diphytori

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This is something I’ve thought about for a hot minute and i wanted to make an essay on it :))

socioeconomics in slam dunk

Like many things in life, basketball is a money sport. While inherent talent and skill is incredibly important, without the resources and opportunities to succeed, you can only get so far.

Throughout Slam Dunk, the importance of money and how it has a massive role in the world of basketball is not explicitly stated, but through the depictions of different teams in the series, it is prevalent.

We are first introduced to Shohoku High, a public school in Kanagawa. Shohoku is not a “poor” or “ghetto” school, but it is by no means a prestigious school either. Shohoku is initially depicted to be an ordinary school, but we are also shown how it has delinquency and school fights — especially among its protagonist and his “gang”

Shohoku’s normalcy is extended into its clubs, in particular, its basketball club. This club isn’t necessarily “run down” or “at risk of not existing anymore”, but aside from its coach (Coach Anzai, a man who used to coach the Japanese national team) and Akagi, their star center, Shohoku’s basketball team doesn’t have much going for it. Due to being a public school, Shohoku doesn’t have the money incentive to recruit star players (like some other schools I will mention soon), and most stars (besides Rukawa LOLLL) won’t go to an ordinary school “on a whim”

In addition, these public schools also do not have the funds to incentivize star coaches to coach at these schools. While Shohoku was able to have gotten Anzai (who wanted to retire by coaching highschool basketball), many public schools do not have that same luck.

In fact, the reason that two of the starting players, Mitsui and Miyagi, even decided to attend Shohoku was due to its coach, Coach Anzai. I think this goes to show that if a school invests in incentives like star coaches or a star basketball program, then these talented players will want to attend.

In terms of schools who provide ALL the incentives, and has thus led to star teams, I want to focus on Kainan, Shoyo, and (especially) Ryonan.

All are labelled as prestigious, private schools with amazing basketball programs, with Kainan having a stellar track record at nationals. But why is that? How did they get so.. good?

If I had to best answer this, money.

Ryonan is known to have scouted its star players, with Coach Taoka even scouting Sendoh and Fukuda from a junior high in Tokyo. For reference, Kanagawa is about two hours away from Tokyo, so Coach Taoka has to provide incentives for these boys to move to a different prefecture rather than staying in a city that likely has many powerhouse schools. In his case, these incentives would likely be full rides to Ryonan, as well as extra stipends to cover these student’s additional costs (such as food, money to move away, etc). Since Ryonan has the funding to do this, Coach Taoka is able to travel around to different areas, find these hidden talents, and bring them over to Ryonan. Public schools like Shohoku, who do not have allocated funds for sports programs, do not have this opportunity… and thus, are at an automatic disadvantage.

It is not explicitly stated how prestigious of a school Shoyo is, but having a program-related disadvantage affecting their players is prevalent. They do not have an official coach (for an unmentioned reason), and their star player Fujima has to coach his teammates as a result. Unfortunately, this additional responsibility prevented him from focusing on his own skills. I do believe Shoyo IS a school that has funding, but this highlights how a program being neglected directly impacts the strength of a team.

Another team I wanted to point out is Toyotama, a team that faced some of the most immense pressure in the entire series.

While Minami and Kishimoto, the team’s leaders, are characterized as “brute assholes”, it is shown that their irrational behavior stems from their pressure to perform well in order to potentially bring back their former coach, Coach Kitano.

Although Toyotama is 8th in the country, for the investors in their school’s basketball program, this isn’t enough. And thus… Coach Kitano was fired in the hopes of getting a coach who could lead the team to a better performance.

For these prestigious schools, their end goal is making a return on their investments. After all, what is the point of pouring all that money and resources for a team that doesn't even land them in the news?

While this is sad, it is very realistic. And as a result... even though Toyotama has a prestigious program, they felt even more pressure to *make a return." and this pressure poured into the team and their behavior.

However, the school that truly encapsulates the opportunities that money and resources provide for their players is Sannoh Technical High School.

Sannoh is practically a world class basketball team, with "anyone in Japan who gives a damn about basketball knows them", a team that had won nationals for years on end.

But how can one team be so good, let alone having a lasting legacy of greatness?

While their players are undoubtedly talented, Sannoh has invested aplenty into nurturing their players' talents.

And as a result… even though they have a prestigious program, they feel even more pressure to “make a return.” and this pressure pours into the team and their behavior.

Like Coach Taoka of Ryonan, Sannoh scouts the best and brightest for their team. Eji Sawakita, although residing in a different prefecture, was discovered and scouted by Sannoh. While it isn't explicitly said how many players they scouted, or what incentives they provided Sawakita (aside from opportunities and their prestige), it can be inferred that Sannoh likely looks for the best and brighest to be apart of their teams.

In addition to the money and resources spent scouting, Sannoh provides their team with immense opportunities that most schools do not.

It is stated that Sawakita had been sent on a trip abroad to play basketball in America, and that he even learned new techniques during his trip. To say the least, a trip like that is... expensive. To send students to a country across the continent just to play basketball is a hefty price to pay, and yet Sannoh was willing to pay it.

To prepare for Shohoku's match, Coach Damoto arranged a practice match with Sannoh alum who have a similar playstyle to Shohoku. While it is possible that these alum were willing to volunteer their time doing this, Damoto going out of his way to bring them all together and schedule that practice match is something that likely cost a significant amount to make happen. And it is certainly an opportunity that many schools would not provide.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to compete with money, and this sentiment is universal for any sector.

But what makes Shohoku’s victory over all these powerhouse schools, especially Sannoh, so shocking is the fact it is an “ordinary, no name school.” Theoretically, Shohoku would never beat a team like Sannoh, especially given the fact that Shohoku didn’t even have half the money, resources, and opportunities that Sannoh does.

Yet… Shohoku did it. And I think this part of why Slam Dunk is such a beautiful story: an ordinary team was, even for a moment, able to be extraordinary.

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doodles from the past week

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the thing about the "um excuse me if you're as poor as you say you are why don't you just sell all your most treasured possessions" thing that people love to trot out as some kind of "gotcha" is that they do not acknowledge how fucking soul-crushing it is to be in a situation that is already destroying your mental health and then be forced to sell one of the few things in your life that still bring you joy

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Them.

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3 year old vs 5 month old

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Do you ever think about how it’s canon that Blade is constantly in pain? How he constantly feels the aches of wounds engraved into his time and time again because they couldn’t properly be healed by the abundance dwelling within him? How something’s healed wrong and now he feels how wrongly they healed every second of his life? How he can feel his body being continuously reconstructed, a never ending cycle of his body being torn apart and rebuilt? How his hands can no longer forge because they have been destroyed? How multiple parts of his body, from his hand to his leg to his chest all the way down his torso (if you check his model) are encased in bandages?

And how Bailu’s line about him smelling like fresh blood has the potential for many interpretations, including the potential that some of the wounds Ren has that his body refuses to heal could literally still be open and bleeding?

Because I do, I think about it all the time. The state of constant pain that's he's in due to the very thing keeping him alive and not letting him finally die and rest and all of that coming together to be why he's so severely tired and just wants to rest? Yeah that lives in my brain

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It’s okay to not want to have sex ever. It’s okay to never even try it.

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I’m tired of people acting like Zhongli is a serious and chill guy who would never cause problems on purpose as if he isn’t one of the biggest menaces out of the Seven. He used to throw mountains at Venti for annoying him. He, the god of history, starts fights among historians for shits and giggles. He tried to gaslight the Traveler into thinking he was totally not at the Chasm guys really Aether/Lumine you must be seeing things maybe you should go see Baizhu. When Qiqi wanted “Cocogoat” milk he was like “Oh yeah sure totally let’s go look for it” knowing damn well it was a wild goose chase. He made the Traveler sing to a flower and then was like “Oh would you look at that” when a Whooperflower jumped out to maul them. I love him. He’s like a cat pushing things off the counter to see how people react. I would pay to see him interact directly with Neuvillette because I know for a fact he’d get on that man’s nerves and argue about water tasting just to feel something. Furina used freedom from godhood to take a nap and Zhongli used it to give psychic damage to anyone who talks to him longer than 5 minutes. Iconic.

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Monday, January 1

You did it.

2024 is here, and so are you. Cheers, kid. Glad you're around for this one.

May your 2024 be filled with the kind of love you deserve, the kind of people who make you feel good, and absolutely zero bed bugs.

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Don't kill me for this but methinks maybe some people on tumblr do not know what a toxic relationship is both in fiction and irl. like I'm seeing people calling their ships "toxic yuri" or whatever because their relationship is tumultuous and has ups and downs or because the people involved got into a fight and hurt each other's feelings a couple times like....my liege that is just a normal relationship. In literally any kind of interpersonal relationship it is inevitable that you are going to hurt people sometimes and you're going to be hurt. You're going to disagree with people. You're going to do things wrong. That doesn't mean you're toxic or that your relationships are unsalvageable. That's just how people work. Like I'm starting to genuinely worry that people r gonna carry this attitude into their real lives and fuck themselves over because they think that their real relationships with other people aren't supposed to have any conflict or discomfort whatsoever and I feel like it ties into this weird hyper-individualism thing that tumblr has going on where people are not supposed to rely on each other or try to grow and have compassion for other people or it's "emotional labour"....babes relationships are supposed to take work. We work on ourselves for other people because we care about them. Take my hand it's okay you can do it

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it feels like no matter how well someone explains that women should not be expected to shave or wear makeup to be treated normally, and that there exists a pressure for them to shave/wear makeup even in "harmless" "self care" sentiments, there's like this big group of people committed to not understanding the discussion at all

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Miss Suzie 💚

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Miles having unnecessary... feelings for Phoenix 👀

I'm lowkey obsessed with this game ngl

#ace attorney #phoenix wright #miles edgeworth #ace attorney fanart #miles edgeworth fanart #phoenix wright fanart #fanart #art #paint tool sai

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hinata i love u my prince

#hinata shoyo #hinata #hinata haikyuu #fanart #anime #anime fanart #art #haikyuu fanart #hinata fanart #hinata shoyo fanart

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all the new fuckers: don’t censor words in ur post with numbers, @ and punctuation signs, different letters, shit like that. not just cuz it’s absolutely fine to say weird shit and things that other places generally censor on tumblr, but also cuz there are people with screen readers, and when u unnecessarily censor things like that, it really fucks with screen readers and makes it very difficult to read.

this isn’t just a “you don’t have to” thing, it’s a “you shouldn’t”.

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as much as i love making fun of edgeworth for being such a big steel samurai fan, it has to be one of my favourite things about him as a character

first, because i think it's hilarious that the character that gets introduced as Demon Prosecutor is also a big nerd into anime... it's a silly little detail that adds nothing to the story but makes him more likeable and human

second, because when you know his past it fits so well... because of course the traumatised boy who got whisked away to the other side of the world to be raised by his father's murderer would want to seek refuge in a comforting childhood memory, and maybe he was ridiculed for enjoying something as silly as cartoons... it's not proper, it's not useful to his studies

and of course the hardened prosecutor who sees death and cruelty every day would enjoy watching it, not just to distract himself with a children's tv show where good always triumphs and the bad guys are easily defeated, but also because he was denied that pleasure for years, he's making up for lost time and enjoying just liking something silly and simple without feeling guilty about it