#the kaiser shidou parallels... Perhaps...

[pinkinsect]

i need to get better at literary analysis in japanese because it's always like. does this sentence have a double meaning or am i just not great at this language.

[pinkinsect]

Oughh hi I was the previous anon and the one you just responded to... I wanted to add one more thing and it's related to the Kaiser and Shidou parallels. I'm not sure if I'm just overthinking but to be honest... I think one factor that can connect both Shidou and Kaiser together is how they treat their midfielders. You see how Shidou treats the midfielders who make him explode (Sae and Charles for this instances) giving them so much affection. And then you see Kaiser treat Ness like absolute ass, like a dog which he can abandon at whatever time he wants (And to which, he already did!) Maybe I am reaching, but I think it's a pretty interesting thing to look at. Perhaps it is connected someway or another to the parallels between the two? Perhaps Shidou also like Kaiser, got abused by a parent/guardian, who depraved him of getting the life he wants. I think it's possible too, considering the main characters in his favourite media such as Chainsaw Man and A Clockwork Orange

hello again!! i haven't thought about their respective treatment of midfielders together before (i have for kaiser, but not so in depth for shidou), and that is a pretty interesting point.

for a tl;dr, shidou and kaiser have different reasons for playing football, and different sources of joy from it—as such, they treat midfielders far differently. for kaiser, football is for himself, and while football is shidou's method of leaving proof of existence, his philosophy takes into account that other people can "explode," and are necessary for his own explosions.

(i ended up saying more than i thought i would in more words than necessary so the rest is under the cut!)

we have a lot more info on some of why kaiser acts the way he does—he was repeatedly regarded as subhuman, to the point it's how he still views himself. we see in ch 262 that "piece of trash" is used as a kanji spelling for "michael," and in 261 he contrasts himself to his teammates who were born humans—"wanted humans."

i think one reason for the difference between the two of them is that for kaiser, football was (and still is, in his mind) the only way out of his situation. shidou, on the other hand, wasn't affiliated with any team, so it really seems like there's less stakes to it.

the nature of kaiser's abuse left him with some sort of sense he was intrinsically flawed—while he never explicitly said it, all of kaiser's father's actions told kaiser that his mother, and even worse than her, kaiser's existence, are the reason he was abused—shidou seems to take these things less personally. if we look at his monologue in chapter 130, his viewpoint is that people hurt other people in order to leave behind proof of their existence. i found it interesting that he also mentioned having children with that—is it that people hurt each other for the same reason they choose to have children? does he think it's inevitable that children are hurt? or are they just all in that category to him?

kaiser and shidou have both escaped their previous circumstances, but the impact on their senses of self, and the role football played in their escape, is likely very different. kaiser needed to become the best because he was afraid of "returning to that hellhole again" (his words in ch. 262)—and to be honest, to have something to make himself feel worthwhile. shidou plays because it's his way of making himself "persist in the memories of others (ch. 130), but also because it brings him joy.

so i do think that they both had difficult childhoods that led to the way they view football and their end goals, and that's reflected in the treatment of their midfielders, like you said.

i think because kaiser views himself as subhuman, he needs someone worse than him—a dog. and he needs to crush others to feel joy (ch. 207). the joy is in the ascension, not in the act of playing, because ascension guarantees a full escape. (kaiser, being a legal adult and probably emancipated at this time, likely would not end up going back to his father, but if childhood trauma resulted in the ability to always see situations realistically, we wouldn't be here, would we!). in order to guarantee ascension, guarantee escape, he needs to guarantee someone will pass to him, and that is in the form of ness and the whole. dog thing. (pre 267. there was some development there in. Some Direction that is not relevant here) so i don't think

shidou's joy comes from the act of playing itself, or the "explosions" made during it, and players like sae or charles are ones who make it possible. shidou doesn't seem as interested in being the Best—it doesn't mean the same thing to him as it does to kaiser—so he's very willing to acknowledge others' skills, especially of the midfielders who pass to him.