Embedded attitudes and reader-clash
Dec. 20th, 2006 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootYou know, I have to wonder whether there's been a serious disjuncture all along, between Konomi's attitudes toward violence/injury and the attitudes of a) the ani-writers and b) the US fans.
Right from the get-go, there are players losing their tempers and taking swings at each other right and left. With racquets. Serious attacks that, if they connected, would cause serious injury. Shinji, when Kuki insults Fudoumine. Kaidou, when Kamio rags on him about his nickname. Hell, even Echizen drives Sasabe-tou, knowing he hasn't warmed up, and when the idiot pulls a muscle merely points out it's his own fault for not warming up. When Akutsu and Echizen are actively and avowedly trying to hit each other with the ball, the ref doesn't stop them. Neither do their teams.
ETA: Echizen also nails Sengoku with that ball-onna-string and leaves him out cold in the dust.
Now, clearly, it isn't really acceptable to do things like that. Tachibana stops Shinji and Tezuka stops Kaidou. Everyone yells about how it's playing dirty for Atobe and Kirihara to deliberately play so as to injure the opponent... or, more precisely, the non-Regulars yell. The Regulars don't.
The thing is, it's never grounds for disqualification or even punishment within the team. Including within Seigaku. It seems, more or less, to be the price of doing business. Expected. More acceptable, in fact, to do within the context of an actual game than outside of it--it's people trying to concuss each other with racquets that get yelled at. Atobe's and Kirihara's playing styles are dangerous, perhaps shady--but just another playing style. Not cheating. Even Akutsu doesn't cross anyone's line until he does it off the court.
Yet this is not how the fans generally read it. Nor, I would say, is it really how the anime writers rendered it. And I have to wonder whether, myriad lovingly detailed panels of tennis-boy-ass aside, that's what keeps the manga in a shounen weekly.
Right from the get-go, there are players losing their tempers and taking swings at each other right and left. With racquets. Serious attacks that, if they connected, would cause serious injury. Shinji, when Kuki insults Fudoumine. Kaidou, when Kamio rags on him about his nickname. Hell, even Echizen drives Sasabe-tou, knowing he hasn't warmed up, and when the idiot pulls a muscle merely points out it's his own fault for not warming up. When Akutsu and Echizen are actively and avowedly trying to hit each other with the ball, the ref doesn't stop them. Neither do their teams.
ETA: Echizen also nails Sengoku with that ball-onna-string and leaves him out cold in the dust.
Now, clearly, it isn't really acceptable to do things like that. Tachibana stops Shinji and Tezuka stops Kaidou. Everyone yells about how it's playing dirty for Atobe and Kirihara to deliberately play so as to injure the opponent... or, more precisely, the non-Regulars yell. The Regulars don't.
The thing is, it's never grounds for disqualification or even punishment within the team. Including within Seigaku. It seems, more or less, to be the price of doing business. Expected. More acceptable, in fact, to do within the context of an actual game than outside of it--it's people trying to concuss each other with racquets that get yelled at. Atobe's and Kirihara's playing styles are dangerous, perhaps shady--but just another playing style. Not cheating. Even Akutsu doesn't cross anyone's line until he does it off the court.
Yet this is not how the fans generally read it. Nor, I would say, is it really how the anime writers rendered it. And I have to wonder whether, myriad lovingly detailed panels of tennis-boy-ass aside, that's what keeps the manga in a shounen weekly.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-21 06:31 am (UTC)What color are Niou's eyes?
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Date: 2006-12-21 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-21 07:10 pm (UTC)It's symbolic! Or something.)Thank you!