Friday, March 9, 2007

Sadaharu Inui


Three years prior to the start of the series, Inui and Renji Yanagi were an unstoppable Elementary School Doubles Pairing. Unfortunately, their doubles pairing was ended when Yanagi suddenly moved to the Kanagawa Prefecture.
Inui is a highly intelligent player. He plays what he calls "Data Tennis," which involves collecting and analysing data for a player in order to determine weaknesses. He is even able to determine the exact probability of certain shots being successful. The Data Tennis style actually originated from Yanagi. To his surprise, Data Tennis does not work against
Ryoma Echizen who evolves over the course of a match. Inui also finds it difficult to get accurate data on Shusuke Fuji and Kunimitsu Tezuka.
Inui was beaten by Kaidoh at the beginning of the series, becoming the team's manager. He uses his data to create exercise programs for the team. His most hated innovation would have to be his "Inui Juice" or "Penal Tea" (penalty), a disgusting health drink which is used as punishment. The contents of "Inui Juice" are unknown, but Inui is always coming up with new and "better" recipes. In one episode, when the team went bowling, Inui's new invention "Aouzu" knocked out Kaidou and even Fuji who actually enjoyed drinking the "Inui Juice" or "Penal Tea".
Eventually, Inui is able to make it back as a regular by using the data he obtained over the time he was manager, losing to
Kunimitsu Tezuka but beating Takeshi Momoshiro. While he's a very good singles player, he usually plays doubles with various partners, most notably his sort-of protegé Kaoru Kaidoh.

No comments: