Kazuki Aoyama proposed a different mentor: the one player Kamiya had never been able to beat -- but is this legendary player really the right person to teach Taiga?
The phrasing of Aoyama's proposal almost seemed to imply that he was the mysterious player who was going to train Taiga. Aoyama mentioned in Episode 4 that Kamiya had asked him to join Minato before he died, and revealing that he was someone Kamiya couldn't beat would be a significant twist in his backstory. Aoyama appears to have a permanently broken arm, but this doesn't mean he can't pass his batting knowledge on to another player. The ambiguous way he introduced the player in question also seemed deliberately mysterious, as if preparing Taiga for a twist revelation, but he instead gave him the name of Taito Tribe's Hanafuda Sakura.
Taiga met Sakura at what appeared to be a massage parlor. Sakura's carefree, pleasure-seeking lifestyle was an ironic contrast to the mythological level of skill and determination one would imagine a player capable of beating Kamiya would have. Sakura sleazily told Taiga that he had no interest in him because he was not a woman, but Yajirobe Ueno, Taito Tribe's leader, convinced him to hear him out. When Taiga told Sakura that he wanted to beat Ojiro Otori, he asked him to swing a parasol to show him his batting ability.
After seeing Taiga's swing, Sakura told him to give up on XB because he didn't have the talent. It wasn't unreasonable for Sakura to think that natural talent plays a key role in Extreme Baseball; after all, Haru's incredible reflexes are one of his greatest assets. However, the audience knows from Minato Tribe's game with Shinagawa Tribe that Taiga is a brilliant XB player and a capable batter, making it seem unlikely that he was as hopeless as Sakura implied, and his assessment seems unreasonable. Given his initial reluctance, Sakura may have been biased against Taiga to begin with.
After a slapstick series of attempts from Taiga to get Sakura's approval, including dressing as a woman in joking reference to his earlier line, Sakura finally agreed that if Taiga could hit one of Sakura's pitches, he would train him. When Taiga couldn't follow Sakura's apparently "vanishing" pitches, he assumed some profound trick was responsible -- not entirely implausible given Aoyama's introduction of Sakura as an even greater player than Kamiya. Instead, Sakura had been pretending to throw the ball, and Ueno had been putting another ball in his glove to give the impression of an invisible pitch.
The contrast between Taiga's intellectual analysis of Sakura's pitches and their incredibly simple nature was highlighted by the plodding, disjointed soundtrack that accompanied Sakura's internal monologue. Sakura's observation that "A kid's trick like this is plenty against the pea-brain" implied that he was not challenging Taiga to figure out his trick, but rather hoping to just get rid of him. This makes it clear that Sakura was never really serious about training Taiga despite his offer. Taiga may not have ingratiated himself with his dismissive attitude toward Haru earlier in the episode, but he still deserves a mentor who will give him a chance.
Heeding Ueno's advice, Taiga focused on his physical strength rather than trying to outwit Sakura. He closed his eyes and batted the air, creating a huge gust of wind that rolled Sakura’s ball onto the ground. Taiga saw the ball and declared he had hit it, leaving Sakura with no choice but to accept him as a student or reveal the challenge had been unfair. The fact that Taiga used brute force to beat Sakura without ever even understanding his trick emphasized how relying on his physical capabilities over his intellectual prowess was a wise choice.
Sakura agreed to train Taiga because "I never go back on my word," not because his impressive swing demonstrated his skill or because his refusal to stop playing against such a cheap trick demonstrated his dedication. This implied that Sakura was still not convinced that Taiga was an exemplary player. If Sakura's perception of Taiga's skill hasn't changed, there could be a risk that he won't give his training the attention it deserves because he has already written him off. In the world of Extreme Baseball where one's skills can literally save their life, this would be a dangerously irresponsible approach.
Ultimately, Sakura’s tutelage may surprise fans and become the best thing that happens to Taiga’s career. However, if Sakura lets Taiga play against Otori without giving him a fighting chance in training, he may be leading him to his death. The only certainty is that every Minato Tribe member will need a great deal of training if they are to challenge Otori and win.
