Snuka is really feeling the pressure here. He is down two strikes, the Tanuki has obviously figured him out, the Injun is burning with rage over past genocides…and all that in front of an audience that has gotten a good (and hilarious) look at his privates. Snuka may be wondering where his legendary mental resilience went to, but I think it’s actually quite present – just that it already takes nearly all of it to just keep him standing upright at this point.
There is, in fact, only one type of pressure Snuka is not feeling*: time pressure. In sports anime/manga, protagonists are always granted as much time as they need to engage in deep and comprehensive contemplation. The tenser the situation, and the less time is actually available in the physical world, the more space is granted to a character’s ruminations. Ahead of a game-deciding shot or pitch, a character has more than enough time to thoroughly analyze the strategic situation, summarize all matches they’ve ever played in and relive any and all formative moments from their youth, childhood and potentially earlier lifes. Everything they’ve ever experienced has lead up to this one, decisive moment out on the field, so naturally all of it needs to be reflected on in that one-split second of physical time available. And, I mean, you can always explain the obvious discrepancy away by saying the character’s thoughts are simply moving at light-speed due to the tenseness of the situation. Like how your subjective perception of the flow of time changes when you sit on a hot stove-top, right? I believe that’s a real thing, but admit I’ve never been able to get myself to try it out.
Snuka doesn’t have that much time, though. It’s an important pitch, but not yet a game-deciding one. He has to limit himself to key memories relevant to the situation, and he chooses wisely: the whole point of the training camp from hell was to give the players moments they can think back to fondly in tense and decisive moments. Well, perhaps not ‘fondly’ as such, but, you know, effectively. For Snuka specifically, much of the training camp from hell was about becoming a bigger man, something he’s definitely in sore need of. Unfortunately, his personality was judged irredeemably rotten even by the standards of denizens of Hell. So the demons decided the best they could do was making him physically taller at least. But even that proved difficult. Being the universe’s favorite chew-toy, powerful forces are arrayed against him ever growing beyond a conveniently chewable size. The demons racked him until their own joints were sore…and they still managed to gain only 2 mm for him. A small defeat for the universe, but a defeat nonetheless.
More on Thursday.
* Well, ignoring the obvious fact that he’s also never feeling any pressure from his conscience.