Character Will Yukimura leave??

[Fayte]

I thought Sanada had the most interesting personality. He was bold, confident, and serious off the court, and when he got on the court he became a sadist with Ka. Then, on top of that, he gets all friendly with Echizen. I think that is pretty unique. Yukimura is pretty one-note. He is the same at all times. He's basically just a smiling Tezuka.

Fuu = "Hmph..."
Rin = *Sigh*
Ka = "Fufufu..."
In = *Smirk*
Zan = "Hm!"
Rai = "HAAAAaaaaa!!"

The many emotions of Sanada.

 

[Philia]

I thought Sanada had the most interesting personality. He was bold, confident, and serious off the court, and when he got on the court he became a sadist with Ka. Then, on top of that, he gets all friendly with Echizen. I think that is pretty unique. Yukimura is pretty one-note. He is the same at all times. He's basically just a smiling Tezuka.

Fuu = "Hmph..."
Rin = *Sigh*
Ka = "Fufufu..."
In = *Smirk*
Zan = "Hm!"
Rai = "HAAAAaaaaa!!"

The many emotions of Sanada.

I think Sanada is all the same everywhere. Rude, Serious, Hardworking & Strict. While Yuki's mood changes. He is smiling & easygoing outside court. Serious & Determined inside court.
It seems we all are promoting our fav character as the most interesting one.

Off the topic, I haven't seen Ibu Shinji for a long time. His numb is a bit like Yips. He & Seiichi can make a interesting doubles pair, I guess. IS he even in the camp? Is he on Black jersey or White? Will he ever play again?

 

[-Ken-]

Off the topic, I haven't seen Ibu Shinji for a long time. His numb is a bit like Yips. He & Seiichi can make a interesting doubles pair, I guess. IS he even in the camp? Is he on Black jersey or White? Will he ever play again?

He is in the camp. He's part of black jersey.

 

[Phantron]

Sanada is obviously a guy who does everything by the rules. If you break the rules he'll slap you. I think the source books says he even slapped Yukimura before (for being late to a practice). When he broke his own rules (by losing to Ryoma) he told people to not hold back slapping him, so just because his rules are rather extreme doesn't mean he's a bad guy. On the tennis court he's going to mercilessly crush you, but he's not one of those 'win by KO' guy. With his power and skill he surely can hit the ball in people's face but he doesn't do that. He might have a bit of an ego, but he was originally supposed to be the best player (he was introduced as the best player in Japan in the game against Ryoma), so he has reason to be proud.

 

[Philia]

Sanada is obviously a guy who does everything by the rules. If you break the rules he'll slap you. I think the source books says he even slapped Yukimura before (for being late to a practice). When he broke his own rules (by losing to Ryoma) he told people to not hold back slapping him, so just because his rules are rather extreme doesn't mean he's a bad guy. On the tennis court he's going to mercilessly crush you, but he's not one of those 'win by KO' guy. With his power and skill he surely can hit the ball in people's face but he doesn't do that. He might have a bit of an ego, but he was originally supposed to be the best player (he was introduced as the best player in Japan in the game against Ryoma), so he has reason to be proud.

Nobody said Sanada is bad.

 

[Ninomiya]

Sanada is obviously a guy who does everything by the rules. If you break the rules he'll slap you. I think the source books says he even slapped Yukimura before (for being late to a practice).

Sanada's slapping I believe began because Yuki was stuck in hospital and he had to enforce his own law on the whole of the massive Rikkai Club as he was running the place by himself without sharing the duty like he usually did with Yuki.
So this couldn't have happened. Unless you have a link to prove this.

If you remember Sanada was actually gonna let Yanagi off, but Yanagi instead went to Sanada and asked for a slap.

 

[Phantron]

Sanada's slapping I believe began because Yuki was stuck in hospital and he had to enforce his own law on the whole of the massive Rikkai Club as he was running the place by himself without sharing the duty like he usually did with Yuki.
So this couldn't have happened. Unless you have a link to prove this.

If you remember Sanada was actually gonna let Yanagi off, but Yanagi instead went to Sanada and asked for a slap.

Pretty sure Sanada slapping Yukimura was in one of those 4 box strip side panels but the reason given there was that Yukimura was late to a tennis practice, and there's nothing particularly out of character for Sanada to do that. He's obviously a very strict man and just because Yukimura is a close friend doesn't mean he goes easy on him. In the U17 game Sanada says he won't go easy on Yukimura and Yukimura says Sanada never goes easy on anyone to begin with. This event is probably not canon but all such 4 box strips are clearly meant to be events that could've happened.

The only new rule they have after Yukimura was in hospital was that you can't lose a game, but even that had some leeway. When Yanagi lost, Sanada said that wasn't an unwinnable game, so he obviously does consider the difficulty of the opponent. He let Kirihara go presumably because Fuji at that time outclassed Kirihara so he's not going to slap someone who was just thorougly outmatched. He slapped Jackal for simply breaking the rules in the Kirihara versus Ryoma game, as Jackal is presumably expected to break up a fight like that instead of just watching it unfold.

 

[Fayte]

Sanada's slapping I believe began because Yuki was stuck in hospital and he had to enforce his own law on the whole of the massive Rikkai Club as he was running the place by himself without sharing the duty like he usually did with Yuki.
So this couldn't have happened. Unless you have a link to prove this.

The Another Story OVA depicted Sanada being the same even when Yukimura was there. It showed how they led Rikkaidai together. Yukimura is the good cop, Sanada is the bad cop. Yukimura just lets Sanada run the show when it comes to certain things. Yukimura did command drills though. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Sanada slapping people before Yukimura was ill.

 

[Hardy]

The Another Story OVA depicted Sanada being the same even when Yukimura was there. It showed how they led Rikkaidai together. Yukimura is the good cop, Sanada is the bad cop. Yukimura just lets Sanada run the show when it comes to certain things. Yukimura did command drills though. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Sanada slapping people before Yukimura was ill.

Yeah, I think the same, Sanada represents the strong and "bad" things in a captain;it's highly probable that he hit everyone before Yukimura's disease. But again, as Airgrimes said, I don't really think that Sanada ever slapped Yukimura ( I dunno exactly why. In my case, I always thought that he respected Yuki too much -like every other PoT character except Kintaro-... as if he was scared of getting his ass Yipped or something ) so a prove would be great.

 

[-Ken-]

Well, there's this

http://www.mangahere.com/manga/prince_of_tennis/c365/6.html

Which is after Yukimura recovery. It might hint that Sanada could be hitting people anyways. It shows his strict personality.

 

[Phantron]

I think Sanada slapping Yukimura comes from the same source (random 4 box comic within POT itself) that also says Yukimura has immunity to drinks created by Inui (simply because he looks similar to Fuji).

Now obviously that should not be taken as totally canon but it's not like anyone ought to be surprised if Yukimura indeed possesses immunity to Inui's drinks.

Since the rules Sanada established was losing a game = getting slapped, could it be possible that Sanada slapped Yukimura silly after he lost to Ryoma and that's why Yukimura was hitting him as payback in the U17 game?

---------- Post added at 01:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:16 AM ----------

Let's look at the events in the Nationals finals.

Sanada was forced to abandon his brand of 'head-on' tennis and was ridiculed by the random guys, due to advice of Yukimura, all in the name of winning.

Yukimura picked Niou to play Fuji. Sanada obviously disagreed with this, since he doesn't even know Niou had illusion powerse at that point so from his point of view that's got to be an auto-lose. While it's not clear how well Kirihara or Yanagi (two other likely candidates for S2) would've fared against Fuji, the loss should be Yukimura's responsibility as he took an unproven guy (nobody on the team even knew Niou had these powers let alone its limitations) compared to two well established players.

Yukimura purposely did not enter the court when asked to, even though doing so would guaranteed an instant win. I'd assume going to the court the time you're supposed to be is supposed to be less dirty than whatever Sanada was accused of doing in his game. If Sanada can be a 'dirty player' so that Rikkidai can win, so can Yukimura.

And then of course, Yukimura actually lost the game to Ryoma too.

In fact, given Sanada's personality, I'd think he'll slap Yukimura extra hard just to show others that he's not going to let his friend off the hook. After all, he doesn't let himself off the hook, so why should Yukimura have any special treatment?

 

[-Ken-]

I don't think so. Kirihara/Niou/Marui/Bunta all didn't get slap silly.

+Sanada is partly at fault for the loss. If he didn't go help Echizen get his memory back, Echizen wouldn't make a joke of Rikkai boss

+ another for Yukimura is 100% at fault for the loss. If Yukimura didn't take Kintarou match offer and take the win, Rikkai would have been the Champion.

 

[Phantron]

I don't think so. Kirihara/Niou/Marui/Bunta all didn't get slap silly.

+Sanada is partly at fault for the loss. If he didn't go help Echizen get his memory back, Echizen wouldn't make a joke of Rikkai boss

+ another for Yukimura is 100% at fault for the loss. If Yukimura didn't take Kintarou match offer and take the win, Rikkai would have been the Champion.

I'm sure Sanada does consider how difficult the matchup is. When Yanagi lost, Sanada said that wasn't an unwinnable game (which is why he plans on slapping Yanagi). Kirihara was clearly far weaker than Fuji in Kantou (he needed to blind Fuji just to keep the game close). Marui and Jackal had to play against synchro and at least in POT synchro is basically godlike in doubles. In the case of Niou, it's clear Yukimura was the one who made the decision to start Niou at S2. Due to POT scheduling magic they obviously knew S2 was going to be Fuji. The logical choice would be devil form Kirihara. A safe choice would be Yanagi. A strategic choice would be Yukimura (attempt to win first 3 games and not worry about the next 2). Niou is completey unproven as a singles player. His illusion-less form gets slaughtered by Fuji and that's all the information everyone besides Yukimura has to work with, so there's no way Sanada or anyone else should've supported this decision so Yukimura should also take the blame for the loss. At the very least, shouldn't it occur to him that maybe he ought to play Niou first to make sure his illusions are good enough, as it turned out Niou's illusions have rather significant limitations.

I guess you can say Yukimura lost to TnK and that's an Act of God too, but all he had to is step into court instead of playing an exhibition match against Kintaro first. I get that he's supposed to be honorable, so he's not going tell Sanada to quickly hide to make sure Ryoma never gets his memory back. But honorable doesn't mean you should end up sabotaging your own team. He's under no obligation to wait for Ryoma and he put his pride first. Sanada swallowed his pride for the team. Why can't he do the same?

 

[-Ken-]

I guess you can say Yukimura lost to TnK and that's an Act of God too, but all he had to is step into court instead of playing an exhibition match against Kintaro first. I get that he's supposed to be honorable, so he's not going tell Sanada to quickly hide to make sure Ryoma never gets his memory back. But honorable doesn't mean you should end up sabotaging your own team. He's under no obligation to wait for Ryoma and he put his pride first. Sanada swallowed his pride for the team. Why can't he do the same?

Yeah, forcing Sanada to abandon the reason he got his title as Emperor in order to win and not just taking the win is rather stupid on Yukimura part.

Well, in the end, Japan team got stronger as a result. It's better for All Japan Representative as a whole.

 

[Kaoz]

"Significant limitations?" You mean that he was unable to copy one out of all of Tezuka's techniques, presumably one he had seen on that day for the very first time? When ZSS and Devil Mode are revealed, the reactions here and here make it seem like the opposing teams had no knowledge of them prior to the match (which would make sense given that both Semi Finals took place at the same time).

Now it's true that the same thing applies to Saiki and TPhantom as well, but the latter is only a reverse application of the TZone, so as long you can hit Zone you should be capable of understanding how to hit Phantom (whether you can actually apply that much spin to the ball is a different matter). As for the former, interestingly enough Niou copies Zone, ZSD, Phantom and Hyakuren more or less back to back during the first game of his comeback, but he doesn't use Saiki until the score is 5-4. This could suggest that Niou needs some time to learn those techniques, and if Saiki is closer to Hyakuren than ZSS is to anything else he was capable of doing, it makes sense that he'd be able to use Saiki first.

Lastly, what does it matter that nobody besides Yukimura knew about Illusion? If Niou showed that he was able to use TZone, ZSD and Hyakuren, he's clearly the best choice for S2 over Devil Akaya and Yanagi.

---

As for the S1 match, obviously the best choice would have been to just win by default. But I'm not convinced that Sanada would have wanted that either:

Crushing a snot-nosed rookie with a head on challenge... is our way, the way of the Rikkai Kings!!

Sanada complied to Yukimura's wish of abandoning his head on challenge against Tezuka, so it could just as well be that Yukimura follows Sanada's wish here to beat a Ryoma at full strength (and maybe get revenge for Kantou?).

 

[Phantron]

Fuji says Niou isn't even close to the real Tezuka here: http://www.mangahere.com/manga/prince_of_tennis/c363/13.html

Assuming he isn't lying or just playing mind games we'll have to assume this statement is readily obvious. Sanada described Niou's performance as 'clowning around', so certainly Niou overall performance is nowhere near Tezuka tier.

Sanada and Yukimura generally has shown unbelieveable knowledge about tennis, including knowing about Tezuka's techs that nobody in their own school knows about. Therefore anything Fuji can deduce, surely Yukimura can deduce if he actually played Niou. Since Yukimura didn't underestimate Fuji, unless Yukimura's well-known ability to magically know how good everyone he never played is suddenly fails him here, he should've seen some warning signs of this matchup. Given Niou needs some time to even get his illusion working, we'd have to assume if he did have a scrimmage of any kind against Yukimura he'd do even worse compared to how well he did in Nationals. So either they never had a scrimmage or Niou told him his illusion will improve by the time the actual game comes around.

Either way since Yukimura acts as the coach of the team, he is responsible for taking a gamble on an unproven player. The fact that anyone else might've still lost to Fuji is irrelevent. I highly doubt Sanada would describe Yanagi's performance as 'clowning around', so at least expectation-wise, Yanagi is certainly regarded as a better player than Niou with illusion.

Sanada got the Emperor title for crushing people head-on and he abandoned it, at Yukimura's request, to beat Tezuka. We'll ignore whether that scene even makes any sense but that's the sacrifice Sanada allegedly made for the team.

Sanada absolutely isn't going to go cry to Yukimura that since he lost to a kid before Yukimura must avenge him. Sanada obviously understands that winning is still more important than his pride, which is why he agreed to Yukimura's advice in the first place, so there's no argument about Yukimura attempting to 'avenge' for Sanada. That also goes directly against what he preached about winning is the only thing that matters.

Yukimura purposely waiting for Ryoma is not unlike Ochi giving the tiebreaker to Atobe/Niou when Kabaji jumped in (the point should be replayed and under no circumstance should Atobe/Niou team get the point for using 3 guys to score). There's nothing honorable or noble about such an act. It's just plain stupidity. It's not like Yukimura sent an assassin to knock out Ryoma and then later decided that was dishonorable so he got to wait. You're not obliged to do any more than what the rule says. Honorable means you don't just say "Quick disqualify that guy before he gets here!" Had the ref asked Yukimura if he was willing to wait a few minutes, the honorable thing to do is agree to the ref's request. But that's not what happened. Yukimura participated in a circus act from Kintaro that's clearly designed to keep the ref distracted so Ryoma can get there on time. Although he talks about how winning is all that matters (which is why he scoffs at the concept of TnK requiring you to enjoy tennis), he put his pride ahead of his philosophy and that cost his team the championship.

---------- Post added at 10:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:37 AM ----------

One piece of key information that's missing is how long did it take Yukimura to play Kintaro. Kintaro asked for just one point, but we know 'one point' can last a very long time in POT. I don't think it's a case where Yukimura played Kintaro for less than 5 minutes, beat him, and then Ryoma arrived, because you'd think the ref is willing to give 5 minutes for people to show up. So I assume based on that scene Yukimura took a nontrivial amount of time to deal with Kintaro, simply because Ryoma needed that much time to get his memory back.

Now, if POT is so hardcore that if you're not present at the time the match begins you automatically forfeit, no question asked, then that is just Ryoma's fault for not being there on time in such a harsh environment.

Note that Inui had to forfeit a game in U17 due to a stomach problem and his opponent sure didn't wait for him.

 

[Ninomiya]

I think Sanada slapping Yukimura comes from the same source (random 4 box comic within POT itself) that also says Yukimura has immunity to drinks created by Inui (simply because he looks similar to Fuji).

Now obviously that should not be taken as totally canon but it's not like anyone ought to be surprised if Yukimura indeed possesses immunity to Inui's drinks.

Since the rules Sanada established was losing a game = getting slapped, could it be possible that Sanada slapped Yukimura silly after he lost to Ryoma and that's why Yukimura was hitting him as payback in the U17 game?

Nonsense sir.
Sanada was the first to hand Yuki a towel.
If Yanagi had to ask to receive his bitch-slap, as it seemed Sanada was gonna let him off, its extremely unlikely he would hit Yuki.
It can't be considered canon.

---------- Post added at 04:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

Yeah, forcing Sanada to abandon the reason he got his title as Emperor in order to win and not just taking the win is rather stupid on Yukimura part.

Well, in the end, Japan team got stronger as a result. It's better for All Japan Representative as a whole.

Are you guys serious?
That isn't winning.
Their law is tennis is a battle. Do you really think people who have this law would happily win all of their tournaments where people forfeit.
Their law is to defeat all opponents.
Yukimura knows full-well the boy who defeated Kirihara, Atobe and Sanada is Ryoma.

The Sanada situation is different. In Sanada VS Tezuka, Sanada proved he was just out-right better than Tezuka.
Once Sanada nullified TPhantoms spin with Rin after owning him with Rai, AND KaRinRai it was just clear.
With Yukimura VS Ryoma, it would end as Rikkai not conquering Seigaku. But Seigaku forfeiting. Not Rikkai's style at all.

Sanada knows this too well so he went and collected Ryoma, the rest of the Rikkai squad didn't even react as they all seemed to have wanted the same thing, which was to conquer their opponents properly. "The Rikkai Way".

 

[-Ken-]

The point about Sanada not using Rai is that it's supposed to a tech he reserved to beat Tezuka, which fail miserably.

It's shown here.

http://www.mangahere.com/manga/prince_of_tennis/c226/5.html

It's because Rin isn't fighting the opponent head on. That's why it's they call him unbefitting of the title Emperor. He's not directly crushing his opponets by using Rin.

Look

http://www.mangahere.com/manga/prince_of_tennis/c352/2.html

http://www.mangahere.com/manga/prince_of_tennis/c352/9.html

http://www.mangahere.com/manga/prince_of_tennis/c352/11.html

So yeah, Sanada knows he won't win in a head on challenge. Some people on this forum might say Rin is a fair tech, but looking at amount of page AND even Sanada himself saying that by doing so, he's not doing a head on challenge with Tezuka anymore, it's pretty clear. I will not say Sanada is outright better than Tezuka.

Why does Sanada seal Rai and In during Kantou final? Because he want to save them to use them against Tezuka. Why do he have to save them? We don't know the exact reason, but my guess would be that Sanada was afraid Tezuka are going to think of some ways to counter his tech if he reveal them at Kantou final.

Result? He can't beat Tezuka in a head on challenge, throw away the reason he got his title as an emperor (crushing opponent in head on challenge), his secret tech that we develop to beat Tezuka get defeats even though he seal them away in order to defeat Tezuka. Yeah, he sure is surely outright better than Tezuka.

 

[Kaoz]

Sanada described Niou's performance as 'clowning around', so certainly Niou overall performance is nowhere near Tezuka tier.

Sanada said that before Niou started using the illusion, he made no such statement afterwards.

Sanada and Yukimura generally has shown unbelieveable knowledge about tennis, including knowing about Tezuka's techs that nobody in their own school knows about.

Because they actually saw it before. Tezuka used Hyakuren after the junior tournament, he apparently didn't use it at all during his time in Seigaku. Makes sense that Yukimura and Sanada would be the only ones who know about it.

Since Yukimura didn't underestimate Fuji, unless Yukimura's well-known ability to magically know how good everyone he never played is suddenly fails him here, he should've seen some warning signs of this matchup.

He looked pretty surprised to me when Fuji won the first point of the fifth game. So maybe he did underestimate Fuji's progress.

Either way since Yukimura acts as the coach of the team, he is responsible for taking a gamble on an unproven player. The fact that anyone else might've still lost to Fuji is irrelevent. I highly doubt Sanada would describe Yanagi's performance as 'clowning around', so at least expectation-wise, Yanagi is certainly regarded as a better player than Niou with illusion.

It isn't irrelevant at all. If Yukimura thought that neither Devil Akaya nor Yanagi would have beaten Fuji, then gambling on something is smarter than just outright losing the match. And again, Sanada said that before even knowing about the illusion, concluding Yanagi > Niou from that makes no sense.

So I assume based on that scene Yukimura took a nontrivial amount of time to deal with Kintaro, simply because Ryoma needed that much time to get his memory back.

Cool, I'll assume the opposite then and say it took him less than five minutes.

Either way, you're free to think that Yukimura is a hypocritical idiot and had no other reason for his actions, it's not a view I'm willing to share though.

Note that Inui had to forfeit a game in U17 due to a stomach problem and his opponent sure didn't wait for him.

While this is true, Ryoma and Kintarou seemingly got an extension given that their names weren't crossed out on the final list (neither is Sakata's, but that was fixed in the volume release). Doesn't really matter in this context but yeah, the rules seem to vary here.

---

Also, you said that comic strip was a four panel thing, right? Are you sure it wasn't one of the Houkagos? Because those are very far away from being canon.

---------- Post added at 06:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:37 PM ----------

Sanada knows this too well so he went and collected Ryoma, the rest of the Rikkai squad didn't even react as they all seemed to have wanted the same thing, which was to conquer their opponents properly. "The Rikkai Way".

Yagyuu made a comment that the time's up and Akaya declared their win. The former isn't really clear, but at least Akaya probably didn't give a damn about whether they'd win by forfeit or through a match.

 

[Phantron]

I think Sanada only considers moves that derive from physical attributes as 'head-on' and he considers any skill-based shot as merely tricks. That is, Fu is physical speed, Ka is physical power, Zan is physical endurance, Rai is physical speed + power, but Rin is clearly not based on physical attributes. It's ironic since it's not like he hates skill based moves because he can't do it. He probably has one of the highest skill in the POT.

At any rate I don't know why everyone in the audience buys the whole 'dirty player' bit. Tezuka was the first one who gave up in the physical game, as he realized he cannot physically return Rai no matter what so he has to use a technique to avoid returning it. So if there's a dirty player it's Tezuka who gave up trying to return Rai head-on and sidestep it, and all Sanada is doing is to counter Tezuka's 'dirty play' with his own. I guess you can say two wrongs don't make a right so that's why Sanada still feels humiliated but he definitely didn't start the so-called 'dirty playing'.

---------- Post added at 12:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 PM ----------

Sanada said that before Niou started using the illusion, he made no such statement afterwards.



Because they actually saw it before. Tezuka used Hyakuren after the junior tournament, he apparently didn't use it at all during his time in Seigaku. Makes sense that Yukimura and Sanada would be the only ones who know about it.



He looked pretty surprised to me when Fuji won the first point of the fifth game. So maybe he did underestimate Fuji's progress.



It isn't irrelevant at all. If Yukimura thought that neither Devil Akaya nor Yanagi would have beaten Fuji, then gambling on something is smarter than just outright losing the match. And again, Sanada said that before even knowing about the illusion, concluding Yanagi > Niou from that makes no sense.



Cool, I'll assume the opposite then and say it took him less than five minutes.

Either way, you're free to think that Yukimura is a hypocritical idiot and had no other reason for his actions, it's not a view I'm willing to share though.



While this is true, Ryoma and Kintarou seemingly got an extension given that their names weren't crossed out on the final list (neither is Sakata's, but that was fixed in the volume release). Doesn't really matter in this context but yeah, the rules seem to vary here.

---

Also, you said that comic strip was a four panel thing, right? Are you sure it wasn't one of the Houkagos? Because those are very far away from being canon.

---------- Post added at 06:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:37 PM ----------



Yagyuu made a comment that the time's up and Akaya declared their win. The former isn't really clear, but at least Akaya probably didn't give a damn about whether they'd win by forfeit or through a match.

---

If Yukimura beat Kintaro in a very short time then that means punctuality is very important in POT. It's clear the ref was going to disqualify Ryoma had Kintaro not stalled for time, so if the ref isn't willing to wait a short time for Ryoma why should Yukimura? The ref didn't ask Yukimura for his opinion on whether he wanted to wait for his opponent. It'd be the honorable thing for Yukimura to agree had the ref asked such a question, but it's not right for him to simply defy what the ref planned (disqualify Ryoma).

Yukimura made a gamble to play Niou. Since that did not work out, it's his responsibilty, at least so far as who ought to be on the receiving end of the Sanada slaps. Sanada doesn't slap people for losing in obviously hopeless games (he didn't slap Kirihara losing to Fuji), and from his point of view he obviously don't think Niou was going to win, so at some point Yukimura must have stepped in and say 'trust me this is going to work'. Not saying he was wrong but it's still his responsibility to go against the conventional wisdom and fail.

For the canon thing, there are a lot of random side materials for POT and obviously they should not be taken completely seriously but it's not like it's a different person who drawn those. Yukimura is shown to have immunity to Inui's drinks from the same source. It's not official but there's nothing unusual if this turned out to be true. In another side story at the black jacket camp most of the MSers got turned into zombies and Sanada slapped Jackal for slacking off as a zombie and this returned him to normal. The point is that Sanada will slap anyone for breaking the rules whether it's Yuikimura or zombie Jackal so while the incidents described probably never happened in canon POT, you should not doubt the fact that Sanada absolutely will slap Yukimura or a zombie if they broke some rules, and Yukimura definitely qualifies for being slapped for losing to Ryoma. I say Yukimura taking revenge on Sanada because he's slapped as a joke, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume Yukimura was slapped for losing to Ryoma, because that is the Rikkidai way.