The Prince of Tennis and 誠 (Makoto)

I have come to a point in the manga (the match with Rikkai) from which I can go no farther until we discuss an important theme in The Prince of Tennis: makoto. It’s a pervasive theme, but the manga is at the point now where Seigaku kicks it into high gear, and things get serious. In Volumes 25 and 26, which I’ll be ‘blogging about next, we see the triumph of integrated data tennis, the first stirrings of the desire to try harder in Fuji Shūsuke’s soul, and the full appearance of Muga no Kyōchi. Any analysis of these events requires a basic understanding of makoto.

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Shōnen manga storylines typically reward moral characters and punish immoral ones. While shōnen isn’t as black-and-white as a typical American superhero cartoon, its Good Guys are still Good Guys because they have, or because they acquire during the story, some kind of valuable moral trait. This trait excuses all of their “adorable” vices (back talking, sexism, pornography addictions) and justifies the fact that they kick the Bad Guys’ asses and win all the trophies.

The Prince of Tennis is definitely shōnen, but its protagonists brag, bully, and bend the rules all the way to the Nationals (to my ever-increasing dismay and irritation). You may wonder: how is this moral? What can possibly justify this kind of behavior?

Well, after a great deal of reflection, I will tell you what value I believe The Prince of Tennis takes as its moral compass: makoto. This is something you may already have noticed. Of course, makoto is not the only value espoused by The Prince of Tennis. Especially for doubles players, the most important value seems to be something like interdependence or trust. Self-sacrifice and hard work are also presented as admirable, although they are hardly ever rewarded in the way that makoto—or interdependence—is. However, among all other virtues, makoto is the most crucial to the story.

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Makoto means something like “sincerity”. It has a lot of complicated cultural associations, but I wanted to give you the most correct picture of it that I could, so I did actual research on it and will refer to actual journal articles for you. (See “Works Cited” at the end.)

The word itself is an old one. It was used to mean “truthfulness”, in the sense of “not telling lies”, in early texts like the Nihon Shoki (c. 720) and the Shoku Nihongi (797) (Crowley 4).

In Japan—much as in early 20th-century Germany and probably other cultures that I can’t think of right now—the aesthetic and ethical are not considered antithetical, and makoto came to be used as a way of describing the inherent “truthiness” of a work of art: in particular, poetry. Artworks deficient in makoto were considered inferior. For example, Ki no Tsurayuki (872-945) says about the monk Henjō that he “masters style but is deficient in substance [makoto]. It is no more satisfying to read one of his poems than to fall in love with a woman in a picture” (quoted, Crowley 4). Ojio Yūshō writes about calligraphy, “It is only natural that handwriting should mirror the writer’s personality as it follows the way of his heart” (quoted, Reasoner 1).

The poet Ueshima Onitsura (1661-1738) wrote an influential text on the creation of haikai (Hitorigoto, 1718) that contains a detailed discussion of makoto. According to Cheryl Crowley at Columbia University, Onitsura’s makoto has four characteristics: it is arrived at only through constant training; it is more important to the kokoro (heart) of the poem than it is to the kotoba (words); it is the opposite of itsuwari (falsehood); and it is the quality that makes a poem timeless (5). Makoto must be effortless and natural; a poem that is full of makoto does not use an abundance of poetic devices—it focuses on content, not form (Crowley 5).

Chinese Confucian writings, which became popular in Japan during the Edo Period, use the word makoto in an ethical or religious sense. The Zhōng Yōng (Doctrine of the Mean, 5th century BC) says, “Ch’eng [makoto] is the Way of Heaven. Striving for ch’eng is the Way of human beings” (quoted, Crowley 4). It also says that makoto is “an active force that is always transforming things and completing things, and drawing man and Heaven together in the same current” (quoted, Reasoner 7). In Confucianism, makoto is more than simple avoidance of lies; it is the basis of everything that exists (Reasoner 7). Paul Reasoner (Bethel College) explains that, in this sense, makoto means the conformity between outward activity and the mind, but it also means a sincerity with oneself: to have makoto, a person must acknowledge the truth of his own feelings (6).

Makoto is a central value of bushidō, which developed from Confucianism as well as other philosophical influences. Nitobe Inazō’s Bushidō: The Soul of Japan (1900), which explicates samurai philosophy, discusses makoto among other virtues. According to Nitobe, makoto is more than just stating the literal truth; it means always being true to yourself—always doing your best (Hannon).

So makoto is inner consistency, a uniformity of thought and action, an acceptance of the truth about yourself, a passion for what you’re doing in the moment. Now, if that doesn’t sound what like The Prince of Tennis preaches, I don’t know what does.

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It’s pretty obvious that makoto is highly valued in The Prince of Tennis, but let’s go over the evidence, just to make sure I’m not bullshitting you.

First of all, it seems fitting for The Prince of Tennis to uphold a samurai value like makoto, since it is bursting at the seams with references to bushidō and samurai, particularly those of the Sengoku Period (mid-1400s through the 1600s). All kinds of Sengoku-era samurai have lent their names to major characters. The most flagrant of these is Sanada Yukimura, who was defeated at the Battle of Tennoji in 1615 by the troops from Echizen. (I know, totally subtle, right?) Nanjirō is “the samurai”, and, if you think about it, Ōishi is an awful lot like Ōishi Yoshio from the Forty-seven Ronin, which is a story that is all about how being a samurai means pure action (i.e. makoto). There are bajillions more samurai references in The Prince of Tennis: tsubame gaeshi, fūrinkazan, gekokujō… I don’t need to list all of them for you to get my point.

Most convincingly, there is a consistent pattern of wins and losses in the story: characters who demonstrate high levels of makoto win, and those who don’t are punished with losses. In the details, it isn’t quite this simple; sometimes wins go to characters who don’t have high makoto yet but are being set up for a nasty, unexpected tumble (Fuji Shūsuke); in addition, there is the practical consideration that Seigaku can only win three matches against each school. Ordinarily, however, an impure heart guarantees a loss (see, for example, Akutsu or Mizuki). Characters like this aren’t thinking about the pure joy of playing tennis—or even about how badly they want to go to Nationals so they can continue playing tennis as long as possible—they have another agenda. In other words, they have two minds about what they’re doing. By contrast, the characters who start out with high makoto (Kintarō) or who eventually achieve it or get close to achieving it (Echizen, Kirihara) end up doing pretty well for themselves.

Makoto is a major factor in the final match of the story. I know, I know, it’s kind of lame that Echizen gets amnesia and then relearns to play tennis by playing against all the people he’s beaten in the past, but it serves the story well. After all, who could be more pure of heart than a person who is only now experiencing tennis in and of itself? Ultimately, he wins because he realizes that “tennis is fun” and spends the rest of the match just having fun with it. His opponent, Yukimura, is doomed the moment he says, “’Tennis is fun’, you say? Tennis is a serious battle. Defeat cannot be permitted.”

Even if we somehow managed to miss all of this completely obvious stuff, the characters are constantly telling us outright how important makoto is. How many times do people say, “Play your own tennis!” or “Don’t hold back on me!”? The best opponents are fully present, focused on the task at hand, and committed to doing their best.

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If we view The Prince of Tennis through the lens of makoto, we get a much clearer picture of why things are happening the way they are happening.

We understand why one character wins and another loses (keeping in mind that other, less important factors also come into play). For example, I’m just about to ‘blog about Volume 25, in which Inui and Yanagi have a match. Yanagi, while not doing anything particularly anti-makoto that might condemn him, does belong to an anti-makoto team (Rikkai); he also plays a kind of tennis that is very cerebral and does not embrace action without thought. On the other hand, his opponent, Inui, goes through an entire arc of makoto-related character development during the match. He begins by using data tennis, which in addition to being extremely intellectual is not even his own invention, so it looks like he will lose. When he abandons this style and begins to play in a more “animal-like” way, he improves so much that he stuns his teammates. Still, Yanagi points out that Inui will never win if he’s doing that because he isn’t “playing his own tennis”. It’s clear that it’s important both to use the method that is most intrinsic to you personally and to let your thoughts step out of the way so your body can do what it already knows how to do. In the end, Inui wins the match because he does both of those things. Even though they sound like they are opposites, they aren’t. They are both makoto.

Another thing that understanding makoto helps us do is judge the relative “goodness” of characters and teams. From this viewpoint, the most morally admirable character in the story (at least before we account for character development) is probably Kintarō. Someone told me once that Kintarō was originally supposed to be the main character of the story, and I can see that in him—although, having already attained the pinnacle of sincerity, I’m not sure how he could grow throughout the story. His entire team (Shitenhōji) is full of makoto—they don’t seem to care about winning very much, so much so that, even though they are playing to the best of their ability, it really seems like they are ingesting some relaxing substances if you know what I mean. We can contrast them with Rikkai (and in particular, its vice-captain, Sanada), which is the incarnation of rules-based decision making and fear as motivation, or with Higa, who are just plain cruel sometimes—in order to be that cruel, you have to be thinking about something other than Just Plain Tennis. On the other hand, much as it pains me to say it, Nanjirō is all about makoto. That’s why The Prince of Tennis keeps acting like he’s a good person even though he is in all other respects despicable.

The preeminence of makoto also helps explain why some characters who seem really deserving aren’t that successful. The first person who comes to my mind when I say this is Kaidō. Kaidō works really hard, probably harder than anyone else in the story and certainly harder than anyone on his team. He’s also polite, respectful, self-sacrificing, thoughtful, neat, clean, supportive of traditional values, law-abiding, and helpful. He is beloved by little old ladies and their cats everywhere. Yet he never becomes a major player. Compare him to Echizen, who is rude, bratty, snarky, disobedient, disrespectful, self-centered, careless of others, and overconfident. To be fair, he has good points, too—he is respectful of the elderly, for example. Still, why should Echizen get to be the main character and win all the tennis matches against all the best players while the best Kaidō can hope for is minimal self-improvement? I will tell you why. Echizen learns an important lesson about makoto and changes because of it, and that doesn’t happen to Kaidō.

Finally, examining the treatment of makoto clarifies for us the character development of Echizen, Fuji Shūsuke, Akutsu and others. Akutsu, for example, is a Prince of Tennis tragedy: after his loss, when offered the chance to enjoy tennis simply, as it is, he chooses to quit instead. He can’t take it seriously—he can’t look into his soul and face what’s there. Everything Akutsu does is pretense or bravado; he’ll never be able to win at tennis until he can come to a unity within himself. Fuji is another interesting case, one with a happier conclusion. When he’s facing loss, he decides to take a risk and open himself up. Believe me, that’s a difficult thing for a fourteen-year-old who has always been successful to do—what if he tries and then he fails anyway? But Fuji does it, and the story rewards him for it, and we all feel good when he comes back and wins.

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While the value of makoto doesn’t explain everything that happens in The Prince of Tennis, it definitely helps us understand a lot. I hope that this discussion was helpful, and I absolutely want to hear your thoughts on the topic. I am always looking for new insights. ♥

Works Cited

Crowley, Cheryl. “Putting Makoto Into Practice: Onitsura's Hitorigoto.” Monumenta Nipponica 50.1 (1995): 1-46. JSTOR. Web. 11 Nov. 2011.

Hannon, Sean. “A Critical Review of the Classic Samurai Text: Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe, Part Six: Truthfulness (Makoto).” Castle Rock Aikido and Iaido. Castle Rock Martial Arts School. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.

Reasoner, Paul. “Sincerity and Japanese Values.” Philosophy East and West 40.4 (1990): 471-88. JSTOR. Web. 11 Nov. 2011.