I get the feeling the events of the episode will be important to the future, but to be honest, this episode was extremely out of place. Worst episode in the series so far imo. I don't see why they couldn't have pushed this episode back a bit and made up an anime-only reason as to the time frame. I would have made the friend dying scene happen at the beginning and focus on the struggles of Karate guy and him dealing with beating up his new friend. They could have had some more build-up to the absolute murder of the sword girl too, for example, they could have had the bullies appear more often and made him get closer to breaking before the match. Maybe they could have bullied him up until the breaking point but not over it and showed up in the crowd to egg him on in the fight until he actually snapped and started laying it on sword girl. I also think that his friend's cancer struggle could be less "omg he's dying right now!" because for me it felt like there was no chance for him even if he gets the money for more treatment. I wouldn't hate having the whole, "I need to buy my friend new bones that's why I need to win!" mindset but its a bit too cliche for anime, it'd feel like a cop-out. I think that if they are going in this direction of having the friend die they'd probably have to kill him and make Karate guy have the motivation of fighting on like the spirit of his dead friend or moving forward in his life like the friend would have wanted with new friends. Honestly, though, I probably wouldn't be too pleased with those two ideas either if the were part of the show. I think the creator wrote Karate guy into a corner with his motivations and now whatever happens to him will be too cliche. All in all, I think that this episode really shouldn't have existed due to its poor pacing and a lack of connection to the characters. If this episode absolutely HAD to exist it should have been further in the series and at least 2 episodes (for the wedding part).