Volume 22: Surprise Attack

Chapters 186-192 (and Chapter “000”… Sigh.)

Dramatic Shots of the Sun:  2

Plot Events: Akaya and Ryōma have an illicit tennis match; Nanjirō and Rinko's backstory

--------1----Kelfin----1--------

This week has been crazy.  I had a fight with Arii, planned to leave my husband but got convinced not to, took a lot of sleeping pills, had hysterics a couple of times, plastered my walls with posters about who was and was not my friend anymore… and then calmed down.  So now I’m in that eerie place where everything is fine, but I’m terrified I’ll go off the deep end again.  O_O

Also this week, I got hate mail from a Tezuka fan.  LOL.  (I hope there are no hotblooded Nanjirō fans reading, because they are not going to like what I have to say about him today…)

Right, so, Akaya and Ryōma.  With the tennis.  That they’re not supposed to be playing.  (I’m not entirely sure why Ryōma’s clandestine matches against opposing teams—or Tezuka, apparently—are off-limits, but it’s fine for everyone else to play at the street courts, but whatever.)

At first I can’t decide whether Akaya is deliberately a brat or just thoughtless, but since he’s so consistent about it, I eventually decide it’s on purpose.  He really likes to talk, it seems, since he can’t stop taunting Ryōma.  And it’s gross how Akaya keeps rubbing his lip with his finger.  It looks like he’s wiping away snot (which reminds me of this dōjinshi we at Gekidasa, Inc. scanlated, in which Ōtori was licking away Shishido’s snot in what was apparently supposed to be a tender scene…).

Akaya also has weird hair, which ALSO reminds me—I saw a kid in the library where I work!  With crazy eyebrows!  Okay, okay.  Remember when I was complaining about how real people don’t have blond hair and black eyebrows?  Well, I was wrong.  As I was putting away picture books this week, a little blond girl, maybe three or four, came up to me, and she had the eyebrows.

Little Girl:  Are you looking for my mom?

Kelfin [mesmerized by the adorable child with the strange eyebrows]:  …No.  Are you?

Little Girl:  Yeah, where is she?

Kelfin [still mesmerized]:  I think she might have gone that way… if that’s your mom…

Little Girl:  Will you read me this book?

Kelfin [sadface]:  Sorry, I can’t.  I have to work right now.  Maybe your mom will read it to you.

Mom:  Sure, I can read it… Even though five minutes ago you told me you hated that book…

/end digression

Right, so, they’re taking off their power ankle weights.  Seriously, I hate those things.  Or more accurately, I hate that they are such a big deal in this manga.  THEY ARE NOT THAT COOL

There is a crowd of fanboys watching—because how would we know what to think of the match if there aren’t people to tell us what to think?—and also there is babysitter!Jackal, at least I am pretty sure he is babysitting, although he seems to have no control over Akaya whatsoever.  Jackal is also providing commentary, somewhat more helpfully than the rest of the crowd.  I can’t figure out why he doesn’t just tell Akaya to cut it out…  I think he secretly wants to see Ryōma lose.  I know I do.  XD

The most annoying thing the crowd is doing is referring to Ryōma as “that little kid”.  It’s like fetish porn.  Like, I just read this gay romance novel that Tracy-senpai lent me, and a huuuuuuuge big deal was made out of the fact that the two men were different sizes.  The bigger one kept calling the smaller one “my little bunny”, which sent shivers of horror up my spine every time I read it.  Shivers.  Of Horror.  If someone ever tried to call me “little bunny”, I would break his nose.  I prefer to be the one using the terms of endearment. Lol.

Anyway, now we flashback to Akaya beating Tachibana, which is helpful, because it gives us some really nice character moments for Tachibana and An.  For example, it’s sweet how An gets all Concerned when “her team” is losing.  ♥  And Tachibana is so stoic as Akaya is prancing around bragging about how he is going to beat him in 13 minutes.  I know what’s actually going to happen, of course, but I’m still rooting for Tachibana.  I hope he kicks Akaya’s little ass and rubs his face on the concrete.

I am skeptical about Akaya’s eyes getting bloodshot like that.  Is it supposed to be in any way realistic?  Arii tells me that the Rikkai fans claim that it is caused by allergies (although I am doubtful that there are any allergies that react that quickly to imminent defeat) or that it is a combination of stress with some kind of something else.  I’m not sure what kind of something else that would be, but I guess stress could do that.  Although Akaya should probably get his eyes checked…  The manga gives us an explanation that doesn’t explain things at all:

Jackal:  When Akaya’s eyes become filled with blood, his pace will increase at a rapid rate.

Okay, I’m pretty sure it’s against the rules to hit someone on purpose.  OMG, hitting someone in the FACE has DEFINITELY got to be against the rules, right?  Right?!?!?!  …I just checked Google, and they couldn’t tell me in the first ten entries, and I’m way too lazy to go any farther.  So I guess we’ll never know.

Jackal:  Akaya intends to destroy that guy’s knee in order to seal off his movement.  That’s terrible…

“Seal off his movement” = make him not be able to move because his knee is broken DO WE REALLY NEED A FANCY TERM FOR THAT?!?!?!?!

Also, if it is terrible, then stop him.  Grrrr, I can’t stand characters who don’t take action.

Crowd:  Akaya-kun is clearly aiming for his knees on purpose.  If we don’t stop this match right away, that kid…

But do they stop the match?  No.  Because “That kid still wants to keep playing”.  BECAUSE TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS ARE TOTALLY CAPABLE OF MAKING DECISIONS LIKE THIS OMFGGGGGG

-_____________________________-

Ooooooh, Ryōma is leveling up!  With a flashback of all the people he’s defeated before!  Or been defeated by!  And stuff!  The leveling up process apparently makes his irises disappear… and bathes him in clouds of smoke.  Or something.  It’s creepy—he has a creepy look in his eye, and there’s all this floating smoke-stuff around him.  It’s probably chi.  Or something like that.

Ryōma also decides to speak English to intimidate Akaya, which would be annoying, except that Akaya deserves it for all the blabbering and bragging he has been doing himself.  Although perhaps Ryōma ought to be a bit more accurate in his statements.

Ryōma:  Nobody beats me in tennis.

Oh yeah?  What about Tezuka?  Or your dad?

There are all kinds of random quotes about the Hyōtei team at the bottom of these pages (Chapter 191).  I have no idea what they’re doing there.  Probably some kind of fan contest?  I never understand those things...

Dear The Prince of Tennis,

“Southpaw” is not a cool word.  Stop being so thrilled to say it.  No one actually uses that word except you, and you get that creepy dog-going-for-a-car-ride look of bliss whenever you do.

Sincerely,

Reality

Meanwhile, our favorite lord/loyal retainer couple are at the hospital, side by side, staring off into the distance.  Surely their seemingly casual talk about sports is merely a cover for the weightier matters that stir the depths of their entwined souls:  life and death and true love and stuff.  ♥  Their twosomeness is engraved on the stars.  (I mean, aside from the fact that they basically have two halves of the same freaking name, they totally also have a Yoshitsune and Benkei thing going on.  Speaking of whom... I dare you to watch this.  I couldn't keep watching after forty-six seconds.)  But alas!  Their rendezvous is shattered by their teammates, who have just been called about Akaya.

Sanada-in-my-imagination:  WTF Srsly? Can’t Jackal keep him out of trouble for five minutes while I have a coded conversation with my dying boyfriend?!

And there is a cake that Marui is eating.  Was that cake even there a page ago?  It doesn’t look like it, though it’s hard to see.  Maybe the cake showed up with Marui, but that makes it kind of mystifying that he is suddenly eating it now.

Yukimura is enigmatic.  Is he sincere when he says nice things to Sanada?  Or is he being ironical?  I have no idea, personally, and I kinda think Sanada is also mystified.  The knots that he ties himself into just to please that boy have got to be really bad for his digestion.  :/  He is a tense kid.  But look at him there with his tie blowing in the wind… so romantic!  D:

…The Rikkai ties look like they got caught in a meat slicer.

The scene cuts back to Akaya, who finds it “unbelievable” that Ryōma is good at tennis.  Come on, you guys.  I feel like I have to point this out in every single volume.  SOMETIMES PEOPLE WHO PLAY TENNIS ARE GOOD AT PLAYING TENNIS.

The entire Rikkai team rushes in to put a stop to this nonsense.  I hope they yell at Jackal for letting these shenanigans get started.  Oh… OMG… I fucking love Sanada, can I just say that?  He actually DOES STUFF.  He’s going to put a stop to this nonsense right now!  He’s going to—

…End of volume?  *blink blink*

Was that… actually a cliffhanger that I care about?

*blink*

*blink blink*

Wow.  O____________________O

~*~

Oh my god.  Chapter “000”, you guys.  I can’t not put that in quotation marks.  :/  Chapter “000” is all about my least-favorite character Nanjirō, the only character in this story who manages to go beyond boring to downright offensive.  And this chapter is even worse than usual, because it is not just about Nanjirō, it is about Nanjirō in “America”.  And no, I can’t not put that in quotation marks, either.

Holy crap, Ryūzaki-sensei used to be a babe!

I hate Nanjirō so much.  From his unnecessarily bared chest to his cocky attitude to his total lack of—Oh my god.  No.  NO.  Is this “America”???  I… I am just…  I’m just broken.  Seriously.  Broken.  There is just so much wrong with this.  First of all, just to clue you in, the United States is actually not full of pickup trucks and Hulk Hogan and guys with cowboy hats and ginormous mustaches.  At least not in the same places there are palm trees.  (Are they in California?  Florida?  Hawaii?)  For another thing, Americans do not talk like characters in a shōnen manga.

“American”:  Don’t make me laugh!  As if a brat from Japan could become a pro here in America!”

Do you seriously think Americans think like that?!  LOL OUR COUNTRY IS BIGGER THEREFORE YOU GUYS ARE BAD AT SPORTS

…Because logic.

And of course the cowboy hat guy is fat.  Of course he is.  (And hairy, too.  Of course.)

Nanjirō dumps Coca-cola on his head.  OF COURSE HE DOES.

“American”:  Uwaaa!!  So cold!?

BECAUSE AMERICANS WOULD SAY THAT.  Especially with question intonation.  Sigh.

Is it bad that I mostly feel sorry for Coach Smith here?  I mean, I know he’s supposed to be the bad guy, but right now, he’s just sitting at his table when some random dude pours iced soda on his head.  For no apparent reason.  Oh, maybe it was water… just in a soda cup.  Whatever.

Takeuchi Rinko, the only redeemable person among the major characters of this chapter, saves Nanjirō’s ass by apologizing for him.  Yay feminism. :/

Oooooooh, she’s studying to be a lawyer.  (Dude, can you even practice law in Japan if you have a law degree from another country?  Maybe that’s why the Echizens spend so much time in the US… because she only passed the bar in Califloridawaii.)

And Nanjirō grabs her boobs and says he’s not interested in Japanese women.  Classy.  She hurls a tennis ball at him, and love is born. It seems the fact that he’s good at tennis is impressive enough to overrule the fact that he grabbed her boobs and told her he wasn’t interested in her, even though she had expressed no interest in him in the first place and had in fact tried to help him out of a bad situation.  All this prompts Rinko to consider that maybe she really does have small boobs and a bad figure.  (Are you kidding me?  She’s totally hot just the way she is!  D:)

I JUST CANNOT EVEN EXPRESS HOW MUCH I OBJECT TO THIS

Okay, now we have Michael and Alisa… why is Michael worried about Nanjirō “doing something” to Alisa?  Who is Alisa?!  Oh.  Apparently, Alisa is the person rubbing herself all over Nanjiroh’s lap :/

LOL I really like Michael.  He’s awesome.  So far anyway.  Even if he does use insults like “dirty monkey”.  Is that supposed to be a racial slur?  It kind of fails.  WTF, Coach Smith just fired Michael?  I… This is so ridiculous, I don’t even know what to say.  Michael, honey, why do you even want Alisa-chan back if she’s so cavalier with men’s feelings?  And where did you get Japanese-style bandages instead of regular ol’ Band-Aids?

You can tell Coach Smith is a bad guy because he hits tennis balls at kids.  That is pretty much the chief Prince of Tennis signal that someone is bad.  It’s like kicking a dog in a Hollywood film.  OMG, it’s a kid with glasses, too.  Of course it is.

Coach Smith:  You should feel privileged to be able to receive tennis lessons from a former pro like me!!

Really?  Because that seems like much more of a Japanese thing to say, actually.

Okay, so Rinko saves the kid with glasses, it’s all cool… and now she’s yelling at Coach Smith.  Will she be cowed by his retort?!  Yay Rinko!  She stands up to him even though he calls her “woman” and is generally an ass.  Now he’s hitting tennis balls at her.  Yeah... she won’t be able to rescue herself.  Women never can.  They can only protect kids.  Kids with glasses.  --__________________--

Listen, why does no one put a stop to Coach Smith abusing people?  You guys could report it to the person in charge, you know.  This is “America”, after all.

Right so, now Nanjirō has decided to get rid of the problem by bragging and beating Coach Smith at tennis, which will obviously solve everything.

Enter Bundro, the #1 ranked player in the world.  I don’t know anything about this guy, but he’s kind of hot… and also bafflingly wearing a woolen winter hat in the middle of Califloridawaii.

And Rinko has now borrowed someone’s motorcycle.  (Because Steve McQueen?)  And Nanjirō grabs her boobs as they’re driving, because “I have nothing else to hold on to!”

And……… several years later, Nanjirō randomly quits tennis because he wants to be a father, I guess.  Maybe he should get better at being a father, then.  :/

~*~

OKAY.  Heads up, Prince of Tennis.  We Americans are aware that Japan has other stuff besides samurai, geisha, and Mt. Fuji. 

I am personally really offended that you would use blatant, cheap stereotypes about us in children’s media.  Americans try really hard not to use racial and cultural stereotypes—and when we do them, it’s with an awareness that we are being daring and risqué, and we keep it away from children.  (The English dub of Hetalia, if I remember correctly, is rated R!)

Sometimes, yes, we fail.  We do, on occasion, make the mistake of assuming that foreigners are defined by whatever associations we as Americans have with their country—but we know that doing that is silly and offensive, and we do our best to avoid it as much as possible.  And of course I’m not speaking for every individual American:  I’m sure you can find people who are lazy or bitter enough to judge people by stereotypes, especially if you look at movies and television from earlier in the century, such as the clip from The Great Escape that I linked to above.  I’m even sure there are places on this very ‘blog where I or one of my friends has said something unwittingly offensive.  (Sometimes we are purposefully offensive, too, in order to make a point.)

But I do feel that I speak for the majority of Americans when I say that we don’t want our children to grow up thinking that everyone in Nepal is enlightened and all Hispanic people are Mexican.  And we would never assume that all Japanese people are like Sayuri from Memoirs of a Geisha.  Or even like a real person, such as Mishima Yukio.  Because we recognize that fiction is fictional, even when it is a lot more accurate than Arthur Golden’s book, and because we realize that individuals are, well, individual.

And though I know that different cultures are different, and that no insult is intended—probably—it makes me sad and angry when other cultures don’t extend us the same courtesy.  It's not fair. So, while admitting that there are things that American culture could get better at, too, I’d like to ask you if you could please stop. 

Also, FYI:  Americans don’t hang around in bikinis at restaurants.  Just letting you know.  K.