Embedded attitudes and reader-clash

[branchandroot]

You 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.

Comments

[maeran.livejournal.com]

Aside from the fact Ryoma is actually a villain defeating even bigger villains not a typical shounen hero? XD I think I had a TeniPuri/Art of War essay-thing in the making a while ago, then dropped it. (I mean. Konomi. That's not a match, it's a BATTLE.) Also, not sure what it says about me that very little about the manga triggers anything for me, or maybe it's just culture. (Kind of like, a part of the "boy" thing that I vaguely knew about as a girl growing up in Korea, where violence is a part of the boy culture, and to an extent, accepted as a "cool" thing.) Plus, ours IS a culture that traditionally believes if the enemy isn't prepared, ALL THE BETTER FOR US YAY \o/, um.

It's a thought.

[lakemonsters]

I think that the age-factor of the people reading and then writing about the manga should be considered. Orientation aside - I think it's reader-maturity that makes the difference in understanding the story behind the manga.

It is inevitable though that certain things could get lost in translation - because people have various purpose in reading the manga and the level of understanding of the story depends on that - it either makes the manga pure eye candy or something that's of value and worth reading each week.

[nakatani-yuushi.livejournal.com]

Hmm, this is a really interesting thing indeed. 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. - I've been thinking about that as well, and while Sasabe-tou, well, has it coming, Echizen's behaviour makes me wonder as well.

[prillalar]

I hadn't really thought about it before, but the characters who play in an unsportsman-like way -- Atobe, Akutsu, Kirihara -- all come back later in some way to show us that they've been transformed by that match into someone who doesn't play that way anymore, but only in the anime. Akutsu training Ryoma, Atobe vs Sanada (and also Atobe vs Ryoma at the training camp), Kirihara at junior selection camp. None of that happens in the manga.

So not a sports series.

[forochel.livejournal.com]

*grins* Very samurai, no? Has also been distracted by the panel of Yukimura shots by the side.