Prince of Tennis: Strength
Oct. 9th, 2005 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootKonomi does a constant bait and switch with the question of who is the strongest player of all. When Fuji defeats Kirihara at Regionals, for example, Ryuuzaki thinks that he has moved beyond even Tezuka. Watching Tezuka's match with Kabaji at Nationals, however, Fuji thinks that he can see no end to Tezuka's strength. I think Konomi does it very deliberately to make a point about strength in this story.
The way people in PoT talk about levels of strength and ability are a) very broad and b) very fluid.
For example, when Seigaku use terms like "at Tezuka's level" to describe another player, what they seem to mean is someone within the National skill bracket. That still covers a lot of space, and, after all, there's still only one winner. Only one very best.
But that gets us to the second point, which is that, from month to month and year to year, how the people in that highest bracket place will change. So, now it's Atobe, now it's Sanada, now it's Tezuka, next thing you know it'll definitely be Echizen. And elimination-tournaments are not a straightforward way to rank players. After all, Hyoutei was eliminated at the first level of Regionals, but there's no doubt that they were considerably better than most of that entire group of teams. Then, too, there's the question of time and motivation and... fit, for lack of a better term. Sanada, I understand, has, in the past, beaten Atobe. Atobe has, in the past, beaten Tezuka. Does this mean Sanada would automatically beat Tezuka? Of course not.
And then, too, presumably Atobe wants a rematch with Sanada with better, from his point of view, results, and has been training toward it, the same way he and Tezuka are both training toward a rematch of their own. It's a constant thing. Loss, in the Tenipuri universe, is not a final judgement (except, perhaps, at Hyoutei, but even there we have Shishido to demonstrate the value of determination); loss is an invitation to win next time. If you can.
And I note that it's never the players in the best bracket, themselves, who use terms like "the strongest of all". Presumably they know better. It's the cheering sections, and the lesser players, and the really somewhat clueless journalists who use words like that. To be the best is not a state; it's a process. This, I think, is one of the things that Tezuka opened Echizen's eyes to.
And that brings us to the question of how players move forward.
I would say that Kirihara's match with Echizen has some things in common with Echizen's first match with Tezuka.
In Echizen's case, he knew he could be beaten, but the only one who had managed it so far was his target: his dad. He didn't really seem to believe, on a viceral level, that anyone else could do more than provide a good challenge. When Tezuka upsets that assumption, it opens up Echizen's tennis and leads to a personal breakthrough. Echizen still really, really wants to do in his dad, but his overall game is geared toward winning the game for its own sake, now, rather than focusing solely on a single opponent.
In Kirihara's case, he seems to have had a lot of the same assumptions. His flashbacks sound rather like no one but the Rikkai Triumvirate ever managed to beat him, with the result that he focused on them as the only goal, the only challenge, the way Echizen used to focus on his dad. Kirihara is blithely certain of defeating even Tezuka. With Kirihara there is also the addition of a certain wildness that Echizen never seemed prone to, leading Kirihara to do things like deliberately injure his opponents where Echizen merely snarks at them until they have apoplexy. When Echizen upsets Kirihara's assumptions, it does seem to have some of the same effect. (Erm, the opening of his game, not the apoplexy.) Losing so unexpectedly to Echizen sets Kirihara up for his breakthrough, when he plays Fuji and achieves muga no kyouchi. This is very much in line with the story's ethos of rehabilitating the talented but wild players (Akutsu, Atobe).
The main difference in their situations, of course, is that Tezuka is on Echizen's team, is his captain, and that allows Echizen to bond to him and lean on his support, and to set his defeat within a readily understandable (perhaps I would even say excusable) framework. Echizen, on the other hand, is on one of Kirihara's rival teams. There is, however, a strong parallel drawn between Echizen and Sanada both in terms of strength and even in some aspects of character design (consider the hat-as-camoflauge theme). Sanada is to Kirihara much as Tezuka is to Echizen--witness the suggestion that he deliberately draws out Echizen's muga at the start of their match so that Kirihara will be able to remember his own. So the overall pattern of rehabilitation and support is preserved.
The meaning of "strongest"
The way people in PoT talk about levels of strength and ability are a) very broad and b) very fluid.
For example, when Seigaku use terms like "at Tezuka's level" to describe another player, what they seem to mean is someone within the National skill bracket. That still covers a lot of space, and, after all, there's still only one winner. Only one very best.
But that gets us to the second point, which is that, from month to month and year to year, how the people in that highest bracket place will change. So, now it's Atobe, now it's Sanada, now it's Tezuka, next thing you know it'll definitely be Echizen. And elimination-tournaments are not a straightforward way to rank players. After all, Hyoutei was eliminated at the first level of Regionals, but there's no doubt that they were considerably better than most of that entire group of teams. Then, too, there's the question of time and motivation and... fit, for lack of a better term. Sanada, I understand, has, in the past, beaten Atobe. Atobe has, in the past, beaten Tezuka. Does this mean Sanada would automatically beat Tezuka? Of course not.
And then, too, presumably Atobe wants a rematch with Sanada with better, from his point of view, results, and has been training toward it, the same way he and Tezuka are both training toward a rematch of their own. It's a constant thing. Loss, in the Tenipuri universe, is not a final judgement (except, perhaps, at Hyoutei, but even there we have Shishido to demonstrate the value of determination); loss is an invitation to win next time. If you can.
And I note that it's never the players in the best bracket, themselves, who use terms like "the strongest of all". Presumably they know better. It's the cheering sections, and the lesser players, and the really somewhat clueless journalists who use words like that. To be the best is not a state; it's a process. This, I think, is one of the things that Tezuka opened Echizen's eyes to.
And that brings us to the question of how players move forward.
.
Coming up
I would say that Kirihara's match with Echizen has some things in common with Echizen's first match with Tezuka.
In Echizen's case, he knew he could be beaten, but the only one who had managed it so far was his target: his dad. He didn't really seem to believe, on a viceral level, that anyone else could do more than provide a good challenge. When Tezuka upsets that assumption, it opens up Echizen's tennis and leads to a personal breakthrough. Echizen still really, really wants to do in his dad, but his overall game is geared toward winning the game for its own sake, now, rather than focusing solely on a single opponent.
In Kirihara's case, he seems to have had a lot of the same assumptions. His flashbacks sound rather like no one but the Rikkai Triumvirate ever managed to beat him, with the result that he focused on them as the only goal, the only challenge, the way Echizen used to focus on his dad. Kirihara is blithely certain of defeating even Tezuka. With Kirihara there is also the addition of a certain wildness that Echizen never seemed prone to, leading Kirihara to do things like deliberately injure his opponents where Echizen merely snarks at them until they have apoplexy. When Echizen upsets Kirihara's assumptions, it does seem to have some of the same effect. (Erm, the opening of his game, not the apoplexy.) Losing so unexpectedly to Echizen sets Kirihara up for his breakthrough, when he plays Fuji and achieves muga no kyouchi. This is very much in line with the story's ethos of rehabilitating the talented but wild players (Akutsu, Atobe).
The main difference in their situations, of course, is that Tezuka is on Echizen's team, is his captain, and that allows Echizen to bond to him and lean on his support, and to set his defeat within a readily understandable (perhaps I would even say excusable) framework. Echizen, on the other hand, is on one of Kirihara's rival teams. There is, however, a strong parallel drawn between Echizen and Sanada both in terms of strength and even in some aspects of character design (consider the hat-as-camoflauge theme). Sanada is to Kirihara much as Tezuka is to Echizen--witness the suggestion that he deliberately draws out Echizen's muga at the start of their match so that Kirihara will be able to remember his own. So the overall pattern of rehabilitation and support is preserved.
