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It always strikes me how pretty Furudate's character writing is. No one is ever a complete 180 from their past selves, instead they are an amalgamation of thoughts, perspectives, and feelings they experience through their lives.
For today, Sakusa:
For today, Sakusa:
Sakusa is a person who since childhood believed in doing things to completion and seeing things through on his own terms. Everything has to be done to its 100%, everything has to meet an end.
Later, he meets/converses with Ushijima, who introduces the idea of luck: Ushijima is good because he practices a lot, but aside from that, he was born different. He's born different as a southpaw, and Sakusa is the same with his hyperflexible joints.
We see more on Sakusa's view on luck when he drops that meteorite speech that implies that there are things that are uncontrollable (meteorites) and controllable (Hinata collapsing with a fever).
Luck is out of your control.
Regret should only come from controllable things.
Luck is out of your control.
Regret should only come from controllable things.
These foundational thoughts then get shaken by the event and confrontation with Iizuna-senpai: his senpai was good, lived his life properly, and yet volleyball ended abruptly.
But that should be okay, right, because it reached a conclusion? What's there to feel bad about?
But that should be okay, right, because it reached a conclusion? What's there to feel bad about?
Iizuna-senpai tells him that it's the fact he did things properly AND didn't get a satisfying end that makes it more painful and pitiful. His senpai (reminds) him that luck can also be negative, and that ends do not necessarily come on his own terms. This is also regrettable.
The events of Spring High 2013 is what triggers Sakusa to combine all these ideas.
He doesn't completely let go of the idea of luck and people "born different" (as seen on his comment on Hoshiumi and Hinata's physicalities)
He doesn't completely let go of the idea of luck and people "born different" (as seen on his comment on Hoshiumi and Hinata's physicalities)
He doesn't let go of the idea of lucky circumstances: he's where he is partly cause of luck.
Nor does he let go of the idea that careless people are detestable, hence why he clowns Hinata upon first meeting.
Sakusa still believes in doing things to the 100%, like he did during childhood, but this time it's less focused on the goal of completion.
This time, it's so if an end comes in an uncontrollable way, when he faces his injury, his meteorite, he can bow out satisfactorily.
This time, it's so if an end comes in an uncontrollable way, when he faces his injury, his meteorite, he can bow out satisfactorily.
And so, the last panel:
Sakusa is lucky to be able to play Ushijima.
Sakusa is lucky that he's here playing now.
But receiving this southpaw serve he once couldn't is not borne out of luck. It's out of dedication, of wanting to see things through.
Attaining satisfaction.
Sakusa is lucky to be able to play Ushijima.
Sakusa is lucky that he's here playing now.
But receiving this southpaw serve he once couldn't is not borne out of luck. It's out of dedication, of wanting to see things through.
Attaining satisfaction.
Sakusa's thought process illustrated in 394 is a product of everything he thinks of during life and a product of all his experiences and his encounters. I think that's really cool, and Furudate is a MASTER of writing realistic character headspaces.
This thread really wasn't meant to psychoanalyze Sakusa or anything but I wanted to talk about how carefully and how detailed Furudate writes his characters so that where they stand in the present is at a believable headspace compared to where they were back then!
