Giant Killing 20 – Sunken Rice Paddy
I could foolishly attempt to analyze the play of this game, but as I’m not well versed in football, it’d ultimately be futile. I instead direct you over to Emperor J’s coverage of the episode for a more thorough look at the tactics. Instead, I’m going to focus on a single character aspect of the episode. I imagine you’re wondering what on earth a sunken rice paddy has to do with a sports anime. It turns out it’s time for another etymology lesson, this time revolving around Kubota.
Yeah, that's right. This vapid dude.
We can divide the name Kubota into two root characters. The first one, Kubo, defines a sunken ground. The second, Ta, refers to a rice paddy. The Ta character appears in many Japanese surnames due to an edict in the Meiji era. Every person had to provide a surname, and many chose it based on their surroundings. Thus, the surname Kubota, meaning “sunken rice paddy,” is formed!
So why exactly is his name relevant at all to his character? We’ll start with the first character because it’s the easiest to explain. The adjective sunken refers to an object which has been submerged in water. Water can distort or hide the things you put within it. For example, a glacier looks like a small point of ice poking out of the water. Easy to navigate around, right? Unfortunately, water hides a sizable portion of submerged glacier. If you only made a slight course adjustment, you might end up losing your boat! Thus, Kubo refers to his hidden potential. What you see on the surface only hides his true abilities.
This works very nicely with the second character, the rice paddy. Rice, cooked on its own, generally comes out quite plain. You can eat it as a dish, but it doesn’t really bring anything special to the meal. It’s also incredibly common, and a staple of many meals in Asian countries. There’s a reason many languages have the same or similar words for “rice” and “food.” I learned that from Good Eats.
If you've watched this series at all, you know what's coming.
This requires me to go back and change my evaluation of Kubota, which I made in episode 18’s post. At first, I thought he acted timidly. Instead, he’s simply plain. Plain, plainer, plainest. So plain he might get easily confused for plain yogurt. A blank sheet of paper has more going on than Kubota’s outward appearance. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea. However, only a fool would believe this is all rice has to offer. Remember those hidden depths.
Rice has a great deal of versatility. You can eat it perfectly fine as a plain dish, but you can also do so much more with it. You can use boiled rice in many soup recipes, as well as combining it with different types of meat. Adding sweeteners can make a dessert, rather than an appetizer or meal. A countless variety of fried rice exists in Chinese cuisine. The Iranians used it to develop pilaf, while centuries later the Italians made risotto. Again, I could go on forever, but you get the idea. Rice is one of the ultimate culinary multitaskers, able to work well with many dishes in many cooking styles.
Now put it all together. On the surface, Kubota looks plain as can be. You could easily mistake him for an amateur amateur-league player. His appearance hides his incredible abilities. In the direct sense, he has incredible control of the ball. He can probably kick circles around anyone in the league if he really wanted. In an indirect way, he plays exceptionally well with others. His versatility allows him to link up with all three of his fellow forwards, even defying Hauer’s language barrier. While they’ve only shown him working as a playmaker, he could probably score goals of his own as well. Kubota’s name defines him perfectly, and Dulfer has managed to land himself quite a gem for the Osaka Gunners.
I hope class is in session, because you just got SCHOOLED!
