High Tier Singles Round 1 Block C - Tachibana Kippei vs Kirihara Akaya

[Kaoz]

Singles - High Tier
Round 1 Block C​

Name	Tachibana Kippei
Grade	Middle School 3rd Year
Birthday	August 15th
Height	179 cm
Weight	67 kg
Handedness	Right
Playstyle	All Rounder

VERSUS​

Name	Kirihara Akaya
Grade	Middle School 2nd Year
Birthday	September 25th
Height	168 cm
Weight	61 kg
Handedness	Right
Playstyle	Aggressive Baseliner

Serve order: Tachibana -> Kirihara


This round ends on Wednesday, August 14th, at 8 PM GMT.

Have fun discussing.

 

[LetalHawk]

Back in the Regionals Kirihara crushed Tachibana but Tachibana didn't reveal his true self (Mojuu). Back then it was REM!Kirihara. Now Kirihara has Devil Mode and tachibana has Mojuu. Moreover Akaya can only use AM! when paired up with Shiraishi. Tachibana will get definitely hurt by Akaya's Devil Mode.

On the other hand, Tachibana will get points using Mojuu, Abare jishi and Abare Dama. Kirihara will definitely use Devil Mode but Tachibana will overcome it with Mojuu for sure. I think that Tachibana will use Mojuu to get used to Akaya's shots in Devil Mode and eventually avoid being hurted. Kirihara's Knuckle Serve shouldn't faze Tachibana and Tachibana has enough speed with Mojuu to return Akaya's shots. He will get points with Abare Dama, and in the end he'll be victorious.

Tachibana wins the match 6-4 or 7-5.

 

[Phantron]

Kirihara will start out ahead, and then Tachibana gets serious, and then Kirihara uses Devil Form and dies from its side effects so Tachibana wins by default. The score is probably going to be 5-3 with Kirihara ahead.

 

[Kaoz]

Deaths are not an acceptable outcome.

 

[LetalHawk]

Lol Kirihara will not die from using DM. He might not use it anymore but that's not totally sure, so if he uses it Tachibana will struggle against it, but I think he will overcome it eventually he should be able to start a counter against it.

For me, Tachibana with Mojuu is fast enough to return Kirihara's shots. He'll take some damage but I see him showing resistance and enduring the shots. Other than that, if kirihara doesn't use anymore DM, Tachibana crushes him.

 

[Hardy]

Aren't they from completely different tiers? Tachibana is around Chitose (who was beating Hyakuren! Tezuka) and Kirihara is below, around Kaidoh and Inui...

http://www.mangareader.net/422-27230-15/prince-of-tennis/chapter-333.html lol

Tachibana wins, easily. Kirihara might win some points somehow, but it's really one sided imo.

 

[Kaoz]

Tachibana didn't win any points against Chitose after Chitose got Saiki. Furthermore, it was also said that Tachibana was better than Kirihara during the Kanto tournament, but in the end he still lost 1-6.

 

[LetalHawk]

But that was Gimp!Tachibana and wasn't even revealing his true self. If he went serious and used mojuu? He would have completely owned Kirihara. He defeated Kanto!Fuji who was ahead of Akaya until he used Muga. Kirihara would have been crushed

 

[Hardy]

Tachibana didn't win any points against Chitose after Chitose got Saiki.

It was also said that if Tachibana had used Abare Dama earlier or aimed not only at Chitose's right side (until the very last shot), the story could had been different.

 

[Ninomiya]

I can't see Tachibana losing this since Kirihara cannot move between AM and DM in Singles. If he could freely weave between the two Kirihara becomes dangerous as hell.
Until then, Tachibana takes this. I'm not too confident on the game count though.
6-4?

 

[FrostyMouse]

I'd give Tachibana a 6-4 victory. Abare Dama may give Akaya some trouble, but even if it doesn't really, Moujou no Aura is seemingly better than Devil Mode. As everyone else has stated, Akaya can't use AM or SDM, so...

 

[Kaoz]

But that was Gimp!Tachibana and wasn't even revealing his true self. If he went serious and used mojuu? He would have completely owned Kirihara. He defeated Kanto!Fuji who was ahead of Akaya until he used Muga. Kirihara would have been crushed

Of course, but Kirihara wasn't crushed because he injured Tachibana. What I'm saying is that if Tachibana gets injured again, he might lose despite being stronger on paper.

It was also said that if Tachibana had used Abare Dama earlier or aimed not only at Chitose's right side (until the very last shot), the story could had been different.

Abare Dama is true enough, but the right side should be fairly negligible as long as Chitose has Saiki. It is extremely likely that, unlike Tachibana, Tezuka targeted the complete court during his match with Chitose, but the blind spot wasn't an issue anymore.

 

[Phantron]

Even if Kirihara doesn't physically die he'd have to forfeit the game like most people do when they've exhausted themselves.

Devil Mode is considerably above Tachibana's tier as of POT. There's no way Tachibana can handle DM but as of NPOT it is no longer possible to sustain Devil Mode for any period of time so it doesn't matter anyway. I assume the version of DM where Kirihara has control of himself is much weaker. Honestly, I'm not even sure what's the point to go to Devil Mode or Angel Mode in NPOT because he looks more or less the same before and after. It seems like the whole point is that Kirihara becomes a team player except this is singles so that part isn't relevent.

 

[-Ken-]

I view Tachibana as even-ish to Yanagi. As Yanagi can seal devil mode completely, I assume Tachibana can do the same here. But I don't have much to prove that Tachibana is on Yanagi level.

 

[Phantron]

I view Tachibana as even-ish to Yanagi. As Yanagi can seal devil mode completely, I assume Tachibana can do the same here. But I don't have much to prove that Tachibana is on Yanagi level.

Yanagi is part of the Big 3 so at least people consider him to be on the same tier as Sanada and Yukimura, even though it's hard to see why he'd be in that tier. Nobody would consider Tachibana the same tier as Sanada and Yukimura. I think Yanagi is way underrated in the series because of his relationship with Inui, but he's supposed to be only slightly weaker than Sanada. People talk about the big 3, not "Sanada Yukimura and his sidekick".

If you go back to the original dialogue about Furinkazan, Yanagi said once he had Sanada on the ropes but then he can't do anything once Sanada used Rin. However, unlike the other cases of that flashback, we know Rin is definitely not data tennis. That is, we know Sanada can beat Kirihara with ka (power vs power) or Atobe with zan (endurance vs endurance), but Rin versus Yanagi is definitely not data tennis versus data tennis. I realize at that point Konomi might not have even thought of what Rin is supposed to do, but since Sanada has nothing in common with data tennis this implies this is a victory that wasn't a 'head-on' victory, and the only other person that Sanada needed to do that was Tezuka.

 

[FrostyMouse]

Yanagi is part of the Big 3 so at least people consider him to be on the same tier as Sanada and Yukimura, even though it's hard to see why he'd be in that tier. Nobody would consider Tachibana the same tier as Sanada and Yukimura. I think Yanagi is way underrated in the series because of his relationship with Inui, but he's supposed to be only slightly weaker than Sanada. People talk about the big 3, not "Sanada Yukimura and his sidekick".

If you go back to the original dialogue about Furinkazan, Yanagi said once he had Sanada on the ropes but then he can't do anything once Sanada used Rin. However, unlike the other cases of that flashback, we know Rin is definitely not data tennis. That is, we know Sanada can beat Kirihara with ka (power vs power) or Atobe with zan (endurance vs endurance), but Rin versus Yanagi is definitely not data tennis versus data tennis. I realize at that point Konomi might not have even thought of what Rin is supposed to do, but since Sanada has nothing in common with data tennis this implies this is a victory that wasn't a 'head-on' victory, and the only other person that Sanada needed to do that was Tezuka.

No, no one considers him being part of the same tier as Sanada and Yuki, not even in the manga. Perhaps at the beginning, it was true, but that's before we actually met Renji and we just heard about the Three Kings. Renji's good in specific matchups against people, but by the end of PoT, he wasn't exactly top tier. Before this year, most of the Japanese middle school players were fairly bad. In comparison, Renji would've been awesome, but, in terms of singles by the end of PoT, Renji's not that great. He's a solid player, but he's not top tier.

 

[Ninomiya]

Before this year, most of the Japanese middle school players were fairly bad. In comparison, Renji would've been awesome, but, in terms of singles by the end of PoT, Renji's not that great. He's a solid player, but he's not top tier.

I'd say at least bottom of the top tier man.
Nationals!Yanagi can still cream and eat away at Nationals!Kirihara lol.
At an MS level, Yanagi's still a dangerous dude, although you're absolutely right, he doesn't compare to the other 2 members of the 3Monsters of Rikkai.

 

[LetalHawk]

Yanagi is nowhere near Sanada and Yuki's tier. Yes by the end of POT he was a fairly strong player and could cream most MS, but he's nowhere near Rikkai's big 2.

He's not top tier now. There are several MS above Yanagi at this point. The Rikkai's big three should be inmediately changed to Rikkai's big two or something like that (including Yanagi with them is pointless).

 

[Phantron]

While there's obviously nothing based on what Yanagi's done that'd suggest he's ever in the same tier as Sanada or Yukimura, the fact is that even Mouri refers to this collection of individuals as "big 3". In the manga they're always referred to as the big 3 which means all the characters in the manga consider them on the same tier. Therefore it is unfair to use a character in the Sanada tier to say Kirihara is weak, since neither Kirihara nor Tachibana has any chance against someone in that tier.

 

[Hardy]

They are called Rikkai's Big 3 as they were part of Rikkai's regulars and dominated the Nationals since their first year (and obviously, they are Rikkai's 3 best players)... That doesn't mean that they are in the same tier, at all.

Imo Tachibana would have a chance to win against Yanagi (and it's actually very likely), why not?

This went kinda offtopic btw.