branchandroot

Sanada's Sword

The fanbooks tell us that Sanada's grandfather is a Kendo instructor for the police. We might, then, assume that Sanada himself practices Kendo under his grandfather's instruction. What we see him doing, in the manga, however, is tameshigiri: cutting practice. This is a more common practice of Iaido than Kendo.

The sources I can find, however, note that it is not uncommon for Kendo dojo to also teach elements of Iaido, so learning under the grandfather is certainly not ruled out. Besides, the diamond pattern on Sanada's gi, in that scene, is the traditional pattern for a child's Kendo gi. (Best reference)

What does seem indicated by the mangaka's choice of scene is that Sanada is fairly advanced, and that he has a taste for the more extreme practices. Iaido is, for the most part, even more stylized than Kendo. Actual sparring is not included, since none of the safety measures Kendo adopted to keep from actually killing people exist in Iaido. Iaido does, however, allow practice with a live blade, and the moment Sanada is shown in is possibly the most immediate and practical application of a live edge available within the form.

In addition, is is possible that, in the manga-world, the traditional style from which Sanada's Iaido style developed is the Takeda Ryu. I can find no real-world references to Takeda Ryu surviving as an Iaido form, but Sanada's tennis moves, Fuu Rin Ka Zan, are a direct reference to the motto of the Takeda clan. The most famous Takeda, Takeda Shingen, in turn took the concept from a passage in Sun Tzu. (If my readers follow the first link, please remember that the production of grand lineage stories has been a cottage industry in Japan for centuries on end, and the lineage stories of the traditional schools, in particular, should be taken with a healthy dose of salt.)

Alternatively, that connection may be a historical joke on Konomi's part. Sanada Yukimura, the historical person whose name he used for the two leaders of the Rikkai team, was one of the storied retainers of Takeda Shingen, as well as a bright star of history and literature in his own right.

Comparative heights

I had to stop and look up comparative heights for Atobe and Yukimura at one point, and wound up mapping out all the heights that I could find. Which, in the event, was Rikkai, Hyoutei, Seigaku, Fudoumine, St. Rudolph, and the two who matter from Yamabuki.

I was highly entertained.

The range goes from 151cm (Echizen) to 190 (Kabaji). Clustered at the low end we have the shrimps Gakuto and Nomura at 158, Uchimura at 159 and Jirou at 160. At the high end we have Ishida at 188 and then Ohtori at 185, Inui at 184 and Akutsu at 183.

Yanagi is one centimeter taller than Sanada (181 and 180). Kawamura is the same height as Sanada. Tachibana is the same height as Tezuka, at 179.

178 is clearly the exotically sexy height to be, featuring Oshitari, Jackal and Akazawa. 175 is the most popular, with Yukimura, Atobe, Oishi and Niou (Yagyuu is two cm taller, at 177).

Shishido and Hiyoshi are both 172, which made me grin; that seems to be the determined height for Hyoutei.

Kikumaru is actually 171, one cm taller than Yuuta, Momo and Sengoku all. (Kaidou is 173.)

Fuji comes in at 167, two cm shorter than Yanagisawa, and one cm below both Kirihara and St Rudolph's Kisaraza.

Mizuki is 166.

Kamio and Ibu are both 165; there's always some link made for the doubles pairs (like Inui liking black while Yanagi likes white).

Marui is a shorty, too, at 164, as are Sakurai and Mori, but Kaneda is one cm shorter. Uke all the way, poor guy.

Having drawn all these up, it is quite clear that the artists of both teni media take significant liberties in emphasizing height disparities. Echizen should, for example, come up to Inui's chest, not his third rib. I'm really quite reconciled to that, though, it's common practice.

Language notes

The closer I listen to him, the more it looks like Echizen is designed to be a cute character. For one thing, despite his staunch lack of 'proper' bowing and scraping to the heirarchy, he does use the polite language forms with his team. Just in a cool and casual way. That is, the su hanging off the ends of his sentances is the cool-boy shortening of desu. He actually uses it about as frequently as Dan Taichi, only not in the full form. The only thing he regularly says in plain form is "mada mada da ne" (da rather than desu). Then there's the yada, which seems to be a fairly childish speech pattern... in fact, I generally catch it used by girls, not boys. So, little, cute, has an attitude but doesn't actually cross the lines beyond what's considered cute in a young boy (even with his own age group, or opponents he doesn't respect, he only goes as far as plain forms).

Yuuta talks that way, too.

Tezuka and Sanada seem to speak in very similar ways. Well, except for the no da thing, which just amuses me to no end when I listen to how Sanada uses it. If I understand correctly, that's one of the forms tacked on to a statement of the self-evident; Sanada tends to add it to things like "I'm going to win". They both use plain forms with their own teams/rivals, but shift to polite forms with older people.

Even Atobe does that, though, at least with his own coach, and with Inoue. He's a lot less polite to his opponents, from what I can pick out. He does seem to be just as fond of his emphatics as Sanada, though he favors yo to no da. Interesting that Tezuka is the only one of the really intense players we've met so far that doesn't do that, though it is consistent with his more understated playing style. Atobe and his ore-sama tag lines is anything but understated.

In his own way, Mizuki is just as flamboyant with his politeness all the time. Just polite, not extremely polite, but still. The principle of phrasing oneself to stand out is much the same.

And then there's Akutsu, who, I was interested to note, calls exactly two people omae instead of temee, not that he changes any other of his speech habits. Taichi and Echizen. He also calls Taichi by his given name.

Muga no Kyouchi

That overdrive, super-awareness state the Yukimura, Sanada, Chitose, Echizen and Kirihara all reach.

Sometimes rendered by tenipuri translators as "state of self-actualization". In its most common non-tenipuri use it is translated as "state of no-self". Muga is a classic Buddhist concept of detachment and enlightenment and it, along with mushin (no-mind or no-thought) has long been adopted into Japanese martial arts philosophies. Muga, mushin expresses an ideal state in which to employ those arts, one in which petty and egocentric concerns fade and one acts without having to think--all the thinking has, theoretically, already been done beforehand.

The phrase muga no kyouchi is not often used in the martial arts; nor does that particular phrasing of the concept seem much used in Buddhism, either. The word kyouchi appears in the Dictionary of East Asian Buddhist Terms as "Condition, state, situation, circumstance; stage, level." It is worth noting, however, that the terms given there for "no self" and "no thought" are mushou and musou, respectively. Muga is defined as a higher concept, "The lack of existence of an inherent self, soul, or ego, usually translated into English as 'no-self' .... This is one of the most important philosophical concepts in all of Buddhism, and is recorded as having been one of the primary realizations attained by `Saakyamuni in his enlightenment experience."

Muga, mushin seems to be the specifically Japanese rendering, associated with the martial arts and not with Buddhism per se, though that is clearly where it derived from. Definitions of these concepts found on the web are generally totally without citations, but anyone who has read the Hagakure or Go rin no sho will recognize the terms in which the ideas are couched immediately. The most compact online definition in English is probably in the Martial Arts Dictionary.

Based on the accounts given by the people around the players who practice muga, it seems to be the martial incarnation of the idea that Konomi is more referring to--the total focus and lack of need to think. None of the players known to employ this state appear particularly enlightened or detached, in the Buddhist sense, at any rate. Why Konomi chose the phrase muga no kyouchi, rather than muga, mushin, puzzled me a bit, until Cutter pointed out that that is the most common conversational form of the phrase, and one that would be most easily recognizible to all his readers.