I have been hated on time and time again for my views on Renji, but I am relieved to see Kaoz and brandnewkid "get it." When you bring data players into the equation, it changes EVERYTHING about how you are supposed to look at ability level. It is precisely this reason why this statement is false:
-Ken- said:
Inui beat Renji. Renji can't beat Mitsuya. That's all there is to it.
That
isn't all there is to it because they are DATA players. Maybe if they were a normal player like everyone else, that would be true. However, like I said, data players need to have an entirely different overview.
Mitsuya > Renji because of tennis and data mastership, therefore the person who has the MOST chance of beating Renji with data, is Mitsuya (Because he taught Renji data tennis). Mitsuya knows Renji better than Renji knows Mitsuya, giving Mitsuya the edge over Renji (hence the 0% chance of Renji winning).
Renji > (or =) Inui because of tennis partnership and data mastership, therefore the person who has the MOST chance of beating Inui with data, is Renji (Because he taught Inui data tennis). However there is also an element of "=" because they were partners, so Inui knows Renji just as well as Renji knows Inui, so nobody has an edge in terms of overall data (hence the 50% chance of winning).
Given this information, there is nothing to compare between Inui and Mitsuya, because the only thing they both have in common is Renji. When you take Renji out of the equation, you do not have an equation. Inui was observing Mitsuya the whole time and Mitsuya just played two full matches, which means Inui automatically has the advantage to win with both data and stamina. This in NO way suggests that if Inui beats Mitsuya, that means Inui is better than Renji. Inui has an edge on Renji when it comes to playing against Mitsuya specifically. However, if you take Mitsuya out of the equation, Renji would defeat way more tennis players in PoT than Inui would simply because of ability level.
Inui was never a top tier character (nor ever declared to be, outside of doubles partnership with Renji), but Renji is. Renji has been directly established to be one of the best players in the entire series because of the Rikkai 3. In fact, the only time you hear about Renji losing a match, it was against Sanada (because of "Rin"). Outside of Rikkaidai, there are not many people better than him. He has always been captain level. Yukimura, Sanada, and Renji were always captain level, which is why Rikkaidai was absurdly strong. They basically had three captains. During the Kantou tournament, nobody but Inui was strong enough to beat Renji. Everyone but Rikkaidai SUCKED in Kantou. Fuji, Atobe, Tachibana, Tezuka (gimped Kantou version), etc. would/should all logically lose to Renji. This is why Konomi ran into a problem with creating the Kantou finals. "
Uh oh, nobody on Seigaku has the ability to play against the Rikkai 2. That means Hax boy needs to play Sanada, and Renji needs to play against someone who just happens to be an extremely knowledgeable former doubles partner in order to make it fair."
This is why the Kantou finals were so unrealistic in all singles matches. Rikkaidai was better in EVERY match-up, so logically, Rikkaidai should have won. Everything as it stood (power levels of players, etc) got all messed up simply because Seigaku had to be written to win the match. THAT is where the problem of misplacing ability levels comes from.
I do not overestimate Renji. The general inclination is to SEVERELY underestimate Renji. So when someone comes along with an average canon estimate of Renji, it appears to be an overstatement. That's only because the standard bar for which we view Renji, as a whole, has been lowered by like 10 notches.
