#also something something knowing this person actually likes me vs getting to play a noncommittal guessing game with this crush like.

[sleevebuscemii]

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[alternatefandom]

Zhuo Zhi vs. Fuji Shuusuke: For his captain, and for himself.

I’m posting this today in honor of Zhang Yi Jie’s birthday (Fuji’s actor in Chinapuri), who has given us such a brilliant potrayal of Seigaku’s resident genius. I hope you enjoy!

There’s no arguing that Prince of Tennis’ 2019 Live Action adaptation is quite outstanding when it comes to character development. This particular adaptation of Tenipuri managed to not only keep the soul of the characters we know and love, but adapt them into a suitable form for a TV drama, and even develop them into being more human and well-rounded than they originally were. However, while some characters remain very much the same, other characters experience a subtle shift that leaves them with a distinct feel from their manga selves.

Case in point: Fuji Shuusuke.

Before I begin, I’d like to emphasize that while this meta aims to lay out the differences between Fuji Shuusuke and Zhuo Zhi, you shouldn’t take this as an attempt to say that the live action adaptation is bad. Fuji Shuusuke and Zhuo Zhi are very similar, but their stories goes deeper into different aspects of their character, and at differing levels if growth, too, I think.

In fact, they are so similar that a lot of people are having trouble putting a finger on what, exactly, makes Zhuo Zhi different than Fuji Shuusuke (or maybe it’s just me). But after several failed attempts at a meta, I believe I might have pinpointed what makes Zhuo Zhi feel so different from Fuji Shuusuke to me.

Namely, that Zhuo Zhi knows himself, but Fuji Shuusuke doesn’t.

This difference is most stark in the conversation after Seigaku’s genius plays a match against their freshman ace in the pouring rain. Let’s review the conversation first. In the manga, as Fuji played against Kirihara Akaya, we get a bit of flashback into a certain conversation that happened after the Echizen-Fuji match.

This conversation goes slightly differently in the live action adaptation.

Here, we see a slight difference between Tezuka and Mu Siyang’s approaches: Tezuka goes for a question, while Mu Siyang starts by implying that Lu Xia could have been a worthy opponent for Zhuo Zhi to get serious against. Zhuo Zhi, in turn, answers differently: he brings up their first-year match, where Zhuo Zhi had gone all out, but Siyang failed to meet him because of his arm injury. Where Fuji stays silent and remains open for interpretation, Zhuo Zhi gives us a hint about why he didn’t go all-out against Lu Xia: that it’s Siyang he wants to play seriously with, not Lu Xia. 

Unlike Fuji, Zhuo Zhi does not ask Siyang to remove him from the regulars if he becomes a hindrance. Instead, he responds to Siyang’s purpose (and implied request) with a noncommittal, we will see. See, Zhuo Zhi knows himself. He rarely goes all out, but he knows he’s capable of it, given a good reason. Indeed, after he finds out that Siyang’s arm hasn’t recovered, Siyang doesn’t need to push Zhuo Zhi anymore—Zhuo Zhi goes and offers his support out of his own accord, so that Siyang won’t have to shoulder all his burden himself.

Fuji, on the other hand, doesn’t even know if he has it in him to play seriously. For Fuji, tennis really is just about the thrill, and he can get those elsewhere, if he has to. This is why he tells Tezuka to take him out of the regulars if his attitude becomes a problem. It isn’t until Tezuka gets seriously hurt in the game against Atobe that Fuji realizes that yes, he might actually want to get serious about tennis, if only to stop his dumbass captain teammates from having to go beyond all reason to achieve victory. 

This difference between Fuji and Zhuo Zhi is subtle, but impactful. Zhuo Zhi’s greater self-awareness lends him an air of maturity that Fuji doesn’t quite have at that point in time. It also drags Fuji’s Tezuka-oriented motives from subtext into text and gives it even greater prominence than his internal turmoil. As a result, the relationship between Mu Siyang and Zhuo Zhi has changed from something subtle into something very much present. Unlike Fuji, Zhuo Zhi is perfectly aware of how much he cares for Siyang as a person, and how far he’ll go for him. This is why we get to see Zhuo Zhi asking Siyang to rely on him, to take care of himself, to stop sacrificing himself for the good of the team. On the other hand, Fuji had to be startled out of his apathy by Tezuka’s reckless abandon. It’s then and only then that he decides to get serious and finds that he is capable of becoming the person that Tezuka thinks he could be, much to his own surprise. And this, I think, marks the point of difference between conflicted!Fuji and self-aware!Zhuo Zhi—the carefree, mischievous genius who finds himself along the way, versus the one who finds it in him to go beyond his limits for the sake of his friends.