I mean underwhelming as a Ryoma opponent. Right now Volk is "I have the strongest basic technique and body." Ryoma always fights the strongest, but I feel like the strongest is usually a little more unique.
Ah, I get where you're coming from. As Ryoma's opponent I'm inclined to agree, for I think slightly different reasons though. This is just in context of the final opponent, but in PoT, more so than Yukimura being the strongest he was the anti-thesis of what Ryoma represented in the final match - that is, "playing tennis for fun" vs "playing tennis purely for victory." Volk doesn't really seem to have any traits that contradict Ryoma like that, does he?
So from that angle the question is: who does? The two that come to my mind first and foremost are Byoudouin and Ryoga. Byoudouin if we take the approach of victory at all costs vs honor, Ryoga if we're talking about country loyalty. So does that mean the finals are going to be Japan vs America after all? Maybe, but I'm not sure.
I'm pretty convinced Ryoma is going to rejoin Japan before the end of the WC (because of
this, [url=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R3YWECMkFIw/U_UK0fHb9AI/AAAAAAAAmds/e78cLyxmwns/s16000/008.png]this and
this) which basically excludes Byoudouin as final opponent. At the same time I'm not convinced Ryoma would switch sides without Japan vs USA happening and the US getting eliminated. And even if it's not in the finals, he's probably going to play Byoudouin at some point. So as you can probably tell by now, this is a bit of a dilemma. Now here's a thought though - and I know this is far-fetched - but Ryoma is registered for multiple countries, right? What if Ryoga is as well? That way Ryoma vs Byoudouin could happen in the semis, US loses, Ryoma switches sides and then still gets to face Ryoga in the finals despite the US being already eliminated.
So again, this is a really far-fetched theory, but here's a follow-up question: what was Ryoga even doing in Macau? He obviously wasn't there as part of the American team. And did Japan play against the Macauan national team or just random teams from that area? If the former, did Ryoga join Macau to then join Japan in order to convince Ryoma to come with him to America? And if so, who knows how many other national teams he's a part of.
Of course there are several alternatives, such as:
- Ryoma rejoining Japan without playing Byoudouin and for completely unrelated reasons.
- Me being completely wrong about this anti-thesis thing.
If you look at other popular anime, the protagonist(s) have their fair share of losses.
Onepunch Man and Sakamoto desu ga? disagree.[/url]
). You need charisma to form a team and both Rhinehart (Q.P. mentionned it iirc) and Amadeus did that, that doesn't really mean that Amadeus especially recruited foreign players compared to the US captain. Your reasoning for Rhinehart could also apply to Amadeus, maybe Swiss players were selfish as well and only thought about their own careers, who knows ?