HERO - A Man Who Succeeds the Dying Wishes of AKAGI - Vol. 5 Ch. 38 - Anticipation

[MangaDex]

 

[n3p1c1]

God bless ya Androvoid, that level of redraw is madness. It was worth the wait.
On a side note:

 

[Kanami-chan]

Hiro's been very out of character in this sequel. He's too chad to be a Hiro.

 

[NNNNN]

Good job typesetting the SFX, I know just how much of a pain in the ass getting it right can be.

 

[n3p1c1]

@Kanami-chan It's like he's been possessed by someone or something!

 

[kashihara9999]

Thanks for more HERO!

Personally I see no issues with Hiro's characterization. Some years have passed (he was 20 during the East-West battle and should be around 32 here) and he has matured and improved a lot as a player. He was never particularly bad, a lot of his issues were caused by his lack of experience against skilled gamblers, which is why Harada destroyed him multiple times with his psychological tricks. Hiro also lacked the confidence to win, he used to see himself as a burden on Ten and Akagi. But Akagi's words inspired him to follow his dreams and that's why he was able to actually improve. At least that's how I've always seen it. After all, Hiro was already very good at noticing small details in Ten, it's just that his opponents would use this skill against him.

 

[Kanami-chan]

@kashihara9999
Hiro was supposed to be a talentless 3rd rate player and that's fine. That's the point of Akagi's final lecture to him.
Now he's a genius magical master mahjong psychologist trickster for no reason.

 

[kashihara9999]

@Kanami-chan
Thing is, you're taking Akagi's words too literally. He said that to him because he saw him struggling with his self esteem ("you don't know what's like to be depressed" and such). Hiro doesn't have Akagi's natural talent and he lacked the experience that Ten or Harada have, but he is not Pen-chan. He was always promising: read his match against Ken again where he analyzes the tiles available and gambles on the uradora, or when he carefully executes his plan to betray Washio and steal his place in the final match. That's not what a third-rate player would do. Akagi used that word exactly because Hiro is obsessed with success and feels like trash whenever he makes a mistake, it's such a strong fear that he even abandons his dreams and settles for a job he dislikes. What Akagi is criticizing is that he has given up on his love for mahjong because he's convinced he's always going to be a loser. In another scene, he says to him "don't decide that you're going to lose". His final speech is something similar: he wants him to do what he loves without caring about "failure" or "success" (linked to what he previously said to Harada). I believe that Hiro already had what you need to become a strong player, but he had to get over his fear of never being good enough, which is why I don't see any issues with HERO.

 

[Pigeonman]

The SFX typesetting is great! I can honestly wait for new chapters if it means for great redraws! I especially love the credits page with Oyanogi and Okata!

 

[nonsensefakename]

Amazing that you guys are translating Hero, the lore callbacks in this manga are so great and each gamble has very distinct strategies going on, we got tile rotation, being blind, fucking ultrasounds and baseball mahjong.

 

[Toa777]

@Kanami-chan
Thing is, you're taking Akagi's words too literally. He said that to him because he saw him struggling with his self esteem ("you don't know what's like to be depressed" and such). Hiro doesn't have Akagi's natural talent and he lacked the experience that Ten or Harada have, but he is not Pen-chan. He was always promising: read his match against Ken again where he analyzes the tiles available and gambles on the uradora, or when he carefully executes his plan to betray Washio and steal his place in the final match. That's not what a third-rate player would do. Akagi used that word exactly because Hiro is obsessed with success and feels like trash whenever he makes a mistake, it's such a strong fear that he even abandons his dreams and settles for a job he dislikes. What Akagi is criticizing is that he has given up on his love for mahjong because he's convinced he's always going to be a loser. In another scene, he says to him "don't decide that you're going to lose". His final speech is something similar: he wants him to do what he loves without caring about "failure" or "success" (linked to what he previously said to Harada). I believe that Hiro already had what you need to become a strong player, but he had to get over his fear of never being good enough, which is why I don't see any issues with HERO.

Exactly this. You have a great understanding of Hiro's character. He was never average just surrounded by monsters which decreased his potential as he kept loosing and trying to compare himself with them and started to fear failure so instead of getting better decided to just quit, until Akagi's funeral arc.