Prince of Tennis: Sanada

[branchandroot]

Sanada is one of those characters whose anime and manga incarnations simply can't be reconciled with each other.

Manga Sanada has the richest background attached to him by far. What with the grandfather who teaches Kendo, and the very traditional nature of Sanada's pastimes, he strikes me as coming from a family that seriously believes it's a samurai bloodline. Not impossible, to be sure, with that name. And Sanada seems to me to fit very much into that framework of bushido (First Romantic Reconstruction). He has the dedication, the loyalty, the ruthlessness, and, we have hints, the mix of passion and reserve, each in its time, that would have brought a happy tear to the eye of Yamamoto Tsunetomo. As that is a rigid and unforgiving framework, so Sanada has formed his personality in a rigid and unforgiving pattern. One of the primary guidelines of that philosophy is that failure is utterly unforgivable except in death. The obligation to the clan, to the house, is absolute. And, given that his team is, effectively, his House, his tendency toward physical reprimands doesn't surprise me in the least, either. It is less an expression of brutality, I think, than an expression of Sanada being very old-fashioned and traditional in a very particular way.

It's understanding this, I think, that leads Yanagi to invite that reprimand after his loss to Inui. It is, as I've noted on In-group Violence , an expression of insider-ness. An affirmation rather than a rejection. (Damn this sounds twisted when I say it in English.) But that harshness is just as much a part of the framework I would guess Sanada was raised with as his poetry is. Elegance and violence, harshness and purity.

Anyway, having been careless enough to lose, I'm frankly amazed that Sanada doesn't collapse. The burden of shame, given his background, should be overwhelming. But he manages to think beyond it, not as a samurai but as a leader. The fact that, instead of metaphorical seppuku, he manages to rally his team and give them a new goal immediately, says to me that someone has been a counter-influence. Someone has given Sanada the idea that a) there is such a thing as a loss which is not shameful and b) a good leader thinks beyond his personal context. I have no doubt that Sanada is absolutely whithering with the shame of his loss, personally, especially since I don't think he did give his best to his match with Echizen, which means he isn't off the hook; it was a shameful loss. But as he stood in for Yukimura, he couldn't show that. He could not reside entirely within the framework of bushido. And he has succeeded in working outside it to be an effective leader. This says two more things to me. One is that he has the potential in the first place. The other is that someone brought it out. Possibly an old coach. Possibly Yukimura and Yanagi. The latter is the assumption I tend to write with, since it gives us the possibility of some interesting interactions when Yukimura returns and Sanada has the opportunity to backslide, which Yukimura might or might not accept.

Certainly one possible explanation for why Sanada didn't curb Kirihara's thugish tendencies is that he wasn't comfortable enough with the role of leader to do so. After all, within the traditional context there is a certain place for berserkers and for wanton cruelty provided it's directed at the enemy; and it doesn't seem to be something that a fellow warrior would feel called to interfere with. I get a definite non-interference vibe from the various narrative constructions of samurai-ness. As long as it's directed outward, Sanada's background might not see too much wrong with what Kirihara did to rivals.

Now, anime Sanada is a bit different. For one thing, he shows no signs of that traditional background, aside from the brief reference to his sword training. I find it a bit ironic that, at the same time, he is cast far more firmly as a secondary leader, someone who deferrs to another. He's like... Oishi Upgrade. Certainly not very proactive with his team, that we're shown. His sense of responsibility is emphasized, but not in the context of duty; rather in a more modern context of personal friendship and a more abstract institutional honor.

Sanada is warmer, in the anime. More accessible as a person. But it came at the expense of some of his most fascinating complexities. Which is unquestionably why I prefer to write the manga version.