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Chapter Events: extended flashback to Tezuka’s time in Kyūshū; Tezuka defeats Kabaji; Ōishi and Kikumaru begin their match against Ōtori and Shishido
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Miyuki’s adorable. How much younger do you think she is than Tezuka? *matchmaking* Aha! She’s a fourth-grader! …Too much younger to matchmake with. Oh well.
Kids, do not play tennis with suckers in your mouths; you will choke and die.
Oh, of course! Bullies. Obviously, we couldn’t go too long before bullies showed up. You can tell they’re bullies because they’ve got duck faces, but wait… I think they’re a team… Shishigaku? I’m confused. Are they a team, or are they bullies?
Miyuki firmly believes that Shishigaku doesn’t have a chance of beating her brother’s team—she’s definitely the kind of character we’re supposed to like. Oh, that’s right. She has the “yips”! It’s just stage fright, Miyuki. Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about the Tennis, and you’ll be fine.
Poor Miyuki! *indignant* If people notice her problem, they should help her, not laugh at her! Well, Tezuka’s going to help her out. At least he acknowledges what’s going on with her, and tries to give her advice.
He basically just says she needs to practice more… Not very helpful…
So apparently, Tezuka is having the same problem—he’s afraid to use his shoulder, but there’s nothing wrong with it. I guess that’s supposed to be parallelism, but… it’s not really that exciting as a literary device. I’m really uninspired by this entire story arc. Nice art, though.
Oh, it becomes clearer. They are bullies. Taking little girls hostage definitely counts as bullies.
LOL irony.
Daimaru: It’s an honor to be playing against the nationally ranked Tezuka Kunimitsu.
We worry about Tezuka, because his shoulder isn’t working right yet, but we have no doubt that he will never lose to someone who mocks people and is mean to elementary schoolers.
…Oh my god, I was WRONG. Tezuka lost the game. BUT WHAT ABOUT MORALS AND STUFF?! Something bad has to happen to Daimaru now, or I will be appalled.
What, seriously?! They’re all going to play Tezuka, one after another? Like a gang rape?! (Is that too offensive of a comparison? *guilty look*)
Miyuki’s awesome—she’ll beat him herself. Good for her! (Sucks to Tezuka, though.) Miyuki will kick their asses for him. Fuck, I don’t even care if Miyuki loses. She’s still a billion times better than these assholes. Miyuki is seriously my hero. And Tezuka’s, too, I hope. Now he’ll decide to try harder, maybe? I hope? “Die you little brat”? Really? How can there be any enjoyment in mocking little kids? Come on…
…Wait wait wait. All Tezuka had to do was watch Miyuki bravely face some big bad boys, and his shoulder is miraculously healed? Seriously?! First of all, it’s annoying that a girl has to get saved by a guy yet again (although Miyuki is more cool than all of the other girls, at least), and secondly… I was so excited that maybe something unexpected was going to happen, and Tezuka was going to lose, and it was going to be all depressing… but no. Out of thin air, he’s going to be awesome. *sigh* Is that splash page of Tezuka unzipping his jersey supposed to show us how serious he is?
Let’s talk about Tezuka for a minute, you guys… What is going on with this character? I know I’ve said that I hate him before, but I don’t hate him; I just hate how the story uses him. Taylo says that he feels like he’s a crossover character from another manga—like his story doesn’t actually belong as part of The Prince of Tennis, and I think I agree. He’s not fundamentally uninteresting, but his thoughts, emotions, and motivations are mostly ignored by the story. It’s confusing, because we’re told over and over how amazing he is, but we repeatedly see him lose. The few times that we do see him win, it’s underwhelming. For example, this current match with Kabaji seems too rushed, too focused on the actual events that happen without paying enough attention to why they happen. Even though there’s a long flashback, it doesn’t really help us get involved with Tezuka’s emotions. We can’t align ourselves with him because we don’t know what he deeply desires; we don’t care if he loses because we can’t see that he cares. Possibly, Tezuka is kept deliberately distant from us because we’re supposed to see him the way Echizen does: as a godlike figure who is a symbol, a personification, of how much more he must improve in order to be truly good. But it’s too bad, because in doing so, the story sucks all of the interestingness right out of Tezuka. In the flashback, Miyuki is a much more compelling character, even though the story is really supposed to be about Tezuka. I suppose in such a long story, at least one character is going to fall through the cracks, but The Prince of Tennis usually has such good characterization, it’s confusing.
Yeah, I think “confusing” is the best way to describe how I feel about Tezuka.
Yay, Miyuki won her championship match! But alas, Tezuka is gone. :( I hope she got his phone number or something. Oh well, Chitose can always carry the message. Ah, now I feel all nostalgic. Chitose dresses a lot like I did at his age. I was in my hippie phase around then and listened to nothing but music from the 1960s and read lots of Russian novels.
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE GAME WITH KABAJI
…I forgot this was even happening. LOL
Oh god, Ōishi, you’re such a fanboy. Gross.
Crap, I don’t even remember what hyakuren jitoku no kiwami is. Something that involves tennis magic, clearly. Either that or Tezuka’s left arm is on fire.
I feel bad for Kabaji. He always gets used when we’re supposed to be seeing someone being challenged by himself. He’s almost as fake a character as Tezuka is.
Inui: That Kabaji couldn’t believe that someone would return his shots exactly the way he hits them.
Fuji: This must be a new experience for him.
SMUG BITCHES SHUT YOUR MOUTHS
Tezuka is amazing; everyone is amazed. Everyone goggles at Tezuka for a while~
Sigh. Tezuka, when do we actually get to hear your story and find out what goes on in your head? Surely there is more to it than you saw Miyuki play tennis and that made you awesome again, right? …Right? D:
It’s cute how Kabji keeps saying, “The winner will be Hyōtei!!” He’s like a sad, slightly not-all-right, “special” kid that we should all be Really Nice to.
 |
| You mean... according to the rules of tennis? *blink blink* |
*headdesk* Ōishi, what are you--?
Ōishi: That’s enough, Tezuka!! Just give up this match!!
FAIL. YOU WILL SUFFER FROM A TENNIS CURSE FOREVER UNLESS YOU REDEEM YOURSELF WITH TRUE FAITH. I mean, come on. COME ON. You did NOT seriously just say that. You did NOT.
Ryūzaki: Ōishi… You should know that our captain never runs away. Even if it means that he will injure his arm again.
You are a terrible coach, Ryūzaki. Don’t let the kid deliberately hurt himself like that. …But thank you for telling Ōishi off. :3
I’m trying to ignore the fact that Ryōma’s face keeps popping up everywhere, including the middle of other people’s conversations, but… I just can’t anymore. Why is he there? He doesn’t have any expression, either—it’s kinda creepy. Either he has a serious mancrush on Tezuka or… Actually, there’s no other explanation.
Ōishi, I really doubt that Tezuka was planning on having it rain and solve all his problems.
Fuji: Mmm, we don’t know that for certain…
Fuji, you are so full of shit.
Of course Tezuka wins, but just barely. Everyone else is impressed, but I’m not really. We didn’t really see Tezuka struggle with anything. We didn’t see him have to make an important decision or overcome anything powerful. He just sorta played a match, and not even against a character who really challenged him. It was supposedly against himself, but it wasn't epic enough to make us feel involved.
Crowd: As expected, Captain Tezuka is invincible!!
I hate you, Crowd. Oh wait, it’s actually the ichinensei, isn’t it? Well… I hate you guys then.
Fuji, for god’s sake, stop saying, “mmm” at the beginning of every single thing you say!!! It makes you seem like a really really creepy pervert.
...Wow, Ōtori looks badass. Bad. Ass.
Poor Silver Pair. If that’s really lightning, their hopes and dreams are gonna get crushed. Wait, WAIT! …Damn. I just had an entire match of wet!Ōtori dangled in front of me and then snatched away. DDDD:
Well, I guess it had to rain so that Ōishi could have some time to get his head screwed back on straight. He’s been such a dumbass lately. Thank God he is at least angsting about the fact that he is a loser with NO FAITH who completely FAILS at BELIEVING in people. *annoyed* …I’m glad Eiji is being nice and practicing with him anyway. :3 Ōishi will probably get over it soon.
*eyes narrow* He’d better.
Tezuka and Ryūzaki’s conversations creep me out. It really seems like they are having an affair. It’s not so much that they are saying anything particularly intimate, but the way they’re just sitting there… alone… and stuff…
~*~
Wait, we start at 3-3? So sad. On the other hand… how many splash pages of this match are actually necessary? Eh, I think we can do without them.
I am so happy that Shishido is all excited to play against Ōishi. Oh, that’s right, they are friends from way back at training camp. It’s adorable how they root for each other… dorks. They totally also ship each other's love affairs. You know they do. :P
Wait, “Even Eiji-senpai is getting fired up!!”? What is that supposed to mean?! You guys think he is not motivated?! *offended*
This match is so full of (not really very) secret doubles pair love. *glee* Australian formation… The glances Ōtori and Shishido are giving each other… The “it looks like they’re having buttsex” formation… Speaking of which...
Ōishi: They’re trying to mess up our strategy with some clever tactics of their own.
Apparently, it’s called “inducement” formation…
Ceolwyn: That’s not helping. That’s the opposite of helping. Inducement…? Like, inducing orgasm or something? :/
Kelfin: *dies laughing*
Actually though, this is halfway serious stuff. I don’t think I need to devote an entire post to it, the way I did with makoto, but listen.
Arguably, this is the most important doubles match in the series, since it is the match that is about what it means to play doubles, and since it involves our two best examples of doubles pairs. (Obviously, there are other important ones—for example, the final match against Rikkai, but we’re not there yet.) Most of the vital supportive information for these points will probably come in the next volume, but it’s not too early to start paying attention. How do we know we’re supposed to respect these people? Which team deserves to win more? What is it that they’re doing that makes them so successful?
To begin with, watch how they’re communicating. Ōtori and Shishido seem to talk to each other more (they even have strategy discussions), but both pairs have lots of physical contact—simple stuff, like a hand on a partner’s shoulder, or letting fingers brush together when they hand stuff to each other. Maybe these seem routine, but it’s significant that we’re being specifically shown these things—it’s not like video; if you’re drawing something, you have to make very careful choices about what is and is not necessary to show. So we know that the mangaka thinks this is important.
Another thing to notice are the signs of… hmm. I don’t want to call it “possessiveness”, because that doesn’t quite mean what I want to say. Maybe “belongingness” would be a better way to describe it. There is a sense that one and one’s partner share an identity and that attacks to one’s partner are the same as attacks to oneself. For example, watch Shishido when people talk about Ōtori. Or see what Ōishi does when Eiji (yet again) loses focus and double faults on his serve.
We should also pay attention to anything that is explicitly said about doubles tennis. There’s not a whole lot of it, at least not so far, but Eiji does start to talk about finding “the infinite possibilities of doubles”. It’s a bit sentimental, but the point, I think, is that we shouldn’t really be focused on winning the match. We should be thinking about exploring possibilities, deepening knowledge, an increase in mutual understanding.
So you know what? No matter what happens, it’s going to be okay. Because they trust each other.
♥
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