"Repent and Make Efforts"
Kaoru's calligraphy display in episode 5 is very obviously targeted, but between natural difficulties in translating idioms, changes made in the English dub, and misunderstandings of the general meaning of "repentance", exactly what he's communicating often gets lost in translation - which is a shame, because it's not only a very telling moment about Kaoru's own feelings about Adam, but one that ends up being very important to the themes of the entire show and many of the central character arcs.
To give some quick establishing information, what Kaoru is writing in this scene is a called a yojijukugo (四字熟語), or four-character idiom - set idiomatic phrases that are very similar to (and originate from) Chinese chengyu (成语), which you may be familiar with if you've read any linguistic analysis of danmei. Four-character idioms are very common subjects for calligraphers like Kaoru, and the way they can be used in speech make them very difficult to translate concisely. The particular idiom Kaoru has written here, read from right to left, is 悔悟奮發, a real four-character idiom (though usually written 悔悟憤発 in modern Japanese - Kaoru is using the Chinese hanzi.)
Read kaigo funpatsu, both the Crunchyroll subs and the dub translate this as "repent and make efforts", which is... fine enough given the complexity of translating yojijukugo. It's quite a literal translation, looking at the phrase broken down into its components - 悔悟 can indeed be translated to "repentance", and 奮發 means "to exert oneself." As an idiom, it means "to regret one's mistakes, and work hard to recover." It generally refers to remorse, but can also mean coming back from a loss. In this exchange from a Japanese website explaining the use of the idiom, it's used to describe recovering after a loss in a competition:
Tomoko: You must be in high spirits, to be practicing on your day off.
Kenta: Everyone was shocked when I was eliminated in the first round of that tournament the other day. Next time I'll get my revenge.
Tomoko: Oh, so you're trying to make a comeback*, good luck!
(*in a perfect example of how difficult yojijukugo can be to translate when used in regular speech, a translation as literal as "repent and make efforts" would sound very silly in English here.)
And this idiomatic meaning is how Kaoru explains it - and where I believe some misunderstandings are originating from, both due to the overall interpretation of the word "repent", as well as changes in nuance in the explanation given in the dub. To begin with, let's look at Kaoru's dialog in Japanese. (Due to him immediately explaining the meaning, I chose to leave kaigo funpatsu untranslated, unlike the official subs.)
And the same dialog in the dub:
It should be apparent just from this that Kaoru in the original and Kaoru in the dub are saying completely different things. Originally, Kaoru makes no mention of making peace with people that have been hurt, because that isn't what kaigo funpatsu is referring to. Kaigo is personal, internal regret - kaigo funpatsu is about self-reflection, recognizing one's mistakes and striving to do better, considering your past in order to take your next steps in the future. That could involve making amends with wronged parties, but it's not part of it inherently - Kaoru's original dialog doesn't even allude to people being hurt at all, because it's not relevant to the idiom.
It's here that I believe the word "repent" is causing some trip-ups: it's being taken in the Christian sense of atonement or penance, an action done to achieve forgiveness from others or redeem oneself for sinning, but Kaoru is simply talking about realizing you've done something wrong and feeling remorse for it. (Or, specifically, about Adam realizing he's done something wrong and feeling remorse for it.)
And while his last line in the dub is at least a bit more in the spirit of kaigo funpatsu, it's still missing what is at the heart of Kaoru's feelings about this idiom, and about the man it's clearly targeted at - the idea of coming back from one's mistakes, something that does not come up in the dub at all. The first word Kaoru uses, bankai (挽回), does mean "to recover", but also "to regain what was lost" or "to return to the original state." Torimodosu (取り戻す), as well, specifically means to regain something that was lost - in fact, it's the very same word Tadashi uses when speaking of Adam "regaining his love."
Kaoru is not asking Adam to personally make things up to him, or to anyone - Kaoru, at heart, believes in Adam, and believes that he can, and should, still come back from everything. Even in the finale - after the Full Swing Kiss, after his naive hopes of simply returning to how things were in high school are shattered - his first concern is still for Langa to make Adam understand that.
Like with Kenta in the example exchange above, kaigo funpatsu isn't about Adam atoning for his sins - it's a call for him to recognize he screwed up and move forward without making the same mistakes.
And he does, or at least he's beginning to take those steps. He recognizes the mistake that matters most to the themes of the story, and that led to everything that happened in his life since - that he lost sight of the innocent love for skating he had as a child.
He finally admits what Tadashi meant to him;
he directly defies his abusive family's wishes by working against Takano rather than throwing Tadashi under the bus;
and he finally shows up as Adam in daylight, on someone else's "turf", to celebrate his own defeat - reaching out to his former friends and gracefully accepting loss, things he refused to do even an episode prior.
He may not be begging for forgiveness, and with this coming at the very end of the series there's a long road still ahead of him, but he's recognizing that he did things wrong and he's making an effort to move forward in a better way - and in doing that he's regained the most important thing he lost, his love of skating.
And Adam isn't the only one whose character arc kaigo funpatsu describes, either. Reki regrets his mistakes...
...and comes back from them.
Langa recognizes his mistakes and comes back from them - and is even able to help Adam do the same.
Tadashi, more clearly spelled out than anyone, recognizes his mistakes...
...and he's able to come back from them, too.
None of these resolutions involve big direct apologies, or any kind of penance to earn forgiveness. (Personal forgiveness isn't something SK8 takes much interest in dwelling on or making characters earn in the first place, and its approach to forgiveness could easily be a whole other meta in and of itself.) They don't have to, because in the end, Kaoru's idiom is not only a message to Adam - one that he ultimately does receive, if a bit later than Kaoru hoped - but a moment that spells out a big part of the show's thesis.
Everyone is going to do things wrong in their life, one way or another - but anyone who regrets their mistakes and makes an effort to do better should be able to recover from them and regain what they lost.
Only season 2 can show us what moving forward is going to look like, but when it comes to what counts to the core narrative, everyone's taken the first steps.
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