Volume 25: Memories

Chapters 211-219
Plot Events: Inui defeats Yanagi; Fuji and Kirihara begin their match

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

Life Update: Based on some of the comments I’m getting, it seems like people want to know a little bit more about me and what’s going on in my life. ♥ *so flattered*

Currently my life is full of drama: I can’t find a job—though I am still applying!—and my marriage is crumbling. I accidentally stumbled into confessing my love to my best friend, and it was so awkward, and she is in love with someone else, and she thought I’d get over her faster if she was kind of blunt about it, and we had a fight, and it is sad. *woe* So I’ve been doing all kinds of internal monologues on The Meaning of Love and staring out the window at the rain. At least spending less time with her means I have more time for creative projects, like writing angsty poetry, learning to play the doumbek and the pennywhistle, and ‘blogging about The Prince of Tennis.

Speaking of you guys and your comments, I’ve been looking at our stats. Did you know we had 1600 page views last month? I am so flattered and excited! Looking just at this week—recent stats are better, right?—our biggest audience is in the United Kingdom, and we also have lots of readers in the United States and the Philippines, plus several in Thailand, Russia, Canada, Finland, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina. I don’t know why anyone would want to know this, but Blogger.com tells me so I’ll tell you: the most common browser among you is Internet Explorer. The most popular operating system is Windows—that’s 86% of you (and 1% of you read us on your BlackBerries!). Blogger.com gives me all kinds of cool pie charts about it. :D

Another fascinating fact: more people have visited our site after searching for “I Formation” than for anything else… even for our name (Intensive Tennis). Why are so many people searching for “I Formation”???

Right, so, on to The Prince of Tennis!

~*~

Is the art in this volume kind of… sloppier than usual?

It’s creepy that in the translation I'm reading, everyone calls Yanagi “Master”. They’re screaming, “Master! Master!”, and it just reminds me uncomfortably of some internet erotica that I have read… or Lovecraftian horror.  Also, every time Yanagi says something like, “I have seen through your tennis”, I laugh out loud. Apparently he has x-ray vision. Or transparent eyelids.

Inui… it is not “impossible” that you made a mistake. Just so you know. *grin* I love seeing Inui get taken down a peg. Not that I dislike him or think he’s basically a good kid—he is—but in a strange way, he’s also very naïve. He has an almost religious faith in statistics, and it’s cool to see him react when things that he doesn’t believe can happen actually happen. ...And now I’m imagining this Faustian scene with Yanagi as Mephistopheles. He’s certainly taunting enough…
Fuji: Yanagi-kun is trying to destroy Inui’s data tennis.
NOOooooooooOOOOOooooooOOOOOOooo! Anything but THAT!

*tilts head* Do Taki and Gakuto get their hair cut at the same place? Because those angle-cut bobs are really ridiculously similar…

Oh here we go. Yanagi’s annoyed because he taught Inui all about data tennis and now Inui is trying to use it against him and he hasn’t even SURPASSED him yet. Che.

You guys, you guys! Ryōma’s having an emotion! Well, he’s thinking “Inui-senpai…” That probably means he’s having an emotion, right?  (Seriously, though, it's a clue that what's about to happen with Inui is going to be Important to the meaning of the entire manga.)

Oh thank god Inui’s come to the same conclusion that the rest of us came to last volume. (“I must forsake my data!”) Like I said, play a couple of stupid moves, see what happens. But wait! Yanagi reminds him, “There can be no victory for the one who abandons his play style.” That is kind of true, I mean obviously you have to play your own tennis, but… people “evolve” all the time, so………

Do you guys see what’s going on here? This is what I’m talking about when I talk about makoto! This is an epic battle between two makoto-type forces: the power of your own style vs. the inner purity of a mind free from thoughts. I don’t know which will win, because they are both ways to “be yourself”. *tenterhooks*

Kaidō… ♥ (He gets so into these matches.)

Inui *VISIBLE EYES*: And I shall rise above the past!
I didn’t know Inui could be so dramatic!

Everyone on Seigaku approves of the dataless Inui-tennis, but Rikkai are skeptical.
Yanagi: Do you still not understand? The moment you abandoned your play style, you destroyed your chance of victory!
Sanada: For the time being, it seems that rather than relying on your data, you have resorted to playing tennis based on your animal-like instincts. Such an absurd notion of tennis will be defeated by Rikkai Dai!
Sanada does not have a lot of makoto in his heart.

Horio keeps cracking me the fuck up.
Horio: C-calm down! Please calm down Inui-senpai!!
Ryōma: How about you calm down, Horio?
…Sometimes Ryōma’s not so bad. XD

OMG Hyōtei… cheering for Seigaku… in your own, special Hyōtei way… Well, obviously they want Seigaku to win; it’s not so bad to lose if the person who beats you is undefeated. *pause* Shit. I can’t tell the difference between these characters; is that possible? Who is speaking!? Is it me, or is the art in this volume that bad? It could just be me… I have a hard time telling people apart, unless they are wearing distinctly different clothes or have different colored hair. I am so visual-FAIL. XD In serious manga, like Ōoku, I never have any idea what’s going on, because everyone has black hair, and they change clothes. And I just watched this Inuit film, The Fast Runner, in which I literally did not realize that there were two separate timelines going on because EVERYONE HAD BLACK HAIR AND WAS WEARING A FUR COAT. DDDD: I had a huge revelation about halfway through the movie that there were two main female characters… and then I realized that there were actually three…

…Is it okay for Gakuto to sit on the fence like that? I mean, he’s Gakuto, so it’s not like he’s going to fall off and break his neck or anything, but that’s gotta be against the rules.

Ooooooooooh, in a moment of temptation, Inui reaches for his notebook. Don’t do it, Inui!
Ryūzaki: You really can’t win without your data?

Yay, flashba—omg wait no. NO. He has NOT. He has NOT BEEN DOING what I THINK HE’S BEEN DOING. Omfg he HAS. LMAO sigh. Inui has set up the whole match so it’s an exact replica of their unfinished match before—otherwise, this outcome wouldn’t count as finishing it, would it?
Inui: I believe this was where we left off.
*SNORFLE*

Of course this has all been part of Inui’s data. Well, there we go then. Playing your own tennis and playing in an “animal-like” style… ARE THE SAME THING! MAKOTO WINS!!! :D

Okay, Atobe, Sanada… Not everything is about Tezuka. It may shock you to hear this, but he doesn’t have nearly as much input (read: bossiness) as you two do in yours. It’s not like he takes his freshmen and molds them with high-handed generosity and vicious backhanding. So when there are awesome people on his team, you should be awed by them, not him.

...I still really love Hyōtei’s pants, though. :/

OMG Ryōma actually cheered! Out loud!
Eiji: O_________________o
Ichinensei: o________________O
Ōishi: O______________O

Flashback!Renji and Flashback!Sadaharu are so typical of doubles players in this manga. ♥ “Just once, I’d like to play against you until my heart is content…” “Ahh, I feel the same way.”

YAY Inui won! I knew he would, because he was so full of sincerity. :3 But really, I’m happy for him. He worked super-hard, and he showed us that he’s learned something super-important, so he deserved to win. (Besides, how else will Seigaku advance? XD)  Plus, he’s been so sweet about it. Awww, Inui… *heart melts*
Inui: It was all by chance. The chances of winning were fifty-fifty… The next time we play, the winner might be you instead, Renji.

His teammates clearly do not have a fine appreciation of what just happened.
Momo: Inui-senpai, you sure showed us that you’re not just a guy who can only make strange juices!!
*facepalm*

OMG!!! Whom does Inui credit for his win?
Inui: I learned the spirit of perseverance from Kaidō.
asdf;lkjasdf;lkjasdf;lkjasdf!!!!!! I KNEW IT

Uh-oh, Yanagi’s in trouble. He hasn’t gotten smacked, but his team is standing around, saying pointed things about how worried they are about Yukimura in order to make him feel guilty for losing.

The dead-Yukimura flashback! OH MY GOD… Rikkai scarves!!!!!!!!! The Rikkai scarves are possibly as awesome as the Hyōtei pants! DDDDD: Which are more awesome? I can’t decide!

Ah yes, the Guillain-Barré diagnosis… Of course, as we all know, Konomi-sensei later reneged on this, presumably because he decided to use the disease without actually researching its effects and was later scolded by persons who actually had it. (Whoops…) Just based on the Wikipedia article, it sounds like it is a lot less pretty of a disease than whatever Yukimura has. I mean, we don’t see him having bedsores and drooling. And it sounds like it needs therapy, not surgery. But I don’t really know, because I am not a doctor. And you know who else is not a doctor? Yagyū! Which could explain why he is telling us a bunch of stuff about Guillain-Barré that is not true.

Oh, Sanada. He’s all stoic until he just can’t hold it in anymore, and then his anguish bursts out of him, and he goes screaming sacred vows down the hallway. :333 Well, that’s Sanada for you—he tries so hard to be self-controlled and passionless, but he’s actually more emotional than most people, so when he represses his emotions, they build up until eventually he loses control.

Okay, the flashback’s over, and it looks like Sanada is going to lay into Yanagi.
Sanada: This was not a match that you could not have won. You let your personal feelings get in the way.
Yanagi: I’m very sorry… I have broken the promise with Seiichi. Please hit me! You must set an example for the rest of the members.
I like to think that Yanagi is being ironic here. XD Of course, that means Sanada has to slap him now.

But wait! Akaya leaps in to protect Yanagi with his racket! Awww. Well, that explains all that Yanagi/Akaya fan fiction that utterly baffled me before… *~~wibbly wibble~~*

That was an effective way of bringing Akaya back into the spotlight, since it’s time for his match with Fuji, who is not going to play along with Akaya’s plan to beat him in thirteen minutes. Silly Akaya. Fuji’s not a terribly cruel person; if you hadn’t bragged about how fast you would win, he probably would have beaten you quickly enough for you to get to the hospital. ♥

Things look good for Fuji at first; that’s bad news.

Hahahaha Fuji is aiming for his knees! I mean… *guilty* That’s terrible.
Fuji *totally serious*: I will destroy you.
Kelfin:  *TERRIFIED*

Not much to say here:  they’re just playing tennis, and they’re both good at it.

You know, I don’t think it’s that smart to announce the name of your move before you do it. I mean, maybe it’s intimidating, but I think mostly it just tells people what to expect.

Aaaaaaand…. Inui’s trying to get Fuji’s “real” data, which segues nicely into… a flashback with Tezuka and Fuji—something that happened right after Fuji’s match with Echizen. It’s really pretty, with all the raindrops *sigh*. Tezuka wants to know why Fuji didn’t go all out. Fuji, of course, doesn’t answer. (Honestly? I don’t think he knows, or at least, he doesn’t want to articulate it to himself. Hint: it has to do with makoto.)
Fuji: Well, Tezuka… It seems that I… have no motivation for victory.
See? No makoto. Sooooo, the question is, will Akaya force Fuji to go all out?

Akaya kicks the net? Lame.
Fuji: Such bad manners. (“tut tut”)
The Ref actually tells him not to do that! I am stunned! Referees that are refereeing! O_______O

Continuation of flashback.
Fuji: Enjoying the thrill of drawing out an opponent’s potential to the limit… That was all I wanted. How about you? What’s your motivation?
Tezuka: Victory, no matter the cost! Right now, the only thing on my mind is winning the National Title!!
Fuji: If I become a hindrance, remove me from the team.
[later]
Fuji: Tezuka… I had thought that you and I were the same kind of person until that match… Until I saw your determination for victory. Why do you go so far—? I see… This is why. I wonder if I also can become serious…
Well, it’s clear that Fuji hasn’t really figured himself out yet. He doesn’t know “how to become serious”, and he’s counting on his natural talent to carry him along until without any real effort on his part. However, I really have to rethink Tezuka now. It seems that he’s a bit more passionate than I gave him credit for. Tezuka doesn’t seem to deserve what happens to him in this manga, so I am going to have to meditate on him to see if I can figure out why that’s happening.

Wait, WTF. Fuji just got hit by the ball or something, and now he can’t see?!?! Did I miss something?????? *scrolls back* No, no I didn’t… He just is on the ground and now he’s blind. Right. Oh, here we go, flashback to tell us what we missed. Oh, he got hit on the head.

Fuji is taking his BLINDNESS far too calmly… He’s all, okay, “it’s temporary, whatevers, I’m sure it’ll go away”. You are BLIND; doesn’t that mean anything to you?!?!  I'm annoyed by this particular trope. I hated it when Rurōni Kenshin did it, too...

Ryūzaki does seem slightly annoyed because Akaya was obviously aiming for Fuji’s body on purpose… WTF, Ryūzaki knows he’s blind and she doesn’t do anything about it?! Mattaku, seriously?!?! Taka-san has to go to the hospital when he gets hurt; why don't Eiji and Fuji have to go?!

Kirihara is now hitting him repeatedly on purpose… I am skeptical of this Rikkai “honor” thing.

Don’t worry, guys, Fuji can probably still play… he’ll use his superhearing or some shit like th—*headdesk*.  Apparently PoT feels like it has to get increasingly more epic with each match, and we have now crashed the realism threshold. Not just because of the hospital thing, because of this:
Fuji: I feel it. The limits that I thought I had, it turns out they don’t exist…
BULLSHIT.