(no subject)
So, I was thinking about Prince of Tennis while I was walking home from my cousin's house, which can be interpreted in two ways:
1) I have Thoughts about Prince of Tennis - particularly re: powerlevels in the anime.
a) As person Ryoma wants to surpass, Nanjiroh is the baseline guide to tennis skill in the series. He's the ultimate goal - the strongest player.
b) Nanjiroh made it to the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament in his early twenties then abruptly quit. He made it to the semi-final of one major tournament. He wasn't the super dooper most famous and brilliant player ever to set foot on court in the history of tennis. He was very good, but within a normal definition of 'very good'. This sets the power scale to 'reality'.
c) It therefore makes no in-text sense to have Ryoma win the US Open at age 13. It does not make sense to have Ryoma enter the US Open at thirteen. At some point the power scale has switched from 'reality' to 'fantasy', and Ryoma abruptly accelerates from being a very talented thirteen year old who struggles when he starts playing in a higher age division (ie. against fifteen year olds) to being super dooper most famous etc.
d) You can't change the power scale of a show. Full stop. It'd be like if halfway through Naruto, Konoha suddenly developed nuclear weapons and ginormous space laser cannons. (...or something.) One-on-one fights become irrelevant, Konoha takes over/destroys the world, game over. There's no emotional conclusion.
2) But on the other hand, I was thinking about Prince of Tennis while I was walking home from my cousin's place. Um, why? I haven't watched or read PoT in over a year. But the US Open is on at the moment, and tennis and PoT are inextricably linked for me. In the same way military things and Japanese things make me think of Naruto, and general magic things make me think of Harry Potter. And american football makes me think of Eyeshield 21, of course, but that's because Eyeshield 21 is everything I know about american football.
This in turn made me think that you should be able to measure impact of a fandom by percentage chance that you will be thinking about it at any random point in time. Like, I'm walking home from my cousin's house. Am l thinking about:
a) Naruto
b) Harry Potter
c) another fandom (eg. Prince of Tennis, whatever I last read)
d) something actually relevant to my life (eg. what I'm going to wear out tonight, whether it's safe to cross the street)
And the highly scientific breakdown of the data collected from many hundred imaginary walks would be:
a) 40%
b) 30%
c) 25%
d) 5%
Which scientifically explains why I never know what I'm going to wear out until half an hour before I have to leave. Evidence and conclusion, all in one.
1) I have Thoughts about Prince of Tennis - particularly re: powerlevels in the anime.
a) As person Ryoma wants to surpass, Nanjiroh is the baseline guide to tennis skill in the series. He's the ultimate goal - the strongest player.
b) Nanjiroh made it to the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament in his early twenties then abruptly quit. He made it to the semi-final of one major tournament. He wasn't the super dooper most famous and brilliant player ever to set foot on court in the history of tennis. He was very good, but within a normal definition of 'very good'. This sets the power scale to 'reality'.
c) It therefore makes no in-text sense to have Ryoma win the US Open at age 13. It does not make sense to have Ryoma enter the US Open at thirteen. At some point the power scale has switched from 'reality' to 'fantasy', and Ryoma abruptly accelerates from being a very talented thirteen year old who struggles when he starts playing in a higher age division (ie. against fifteen year olds) to being super dooper most famous etc.
d) You can't change the power scale of a show. Full stop. It'd be like if halfway through Naruto, Konoha suddenly developed nuclear weapons and ginormous space laser cannons. (...or something.) One-on-one fights become irrelevant, Konoha takes over/destroys the world, game over. There's no emotional conclusion.
2) But on the other hand, I was thinking about Prince of Tennis while I was walking home from my cousin's place. Um, why? I haven't watched or read PoT in over a year. But the US Open is on at the moment, and tennis and PoT are inextricably linked for me. In the same way military things and Japanese things make me think of Naruto, and general magic things make me think of Harry Potter. And american football makes me think of Eyeshield 21, of course, but that's because Eyeshield 21 is everything I know about american football.
This in turn made me think that you should be able to measure impact of a fandom by percentage chance that you will be thinking about it at any random point in time. Like, I'm walking home from my cousin's house. Am l thinking about:
a) Naruto
b) Harry Potter
c) another fandom (eg. Prince of Tennis, whatever I last read)
d) something actually relevant to my life (eg. what I'm going to wear out tonight, whether it's safe to cross the street)
And the highly scientific breakdown of the data collected from many hundred imaginary walks would be:
a) 40%
b) 30%
c) 25%
d) 5%
Which scientifically explains why I never know what I'm going to wear out until half an hour before I have to leave. Evidence and conclusion, all in one.