Yowamushi Pedaru also known as Yowapeda, is a high-school anime centered around the typical “fired up comrades and intense competition” theme. However, such animes are always refreshing, uplifting and a welcome treat for when life tends to drag you down. Loaded with the “not so secret sauce” of camaraderie and character development, there’s no denying that Yowamushi Pedaru is one of the best sports anime to have ever been made.
Plot Summary
The protagonist, Onoda Sakamichi is a great fan of anime and not a great fan of athletics but he somehow cycles 90 km round-trip every week to treat himself to anime goodies in Akiba. He joins Chiba Sohoku High School and is overly-eager to find some like-minded people at the Anime and Manga Club. However, to his utter dismay, he finds that the club has been disbanded because of a shortage of members.
Onoda is determined to get some members to join the club but his plans take a different turn as he runs into Imaizumi Shunsuke, a cyclist from his school. They are soon joined by Kanzaki Miki and Tachibana Aya who question Onoda’s strange decision to cycle all the way to Akiba when he could easily take the bus.
Imaizume is taken aback by the way Onoda climbs uphill while singing his “Love Hime” theme song. So, he challenges him to a race and says that he’ll join his anime club if Onoda manages to win. The race leads to a chain of events that leads Onoda to submit an application to the Sohoku High School’s bicycle
club.
Onoda’s journey as a cyclist kickstarts with the “Welcoming Race”. From there, we see that his character undergoes a lot of development, tuning, and tweaking because of the intense rivalry and clash of thoughts between the four schools.
With intense external and internal competition and great company, Onoda evolves into an ardent cyclist who is more confident in himself from someone who didn’t think highly of athletics or himself.
The overall view is that Yowamashi Pedaru keeps you on the edge with its races and the team spirit that all of the members carry. In fact, the anime grows on you and makes you want to cheer for all your favorite characters as they race ahead to the finish line and cross every hurdle on their path. Towards the end, you’re left wanting more, which brings us to the question.
When will Season 5 be released?
Well, TMS Entertainment hasn’t announced a season 5 yet. However, fans are expecting a season 5 this year owing to the popularity of the previous seasons. There’s also this cryptic “see you later” at the end of season 4 that has made fans believe that the anime will be back for a season 5.
For devoted fans (and just fans too), there’s a little backstory on how Yowamashi Pedaru came to be in the next section.
A little Backstory
Before the anime adaptation was released in 2013, TMS Entertainment created a 20-minute long Original Video Animation (OVA). The Entertainment company decided to make a full-fledged anime when the OVA became an instant hit amongst anime fans because of its stellar videography and music.
It was created by Wataru Wanabe and first aired on 7 th October 2013. The series spans four seasons and 38 episodes, with the most recent one being Yowamushi Pedal: Glory Line. The fourth season had 25 episodes and aired between January and June 2018.
As for the movies, there were three in total. Yowamushi Pedal Re: RIDE (2014) was the first movie to hit the screens. It was followed by Yowamushi Pedal Re: ROAD (2015) and Yowamushi Pedal: Re: GENERATION (2017).
The manga was created by Akita Shonen and was first published in 2008. Until now, 57 volumes have been released.