From Genius 188 to Genius 309 in two weeks full of trains
Tezuka's Week
I noticed AFTER reading certain Higa game last Monday...
( bigger)
I wanted to tell you about how this seemed to be Tezuka's week, also because the weekly calendar says so. About Kite and my obsession with choco-cro, thanks to Satoumizu. About Shitenhouji's bishooonens aka the Family Team. About Tezuka in Kyushu, the flashback of which I have happened to read in the train to Fukuoka (KYUSHU) today, the whole 4 chapters. About how after that Fukuoka seemed to be full of rehabilitation hospitals, hospitals in general and medical Universities. And about how now Hyoutei is definitely my 2nd favorite team after Rokkaku. Love and Silver over Gold anyday.
But I can't, because for the 1st time (is it really?) in the PoT-reki 3-nen that I have been following Prince of Tennis, I cannot extract any good humour from the series. On the way back from Fukuoka, during the 3-hour train ride, I have been feeling all the way from excited, to troubled, to angry, to enraged with disgust and finally, sad and disappointed. I think the game against Hiyoshi made me feel like this too, but THAT I knew from the anime. It'd been 2 years since I last read new PoT canon.
I never thought it would disappoint me as much as it has. But well, that's the difference between the anime and the manga: the fun.
There was no fun in the hair joke. How can you make a joke and it be so cruel that the reader can only be pained by it, distraught, even? How can one sports manga series have a main character that is so (unrealistic and) HATEFUL?!
Because today I have realized, like many other people before me, that it is not possible anymore to cheer for a team that bases their victory on super powers as NEN users (focusing the aura in a sole arm and people actually seeing it?! Gon Freaks, anyone? ) with different names for each person (blablabla Tezuka, Sinchro -swimming in the clouds together?- Golden Pair, I-copy-all-my-rivals'-techniques-and-even-those-of-people-I-have-never-actually-fought-against-----Ryoma), and whose main asset is a chibi asshole 1st year, an asshole in every possible aception of the word, with every possible person. He is not cute, not nice, not even a good person and the few traces of nicety towards his team that the author adds here and there are ONLY because he knows that according to the sports manga manual, he then-and-there is supposed to remember about his team and "do it for the team", when any other time you KNOW he is only doing it all for himself.
This is not a matter of personality or understanding reasons. It is not a matter of "he will grow up" or "he is maturing". No, I am not taking this SO seriously. Because Konomi hasn't been careful with his characters, I am not going to fill the blanks for him in my head, no way.
It all comes down to the fact that I used to like Ryoma in the anime, and I can't for the life of me like him in the manga. I can't even stand him anymore, everything he says and does OFFENDS me. And it is not only in the new games. It has been like this for the entire series from the Yamabuki arc on. There is not even the Ponta-induced bonding night with Kentaro! And in the anime at least he loses against Sanada once, and that humanizes him. In the manga, he is so unbeatable he is completely hateable. Because, darn, all I have left to wish for him is that on his 3rd year another super rookie comes and beats the crap and ego out of him. And what's the point in wishing something like that with a vengeance, when you were supposed to just be enjoying a story and its characters?
I will leave aside the fact that tennis is in reality a big-ego, INDIVIDUALISTIC sport and that maybe that's how the real world is (OMG the day I read Federer's interview after one of his latest victories "I AM A GENIUS", I understood it all better). I don't care because I never liked tennis in the first place, actually it is a sports I abhor. I just used to like this series and this story very much. So I feel truly, truly betrayed by a manga that, like some others I used to love, might have needed an earlier wrapping-up.
Congratulations, Ryoma, for finally defeating your father, if only in the ranking of my most hated characters, which casually include most of your household:
1. Ryoma
2. Nanjiro
3. Karupin
BONUS: Yukimura (I can't stand him no matter what).
If the final game is between Rikkai and Seigaku, we are gonna have a nice ego and nen-power battle at the court. I can see how many people would prefer to see Rikkai win. I still can't swallow their egos, they can be worse than...no, they are not worse than the super-powers of Seigaku. I wonder if it would have been better for Seigaku to lose against them, so as not to get to hideously posing as "kicking-ass!assholes" all the time. Honestly, it's tiresome. They can only pose and pose and pose and POSE as ultra cool now, in every panel.
Then, at least, against Rikkai I'd be able to cheer again for people like Momo, InuKai and Golden Pair, whom I used to like so very much in the anime (some of those used to be my fave charas!), and today I have vehemently cheered AGAINST, thanks to the skillful manipulation of Konomi, who gave us Hyoutei's PoV during the entire arc. Maybe I am finally over-biased by so many doujinshi, after not enjoying any similar joys from Seigaku for a loooooooooong while, save from Rokkaku's shared camp (it was too short and cuestionably solved, I know you love how the old-people team humiliate them, but I don't. OMG I am really THAT serious a person? Am I too old for manga already? ::cringes::).
But when you see Shishido and Ohtori sweating their way into victory at all costs, while the GP is literally lost together in the happy clouds of synchronicity as if they had been abducted and temporarily impersonated by aliens, you cannot help but go and support the NORMAL, HONEST, HARD-WORKING, HUMAN people.
Fuck previous PoT history of 1st year doubles bonding if Konomi isn't able of respecting his own characters!
And wouldn't it have been better to have Rokkaku coming down to the court to congratulate Seigaku on defeating Hyoutei again, after cheering for them all along, and have a bit more, two panels would suffice , of inter-team bonding (but he completely forgot about them from some point on), instead of SUPER-Saiya-sshole Ryoma producing an ELECTRIC SHAVER to make Atobe fulfill his promise even if he had been frozen on the spot of his Ice World due to exhaustion?
Can you really believe Atobe, who has endured such an intense training, is gonna lose in such an exhausted fashion against that shit of a boy two years his junior, who APPARENTLY does nothing more that regular training and playing against his father every day?
I know that this is Prince of Tennis and that the anime stopped making sense long ago too, including the super DRAGON BALL-esque game between Sanada and Ryoma, where I decided not to take it seriously anymore, and the better for me, because then the games where all like that, and I stopped caring, because it was nevertheless, FUN and TENDER to watch.
The manga was supposed to be more serious, even if it was still fun. But now it is no fun anymore O________o
There were a lot of notes I took of previous arcs with interesting and fun stuff, but it has been eclipsed by this display of assholicism.
And I would like to put my faith now in the games against the Family team (honestly, how many relatives of other characters are there?! This is like Dallaspuri), which is a breeze of fresh air, but which has been so blatantly designed as fanservice (in so many ways, from happy-go-killer Kintaro to the "That boy is SOO cute!" "You are being unfaithful to me!" -doubles pair-couple), that I don't know whether to throw caution to the wind and fangirl nevertheless, because they are the only joy left now. And BLOODY joy I have seen ahead. I really hope that is not the best to expect. I will learn very soon, because I am on a roll. Only 2 manga books left, and then the online zips.
Please, bring back senbatsu, Kevin and the Americans, the official couple chapters and even the TezuFuji in 3 chapters.
Even Ryoma crying and screaming words of thanks while he imitated his senpais' moves against Tezuka to finally defeat him was MUCH BETTER than this.
Even when he went to the States (---if only he had stayed there...) and defeated pro players of the real world.
That was PoT for me, I liked it better or worse, but I accepted it.
That was MUCH LESS PAINFUL to watch than this to read.
I hate how Konomi treats the rival teams. How he treated Rokkaku, how he is treating Fudomine. Where the hell is this going? This is Nationals level, I know. But HELL, Rikkai were the champions, and Seigaku defeated them. Can't the others be MINIMALLY dangerous to the other teams?!!!!!!!!!!!! MINIMALLY? Rokkaku being humiliated for no reason other than to put the readers at once against Higa? Fudomine forfeiting again and again only because they can get hurt and falling to Tachibana's motherly arms?!!!
WHATEVER THE HELL?!
HATEHATEHATEHATE.
Well, that was before, in the train, when my hate turned me into a jumping ball that wouldn't let my friend rest and sleep.
I had been so happy reading new games of which I only knew the final result, not who was gonna win each game individually (save for the Atobe VS Ryoma), SO EXCITED, and screaming inside me like a mad fan: "SILVERSILVERSILVER WIN WIN WIN PLEASE WIN WIN WIN YAY YAY WAIT A m....aaaaw, Kikumaru did it for Oishi...that was beautiful...AFTER ALL" ::not satisfied, like Shishido::
Now, after the way Ryoma won, and what comes immediately after, not only the shaving, but the indifference of everybody about this victory (bit of throwing Ryoma up in the air, yes, and THE END, which I know comes down to the fact that the whole Hyoutei appearance was an act of BRUTAL fanservice to us who love this team so much, because they rule the stage of the tennis world, even when they lose, like Atobe, even when he loses conscience), the insipid "OK, next game!" routine without further ado because Konomi has so obviously run out of his poor resources of imagination after so many volumes, I am only sad, very sad. Bitter disappointment. I used to love this series because they made me happy. Every time.
Last but not least:
Katsu no wa Hyoutei! Forever in my heart.
And Rokkaku is so much love it hurts when they treat them like shit so that Seigaku can shine MUCH better. Literally. In every possible sense.
This is not very coherent because I am tired and sad and venting my frustration out. And I am sure you have felt strongly or just "OK...next" or maybe even happy about all this. I don't know. I was not there, sadly, because It has taken me 2 years to catch up. This week I read the chapter of Kikumaru playing singles, which happened, as it was one of the last chapters spoiled to me, right before I came to Japan. It felt like making history or something. I just picked book 31 when I came back from work on Monday to check who played next, and then I couldn't put it down and read it all in a sitting: Kikumaru, Ryoma, Tezuka.
Today, Hyoutei arc the 2nd, from beginning to end, in the 7 hours I have spent in a train to go to Fukuoka and back.
And I feel accomplished to some extent. I will probably cheer up when I continue reading. Probably. If Shitenhouji keeps up like this. I want to celebrate another Seigaku's victory again, against decent rivals in decently developed games. Of whatever sports, but please, PLAYING SPORTS.
Where exactly am I now?
GENIUS 309. TACHIBANA IS ABOUT TO PLAY AGAINST CHITOSE. PLEASE NO SPOILERS FROM HERE ON, PRETTY PLEASE WITH A BLOODY TAKA ON TOP, WHICH WAS A SHONEN JUMP-SELF-SPOILING ACCIDENT. THANKS!
There were so many coincidences this week, starting from the calendar. Tomorrow will be another day. Never mind me (nor my typos!) today. I have read 14 PoT manga books in barely two weeks, and it is taking its psychological toll on my sanity.