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A Princess of Tennis Welcomes The Prince of Tennis
I was a little kid when I first held a tennis racket. My Uncle Fred played and my first exposure to the sport was picking up balls while he practiced. When he immigrated to the United States, he left his huge—and heavy—wooden tennis racket to me. I was seven years old.
 
We lived across a park in the community I grew up in back in Manila. Near our house was a shell tennis court and clubhouse. I spent my early years waking up to the distinct sound of a racket hitting a tennis ball. It was a sound that got me out of bed faster than any alarm clock ever could, and it was all out of sheer excitement to look out of a window to see who was playing tennis across the street.
 
I spent many Saturday mornings hitting balls against the wall behind the tennis court clubhouse because none of the players had the time—or inclination—to teach me the basics. And it was on one of those mornings that fate lent a hand in fulfilling my destiny. 

I was hitting balls against the wall, as usual, when I did something I’d never done before: I tossed the ball up in the air and hit it in a downward motion. It was my best imitation of a serve. After doing it a few times I heard a man say, “Who taught you how to do that?” I was startled to learn that this grandfatherly gentleman had been watching me the entire time. “I saw it on TV,” I replied. He then said, “I’ll tell you what. You show up here at 7 a.m. every Saturday, and I’ll teach you how to play for free.” I had no idea that it was Mr. Villanueva, the resident trainer and former Class A category champion of the tennis club.

After Mr. Villanueva convinced my parents that he saw great potential in me—and that he would truly teach me for free—my parents allowed me to take tennis lessons regularly on the sole condition that I don’t let my grades slip. And on that we struck a firm deal.  

I was nine when I joined my very first national age-group tournament. It was the 10-years-and-under unisex category. I beat a boy in the first round, but a female player—the eventual champion—creamed me in the second round. It was back to the drawing board after that. I didn’t join another national tournament until years later. 

I won my very first title immediately following a three-day group tennis clinic led by Japanese coaches when I was 13, and that’s when things really took off. I eventually became the top-seeded player in the girls’ 14’s, 16’s and 18’s national age group categories. I went on to represent the Philippines in tournaments all over Asia and defended my titles on local soil. As part of the Philippine junior national team, I received a monthly stipend from the government, which I used to buy gifts for my parents and younger brother during my trips abroad.

On my last year on the Asian junior tour, I had the privilege of meeting and spending time with top female Japanese player Ai Sugiyama, who later enjoyed a long and prolific career as a pro before retiring this year. As for me, I retired after the juniors and chose to simply be a regular college student, though I still served as team captain of my university’s women’s varsity tennis team. 

And so, years later, it gave me great joy and pride to have had the opportunity to edit and do the English adaptation of Takeshi Konomi’s The Prince of Tennis manga. It’s an awesome series that revolves around a sport that’s near and dear to my heart. I hope the manga and anime encourage kids to take up tennis and have the chance to live the teenage life I enjoyed.
 
-- Michelle Pangilinan (Associate Editor, SHONEN JUMP)
Who You Gonna Call?
Everywhere you have humans, you seem to get stories about ghosts, and most of those stories also include ways to deal with said ghosts. SHONEN JUMP, for example, is full of different ghost strategies. There’s Hikaru no Go, where the main character teams up with a ghost to get game skills. There’s Shaman King, where some of the ghosts are good, some are bad, and all are ready to rumble. Yu Yu Hakusho starts small, but pretty soon shows how to fight tournaments in the nether realms. Even Yu-gi-oh! sort of has advice on how to deal with ghosts, if you stretch the definition to include spirits that possess games.
 
And then there’s Bleach, which is the master guide on how to take on ghosts. Not only do we get to take lessons along with Ichigo, we also get to learn two schools of thought on ghost handling.
 
First we have the Soul Reapers, who live in an alternative spirit dimension called the Seireitei. They patrol Earth (AKA the world of the living) for ghosts (AKA Wholes and Hollows). The Wholes are the good ghosts who can’t seem to get over to the other side without a helping hand. The Hollows are the bad ghosts who don’t want to go over. They want to wreak havoc and eat souls and generally ruin people’s day. Soul Reapers take care of both kinds of ghosts, but it’s the battles against the Hollows that are really exciting. Soul Reapers get horribly injured and even die when they go up against Hollows, so they take the fights seriously. And sometimes it’s easy to forget that during these awesome fights to the death, when a Soul Reaper vanquishes a Hollow, they purify the creature’s spirit and send it back into the cycle of souls. The Hollow probably isn’t too happy about the arrangement, but it seems like a good system to me. Evil is defeated and gets a chance to do better next time. 
 
On the surface, the second way to deal with Hollows doesn’t seem much different. The Quincies, who live on Earth with us humans, fight the Hollows in much the same way the Soul Reapers do. But when a Quincy delivers the coup de grace, they utterly destroy the existence of the Hollow, rather then sending it on. This creates a dangerous imbalance on the scales of the universe. The way we humans understand it, energy can’t be created or destroyed, just changed. But when the Quincies obliterate a Hollow, they break the rules of physics, and this has serious consequences for our world and even the Seireitei. Everything is connected, after all. 
 
As much as I think the Soul Reapers need some social reform, their version of ghost control is the more environmentally conscious. Too bad they couldn't have shown the same far-sighted mercy to the Quincies that they show to the Hollows. 
 
-- Pancha Diaz (Editor, Bleach manga)
 
[For highlights of Soul Reapers doing their work, check out our Bleach collection! ]
More Than Demons: Inuyasha Vol. 43

 

Inuyasha manga volume 43

Inuyasha volume 43 hit stores on December 8! Have you checked it out yet? I'm always amazed at how Rumiko Takahashi keeps her story fresh and raises thought-provoking issues, no matter how long her series run. Inuyasha is far from a "demon of the week" title, even though its cast of characters does encounter a new demon weekly! What makes Takahashi's manga special is that each new demon's traits, actions, and impact on the other characters provides thought-provoking insight...

Inuyasha volume 43 features two conjoined demons, Kinka and Ginka. This pair has been battling endlessly into adulthood, and for some reason (no spoilers here), neither one can vanquish the other. This leads to a bizarre love-hate relationship — a desire to prevail offset by a grudging respect for the other.

What a dilemma, to be so closely tied to the one you must destroy to survive! In the fantasy world of Inuyasha, that's just the way demon evolution works. Kinka and Ginka don't have the option of finding a way to live in peace together. This seems like a situation that has no parallel in our lives...but yet I do see some similarities to our real world.

For example, there are species of parrots that lay two eggs. When the eggs hatch, the stronger sibling soon pushes the weaker one out of the nest to its doom. (In the case of some endangered birds, rescue organizations snatch one of the siblings in time and raise it in the wild elsewhere.) This is evolution's way of giving the parents a better chance at hatching at least one chick. Apparently, these birds can't raise two chicks to maturity if they both hatch successfully.

Kinka and Ginka's relationship also reminds me of nations divided by ethnic or religious differences. The two sides fight on and on for supremacy or for their very identity. But ironically, sometimes individuals on both sides of the conflict have so much in common, it's impossible for outsiders to tell them apart.

I heard a story once about a program that brings the members of two conflicting cultures to the U.S. for graduate studies. After a year, the students are given the option of meeting in New York City for a big powwow combined with a sightseeing vacation. The result? They discover that in a host country where they are both foreign they have much more in common with each other than they realized.

I'll leave it to you to draw symbolic parallels with the next demons to appear in Inuyasha volume 43: Numawatari, the swamp demon, and the villager's mother, who turns into a horrible snake-like demon. (Actually, my mum does that sometimes when I displease her. Hmm...)

--Annette Roman, Inuyasha manga editor

Honey and Clover and Nana Wallpaper!

Head over to the Extras sections of the Honey and Clover and Nana websites for cool new wallpaper. Two flavors for each series. Download them all.

Kanna Made of Stone?

Spoiler Alert! Watch the episode first! By now you know that Inuyasha The Final Act has moved to Mondays. This week's episode, "Kanna's Gravestone," sheds light on one of the most tragic characters in the series.

A demon created by Naraku, Kanna is Kagura's sister. She holds the uncanny ability to absorb her opponent's power and throw it back at him or her. In this case, she absorbs the powers of the Tetsusaiga and uses it against Inuyasha. The blows are so hard that Inuyasha's demon side comes out -- a scary sight for the others on his team. Luckily, Tetsusaiga and Inuyasha are smarter than Naraku realizes.

But back to Kanna. She's not meant to have any emotion, but maybe she does. The viewers who commented on Hulu express the tragic situation best.

"That was such a sad episode!!! poor Kanna. I think that she thought since death was Kagura's freedom it would be her only way too. If she couldn't feel anything, then why would she be sad over Kagura or have her demon pick her a flower?"-- Bunny Landers on Hulu.com

"Man, what a miserable existence Kanna had. I can't imagine what it's like being a mindless drone showing blind loyalty to such a villain only to be rewarded by being tossed to the side in a suicide mission without even having the understanding of having the emotion to live. I can't even wrap my head around it. It's almost like creating her was a bigger tragedy than killing her." -- Ryan Nurmi on Hulu.com

What do you think? Do you think Kanna's life was lived in vain? Do you think it's possible to completely lack emotion? Let us know.

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