Spokon
9The Closing · 27Also written: supokon, sports guts, spo-kon
The sports story of guts and suffering, in which a young athlete trains to the point of collapse and wins through sheer will.
9The letters of this term total 27, a 9 — the number of endings, compassion, and the closing of cycles.
What it means
Spokon, from "sports" and konjō, meaning guts or willpower, is the classic Japanese sports story. Its hero is young, often poor, and determined to succeed, and the story is less about the sport than about the suffering and spirit needed to master it.
Where it came from
The genre took shape in the 1960s with Ikki Kajiwara's stories: Star of the Giants, about a boy trained brutally by his father to become a baseball pitcher, and Ashita no Joe, about a boxer. The women's volleyball manga Attack No. 1 brought it to girls' manga. These stories matched the mood of a country working hard to rebuild after the war.
What it looks like
Spokon stories feature harsh training, rivals who become friends, injuries ignored for the sake of the team, and special techniques developed through effort. Victory is earned by refusing to give up.
Today
Modern sports manga, such as Slam Dunk or Haikyu!!, are usually more realistic about technique and kinder to their characters, but the core belief that effort can carry you further than talent comes from spokon.
The term by its numbers
Set against the Pythagorean table, the term totals 27. Reduced, that is 9.
The reference files it as a completion. The number's contribution is endings, compassion, and the closing of cycles — and with it the 9's sense of a cycle closing and something being released, which is the thread the reference follows here.
Beneath the 9 sit two smaller figures: 3 in the vowels, 6 in the consonants. Expression underneath, responsibility on the surface. The gap between them is where the subject is most interesting.
Read on the 9's terms, this entry asks you to work out what survived the ending. The 9 sentimentalises. An ending is not automatically a meaning, and the reference tries not to pretend otherwise. The other entries that reduce to 9 are collected on The Closing.
Seen in
- Ashita no JoeA drifter from the slums of Tokyo becomes a boxer and fights his way towards a world title, at a cost that consumes him.
- Captain TsubasaA boy who treats the ball as his friend sets out to become the best footballer in the world, in the series that made a baseball country love soccer.
- Slam DunkA delinquent joins his school basketball team to impress a girl and discovers he is good at it, in the series that made basketball popular in Japan.