Genma Saotome. Idiot. Cheater. Thief. These and lots of other insults have been issued against him... and they are mostly right. But what if things were different to him, what if the Kumon fiasco didn't happen, and he managed to further perfect his strange vision of the Art; boosting his self worth enough to turn out as a different man?
*****
I was just a kid when I agreed to travel with my father in the training trip. Back then, I just loved to play with my father, and was irritated at my mother for always wanting to stop our games because they were too rude for me, so I jumped at the chance of being always allowed to play with my father without any interruptions.
It was later when I understood that the games I played were no games at all, but a very serious Art that could maim, or even kill the opponent if you didn't control your movements precisely... a huge responsibility for a young boy like me. That's perhaps the reason I thrived to train even harder under my father's strict teaching methods, even before I grew to love the Art as much as my father does.
But that shock was nothing compared with the one I had when I learned that my father used those skills for stealing. In fact, all the high level moves of the Saotome Anything Goes School were based on the skills of a thief. I couldn't believe that my father, who constantly hammered me about honor, about protecting the weak, and about the responsible use of the art, could be such an hypocrite.
I ran away. I don't think you can blame me for that. Heck, not even my father did. Of course, he managed to track me down; and at that time I was not skilled enough to fight against him, so he was able to capture me without harming me... too much. And then, out of the blue, when I was just despairing about my destiny as a honorless thief, he proposed me a deal: I would go with him to one of his nightly runs; and if I still didn't want to continue training under him after that, we would return home. I had no choice but to accept.
We sneaked into a warehouse at the docks, a place owned by a local yakuza gang. I don't want to talk about what I saw there... It's enough to say that when my father asked me if it was moral to steal from those who deserved it, I quickly agreed. In fact, I was ready to rip them to shreds. Rather than ask me to join the fight against me, my father told me to be still and watch.
That was the first time I glimpsed the beauty of the Way of the Thief. My father performed the Dance of Shadows, one of the advanced katas of my school, adaptating it to the environment. The Dance of Shadows is a kata of perfect control of the body rather than strength or agility, featuring short and precise attacks, quick movements across the field and freezing without moving a muscle at unnatural positions. This kata is well performed when you can complete it without making any sounds, but it's only mastered when you can't even listen at your own breath.
After my father finished knocking unconscious the last guard without anyone noticing and motioned me to get out of hiding, we looted the place and split the money between us and those who... needed rescuing. I asked my father to call the police, but he said that it would be useless, because that kind of people were inmune to normal justice, and told me his opinion about the law.
"It is not a question about what the Law is, but rather what it is not. The Law is neither noble, nor an end in itself. The Law is simply a means for those who control it, namely the ones who direct the politicians, to acquire that which they want. Those who have enough wealth and connections can't be reached by the law unless others with more power than them wants to."
I didn't agree back then, and I still don't agree completely with him in that matter, but that night was enough to teach me that there could be honor amongst thieves.
In the days that followed I came to learn about my father's 'target list'. As I could see before, he attacked the interests of those who used their power to harm others as hard as he could. Greedy men and people who used their money to push everyone around were dealt a lesson, normally stealing their most valued possession. And finally, the places with the most advanced security measures were assaulted 'for the sake of the Art', to perfect his skills. In those places, he used to leave at the side of every valuable object he could have stolen a small wooden sign thanking the owners for the training and pointing the leaks in their security system, earning him the title of the 'Training Thief' at the press.
I'm not saying that my father is perfect. He made some mistakes that haunted us when we returned to Japan, but I must say in his defense that he did what he thought was right every time, and that I also had my share of enemies caused by my own mistakes, like with Ryouga.
But the most horrible and weird mistake of our training trip was the one at the most dangerous and wild area of China...
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Tue, 20 Apr 2004 21:09)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.