Character International Characters Discussion Thread

[Kaoz]

This thread's purpose is to discuss the characters that represent teams other than Japan. Linked below are all threads dedicated to specific characters from this group.

Character Threads:
Amadeus
Camus
Ryoga

Team USA

 

[Kaoz]

To get us started, I have compiled a list of possible references for most of the international cast. Note that none of this is confirmed and solely based on my theories and predictions. A lot of this is old news, but I do recommend checking out the Switzerland section in particular.

Spoiler

Australia
Ramos Crawford

• Name reference: Australian tennis player Jack Crawford. Crawford won the Australian Open 4 times as well as the French Open and Wimbledon once each. He was world no. 1 in 1933.

J. J. Dorgias

• Character reference: Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios. Currently, he is the top ranked Australian tennis player. Defeated Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal the first time he faced them. Won the Hopman Cup with Australia in 2016.

Noah Dorgias

• N/A

Jean Fitzgerald

• Name reference: Australian tennis player John Basil Fitzgerald. While Fitzgerald peaked at world no. 25 in singles, he was a successful doubles player, winning 7 grand slam doubles titles as well as the Davis Cup twice. After retiring, he captained Australia's Davis Cup team for nine years.

Bill Hewitt

• Name reference: Australian tennis player Lleyton Glynn Hewitt. At age 20, Hewitt became the youngest world no. 1 on the men's side. He also won 2 grand slams.

Chris Hopman

• Name reference: Australian tennis player Henri Christian Hopman. Hopman won 2 doubles titles at the Australian Open, however, his greatest success came after he retired as a player. As captain and coach of Australia's Davis Cup team, he won the title a record 16 times between 1939 and 1967.

Mac McGregor

• Name reference: Australian tennis player Ken McGregor. Together with Frank Segman, McGregor won the doubles grand slam in 1951.

Milky Millman

• Name reference: Australian tennis player John H. Millman. After recovering from an injury and due to Millman's popularity with fans, the hashtag "Millmania" trended on twitter for several hours after his upset victory over Andy Murray at Brisbane in 2013.

Denmark
Unnamed Captain

• I wonder whether Denmark being chosen as the US teams opponent in the group league is meaningful in any way, similarly to how South Africa being Germany's opponent was meaningful.

France
Leopold Camus

• Name reference: French philosopher Albert Camus. Camus won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.
• Camus' reputation of changing the way tennis is played around the world may be a reference to the French Revolution.

Germany
M. Bismarck

• Name reference: German/Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck.

A. Frankensteiner

• Name reference: Frankenstein's monster from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein.

Q. P.

• N/A

E. Siegfried

• Name reference: the dragon slayer Siegfried from the Niebelungenlied.

Jürgen Borisovich Volk

• Character reference: if we accept that Amadeus references Roger Federer and Medanore references Rafael Nadal, Volk might be a reference to Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic. At the time of Volk's introduction, Djokovic was the world no. 1. Volk plays a defensive style based on counterattacking, which further supports this comparison.

Greece
Thalatta Heracles

• Name reference: Heracles, a hero from Greek mythology.
• Some other aspects of Heracles' mythological character seems to have influenced his design, most prominently his impressive physique.

Zeus Iliopoulos

• Name reference: the Greek god, Zeus.
• Just like Zeus is considered the highest of the Greek gods, in the manga he is the Greece's captain.

Hermes Kounellis

• Name reference: the Greek god, Hermes.

Vulcan Lartius

• Name reference: the Roman god, Vulcan. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus.

Evangelos Papadopoulos

• Name reference: Evangelos was supposedly the first Greek tactician to document his strategies with illustrations (300 BC).

Apollon Stephanopoulos

• Name reference: the Greek god, Apollon.

Orion Stephanopoulos

• Name reference: Orion, a hunter from Greek mythology.
• In some mythological sources, Orion's death is recorded as being shot in the head by an arrow.

South Africa
Chabonga Ngoepe

• Name reference: South African baseball player Mpho' Gift Ngoepe.
• The purpose of his appearance may have been to suggest a connection between Amadeus and South Africa.

Spain
Medanore

• Character reference: possibly Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal.

Switzerland
Amadeus

• Name reference: Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
• Character reference: Swiss tennis player Roger Federer.
• There is a high chance that Amadeus was born in South Africa. Roger Federer's mother is from South Africa and Federer himself has South African citizenship. Furthermore, at the same time as Switzerland was facing Japan, Germany played against South Africa, possibly hinting at this connection.

Albert Federer

• Name reference: Swiss tennis player Roger Federer.

Henri Nouvel III

• Name reference: Henri Nouvel, a French priest and the first missionary on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River. The district Pointe-au-Père in Rimouski, Quebec is named after him.
• Since they share names, Nouvel might be Henri's ancestor.

Randy Pug

• Name reference: American pro wrestler Alexander Pourteau, nicknamed "The Pug", and possibly others. Porteau won several championships and wrestled in Japan from 1993 to 1995.
• A pug is also a breed of dog.

Peter Lambiel

• Name reference: Swiss figure skater and choreographer Stéphane Lambiel. Lambiel was world champion in 2005 and 2006.

TUBE Republic
M. Halharter

• Name reference: Michiya Haruhata of the rock band Tube.

M. Nobtail

• Name reference: Nobuteru Maeda of the rock band Tube.

USA
Kiko Balentien

• Name reference: Curacaoan-Dutch baseball player Wladimir Ramon Balentien. Balentien plays for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows since 2010 and broke the homerun record in a single season in 2013.

Alan Hopkins

• Name reference: Welsh actor Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins in the movie Nixon.

Geisel Jackson

• Name reference: American actor Samuel L. Jackson in the movie Pulp Fiction.

Rocky Meredith

• Name reference: combination of the character Rocky Balboa and actor Burgess Meredith from the 1976 movie Rocky.

Clive Miller

• Name reference: American actor Jason Miller in the movie The Exorcist.

Dodo Obando

• Name reference: Panama baseball player Sherman Obando. Obando played in the Japanese Pacific League from 1999 until 2005 and won the Best Nine Award in 2000.

Don Pacino

• Name reference: American actor Al Pacino in the movie The Godfather.

Oliver Philips

• N/A

Ralph Rhinehart

• N/A

 

[ChinkyCandie]

Hmm. Why would Konomi base Volk off of Djokovic then introduce a Serbian team?
Amadeus is probably based off of Federer's success but also used his last name for another character.
That being said, I wonder if the UK team will have an Andy Murray-like character.

Interesting thought on the Chabonga and Amadeus theory.

 

[Kaoz]

Why would Konomi base Volk off of Djokovic then introduce a Serbian team?

Well, it's difficult to say for sure, but if I were to guess, I'd say that he wanted both the Djokovic character and Tezuka to be part of the no. 1 team. But Tezuka was already locked into going to Germany before NPoT even started, so he probably felt better about moving the Djokovic character to Germany as well.

That said, we didn't and won't get to see Serbia play, but if we did, there's a chance they'd have another Djokovic character. Since Konomi used Federer twice, there's no reason why he couldn't do the same with Djokovic. We might've seen Volk as an iteration of the dominating no. 1 and the Serbian player could been an iteration of Djokovic when he just broke into the top 10 or so.

Amadeus is probably based off of Federer's success but also used his last name for another character.

It's still ridiculous to me that you have a muscle guy like Albert and then decide, "yep, that's the character I'm gonna name Federer." I hope we'll see him actually play a bit in the semis.

 

[Hardy]

I think he just wanted to use the name Federer no matter what and that guy was some sort of left over. I don't think we'll see much of the Swiss ever agian tbh.

Kaoz, you should also add coaches to your 2nd post, no? Like The Thinker and Heidi's grandpa '-'

Does Sieg mean victory in your stupid language? Would be a funny coincidence considering he is super obsessed with not falling behind Tezuka and losing to him.

I dont think neither South Africa nor Denmark had any significance tbh.

 

[Kaoz]

I think he just wanted to use the name Federer no matter what and that guy was some sort of left over. I don't think we'll see much of the Swiss ever agian tbh.

I dunno, he could've called Lambiel Federer instead. Doubt anyone would've batted an eye if Federer was the "Personification of Talent." If Albert got his name based on playstyle at all, I do feel pretty good about predicting it has something to do with serving. Federer is incredibly good in that area after all.

Kaoz, you should also add coaches to your 2nd post, no? Like The Thinker and Heidi's grandpa '-'

You're right, I'll add them later. Any idea for Pupke?

Does Sieg mean victory in your stupid language?

It does. It's definitely possible that Konomi picked his name based on just that, I think we'll have to wait until the semis to really draw a conclusion.

I dont think neither South Africa nor Denmark had any significance tbh.

Well, I think the cut in the middle of the Amadeus match alongside the Federer connection to South Africa is too much for it to be a coincidence.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

Too bad there wasn't a Kei Nishikori character from Japan. I heard he is a fan of PoT.

On a separate note, if we're going to see the lesser countries like China/Russia, what "inspiration" will Konomi get his characters from. They will probably have a minimal effect on the story overall but it would be nice if we saw 1-2 characters from the minor countries.

Speaking of Russia, do you think they'll take out Denmark? Or will Denmark take out Russia? China will be ousted by Switzerland no problem.

 

[Kaoz]

Speaking of Russia, do you think they'll take out Denmark? Or will Denmark take out Russia? China will be ousted by Switzerland no problem.

Russia > Denmark I reckon. They beat Argentina (no. 6) to qualify, so they should be stronger. It's unfortunate that the rankings didn't get updated after the group league, but points wise, I wouldn't be surprised if Russia broke into the top 10 over Greece.

Nothing really comes to mind for inspirations right now. I do recall that a few years ago, Konomi posted a tweet about him enjoying that Chinese mask theater, so maybe a character based on that.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

I expected China to make to the last 16 even if they'll get pwned by Switzerland. I know PoT is quite popular in China.

Russia may oust Denmark but they won't get past the QFs since they'll have to face Switzerland anyway.

 

[Kaoz]

Yeah, I can't realistically see Russia making the semis. If they did we'd probably have a hype chain of "America 3-0'd Russia who 3-0'd Switzerland who 3-0'd Japan" going into the finals and that's a bit much even for Konomi's standards.

Also, I wanted to briefly talk about Millman. Is he really that much of a fan favorite in Australia, Chinky? Considering who else made the team, he just seems really out of place, so the whole #Millmania story was the only thing I found that could've justified his inclusion over like a dozen others.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

As far as I know, Australia doesn't have favourite Australian players. Its over-exaggerated. Each year during the Australian Open, Australians will cheer for the big 4. Australia lost interest in the Australian players because:
1. Nick Kyrios;
2. Bernard Tomic;
3. Australian tennis players are incapable of winning any of the major titles.

The only Australian player that Australians respect is John Peers, the doubles specialist. Even in Australian news articles, most of them have disgusted comments while the article itself is neutral.

 

[Hardy]

If they did we'd probably have a hype chain of "America 3-0'd Russia who 3-0'd Switzerland who 3-0'd Japan" going into the finals and that's a bit much even for Konomi's standards.

Yeah, one or two countries will have a similar role to Kabuto from the Nationals (smashing someone 5-0 -in Kabuto's case, the school that beat Midoriyama- only to then get smashed to hype someone stronger) even if it ain't Russia cause, as you said, that's a bit too much.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 31, 2017, Original Post Date: Oct 31, 2017 ---

As far as I know, Australia doesn't have favourite Australian players. Its over-exaggerated. Each year during the Australian Open, Australians will cheer for the big 4. Australia lost interest in the Australian players because:
1. Nick Kyrios;
2. Bernard Tomic;
3. Australian tennis players are incapable of winning any of the major titles.

The only Australian player that Australians respect is John Peers, the doubles specialist. Even in Australian news articles, most of them have disgusted comments while the article itself is neutral.

Tbh all sports are somewhat less "popular" in this day and age, less passion and commitment coming from fans. I feel that people just cheering for the big 4 are just basically casual fans.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

I'm going to have to agree with you there. I've seen so many photos of "fans" where they pay money for their tickets but end up fingering their phones away. Completely not interested in the match. Why go then if you're not interested? Watch it from the comfort of your own home.

 

[Kaoz]

I want to talk a bit about the two guys that are most likely going to play D1 for France.

Spoiler

Of course it's difficult to speculate much when we have nothing on them except that one picture, but I think there are still a few observations we can make:

1. It's very likely that they are both MSers.
2. The shorter one looks a lot like a younger Yanagi I think. Even if we knew nothing about his opponents, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that Yanagi's match could turn into a data battle. The similarity here increases that probability in my mind.
3. I'm not sure about the other one. His hairstyle is certainly unique, so the most striking aspect of his design is probably the rolled up sleeves. I'm not actually sure how many guys we know wear sleeves that short (outside the ones at Higa and Rokkaku, but that's just how their uniforms are in general). Akutsu is the first that comes to mind and I want to say Kawamura had his sleeves rolled up that high too at some point.

Overall I wonder if we could see a Data/Monster pair from the French in D1, which in a way could be similar to the Yanagi/Akaya pair from the nationals finals.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

Young Yanagi and Akutsu clone.

 

[Kaoz]

Something I've been thinking about more recently is what the purpose of the naming scheme among the German players is, or rather how their first names are handled. We've got the three pros Jürgen Volk, Bertie Volk and Dankmar Schneider, so far so good. Q.P. is an abbreviation and nickname, which is fine too. But the ones I find strange are M. Bismarck, A. Frankensteiner and E. Siegfried. Why did Konomi choose not to give them full first names?

Those Germans aren't the only characters having an initial in place of their first name, the same held true for S. Truman and C. Ridel from the American rep prospects as well as the two TUBE players we know of. In case of the former, it might've been because they were minor characters whereas the latter are (I think) the only character names referencing real currently alive people, so I can see the logic there. But the Germans are in a more prominent position, story-wise, the real Bismarck died quite a while ago and both Siegfried and Frankenstein are references to other fictional characters.

To nip one suggestion in the bud right away, I don't believe for a second that Konomi was unable to come up with three random names for these guys. One theory proposed by @Hardy, that Bismarck, Frankensteiner and Siegfried are actually also all considered unimportant and won't play in the semis, I can get behind a bit more, even if I personally disagree with it. Bismarck has his position as vice-captain, Frankensteiner is the MS ace and Siegfried wants his revenge and has the small rivalry with Tezuka going for him. I find it unlikely that none of them will play.

Approaching the situation from a different angle though, one noteworthy pattern is that all the pros have full names whereas all the non-pros do not. At the same time, by not giving them full first names, there's some anonymization going on here, making the latter more generic. Could it be that this is supposed to show that Jürgen, Bertie and Dankmar are on a completely different level compared to the rest of the country whereas the GTA churns out guys like Bismarck, Frankensteiner and Siegfried in the dozens, and those guys are simply representing the average level of German players in the U-17 world? And if this is the case, what about Q.P.? On the one hand his name's just initials, but at the same time that is considered his full name as a player. Does that put him closer towards the pros, closer to the rest, or do we need to consider him to be his own level separate from the other two groups?

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 9, 2018, Original Post Date: May 25, 2018 ---

So for those that haven't seen Konomi's Q&A from the 23.5 fanbook yet, one question I found particularly interesting was this one:

44. Is there any meaning to Amadeus shouting "Balleena!"?
It's Spanish for "whale". Now that you mention it, when I was watching one of Nadal's matches on television, I wanted to give his signature shot a name. Because of the heavy top spin on the ball, it drops suddenly and the shape of that trajectory reminded me of the head of a whale. That's how I ended up with "balleena".

So Amadeus is a guy whose backstory may be inspired by Federer with a shot inspired by Nadal. Leaving aside the fact that a combination of Federer and Nadal sounds incredibly broken in terms of overall skill, it made me wonder about Medanore. We previously theorized that there will probably be Nadal elements in Medanore, and I think that's still a fair assumption to make, but could there be another inspiration there?

Thinking about this, another thing that caught my eye was Medanore's name. Apparently "medano" means "dunes" in Spanish, so I was inclined to think that the "re" would denote some sort of title. Nadal is the King of Clay, so Medanore would be something like the King of Dunes - fair enough so far. However, "king" in Spanish is "rey" and not "re" (nor does "re" stand for anything comparable). Did Konomi mess up? Maybe. But there is a different language in which "re" does mean "king", and that's Italian.

The obvious follow-up question is if there are any famous Italian players Medanore could have traits of. At first, nobody really stood out to me and Italy isn't that strong of a tennis country to begin with. However, after reading up on some statistics related to Marco Cecchinato's run at Roland Garros this year, one person that caught my eye was Adriano Panatta. Panatta has a single grand slam victory to his name and peaked at no. 4 in the world. That's obviously pretty good, but at the same time not superhuman. However, Panatta holds an interesting open era record: most match points saved in a single match and going on to win the match, at 11 vs Kim Warwick in the first round of the 1976 Italian Open (the record for most match points saved in history belongs to Wilmer Allison at 18 from the 1930 Davis Cup match between the USA and Italy, and if we remove the stipulation for actually winning the match, John Isner saved 12 match points against Tommy Haas in the 2013 French Open).

Following that, maybe, just maybe, Medanore has an ability along those lines, like becoming significantly stronger when the opponent is at match point. If nothing else it would certainly be dramatic.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

The Italian player that is currently the most popular is Fabio Fognini.

I do want to know if a US player will be based on Andy Murray. UK isn't important. Also, maybe rising star Alex Zverev.
Cool of Konomi to draw inspirations from both Federer and Nadal for one character.

 

[Kaoz]

Well, which US player are you thinking for either of those?

Regarding Fognini, being the most popular from a given player pool isn't exactly worthwhile when the level of that pool is not that great to begin with. His tournament record isn't anything to write home about (one grand slam in doubles is a nice achievement, but not exactly unmatched) and the one miscellaneous record he apparently holds is committing the most foot faults in a match while going on to win - not something I'd expect to factor into one of our top class players here either. He has wins over Murray and Nadal, but I don't see in which way that could could be worked into Medanore's character.

 

[ChinkyCandie]

I feel like Ralph will end up becoming an Andy Murray inspired character. Maybe even QP will be Alex Zverev inspired when he gets more screen-time. Andy is lagging behind the both Nadal, Djokovic (despite his latest down-spiral), and Federer. Which would be the idea that US is also lagging behind the top 4.
If Amadeus is a combo of Federer background and Nadal techniques, Medanore could be Nadal inspired background with Federer techniques.

Now I think about maybe Spain will be the final boss? I mean we know nothing about Spain and Medanore is said to be stronger than Volk if it wasn't for his injuries. That's why they're kept as a mystery.

 

[Kaoz]

I feel like Ralph will end up becoming an Andy Murray inspired character. Maybe even QP will be Alex Zverev inspired when he gets more screen-time.

Murray and Ralph, maybe. They're both defensive players at least. My main gripe with that right now would be that when I think of Murray, I think of someone very focused on the physical side of the game whereas the fanbook depicts Ralph as more of an Irie type who reads what you're going to do and defends accordingly.

As for Zverev and QP, Zverev is a power player and QP doesn't strike me as that type at all. If I had to pick anyone for Zverev, I'd probably go with Bertie who looks like he might be a bit rougher and they both have brothers at least.

Now I think about maybe Spain will be the final boss? I mean we know nothing about Spain and Medanore is said to be stronger than Volk if it wasn't for his injuries. That's why they're kept as a mystery.

There are certainly people, such as @Hardy, who would agree with that. Personally, I'm skeptical though, for a few reasons:

• If the opponents are France, Germany and Switzerland, Japan gets to take revenge on everyone they've lost against (that we know of at least). Vs France for the WC two years ago, vs Germany for the Pre-WC, and vs Switzerland for the Group League. Likewise, so far none of the Japanese characters are connected to Spain in any way. Switzerland on the other hand has Amadeus, Peter and Henri. Of course this can easily change, but that's the current set-up.
• Switzerland has two big matches for development whereas Spain only has one (doubt we'll see much of anything from Spain's QF at least).
• Konomi introduced a major Swiss character via the fanbook. Why do that when you're just going to make him lose to Spain? Peter and Albert would be ambiguously strong enough to hype the Spanish.
• When volumes 23 and 23.5 came out, Konomi tweeted that you can basically start reading from there and still enjoy the finals tournament. Germany, Switzerland and France each got a brief recap during round 1. Not only was Spain not shown alongside those three, them and Medanore haven't been mentioned even in passing in any chapters since. And in the fanbook, Spain has as much page space as Aramenoma (read: next to none). While yes, that keeps them a mystery, this is almost too mysterious for them to become major players in the end.