The Truth of Hard Work Beats Talent | Why You Should Read Teppuu

In the world of stories revolving around action, combat, and strength, there is no theme that is more commonly discussed than “hard work beats talent.” Whether it be a story of a loud-mouthed ninja fighting to gain the respect of his village or of an everyman who rose to the occasion with his own two fists, this theme is often associated with these stories to the point of them being the sole focus. I mean, why wouldn’t it? We as humans desire the right to be special. We see those more talented than us and want to be like them, crushed by the reality that our efforts mean nothing in the face of someone who’s simply better than us. We view ourselves as trying our hardest while others seem to achieve what we struggle with so easily… as if they weren’t trying at all. It’s the classic blue collar worker fighting against the establishment, and thus the idea often goes hand-in-hand with the underdog story. This theme being so focused on then becomes a problem for many when a story still asserts that characters with talent end up winning in the end. Take the classic debate of whether or not Daniel LaRusso in Karate Kid really was the hero of the story. He was just some random kid who learned karate who fought against Johnny Lawrence of Cobra Kai, who trained all of his life and dedicated everything he had to that martial art yet still lost in the end to someone who just picked up what he gave so much of his life to on a whim. Doesn’t this go against the idea that hard work beats talent? But realize that both worked equally as hard, and both seemed to have an equal level of skill, the deciding factor being something outside those two ideas. And once you realize that hard work beats talent is merely a facet of a greater point within the story, we see that there is more than just these two things…and that perhaps only focusing on these things reflects on why so many of us, despite our talents and efforts, don’t succeed in the end.

It’s through this theme that I want to take a look at an overlooked and fairly unknown martial arts manga by Ohta Moare that was published in the seinen magazine good! Afternoon and how it explores the nature of talent through a very unique lens, because Teppuu places this idea front and center as part of its narrative. But what I want to focus on today rather than going over more of the main crux of the story, that being its focus on women’s MMA and thus a critique of gender roles and the nature of a woman choosing to enter that world, is how Teppuu, rather than debunking hard work beats talent entirely, moreso exposes the core of what that kind of story entails. Because talent is a thing very much focused on throughout the story, mainly by comparing our main character Ishidou Natsuo to her foil and rival Mawatari Yuzuko, surrounding both characters with people that serve to frame this theme and its nature by having their two journeys clash. If you haven’t read this manga, I highly recommend it as it’s one of my all-time favorites, but hopefully by the end of this video, you will not only want to check it out, but also have a new perspective on this theme that has been misconstrued and more often than not used to malign the core of various other series.

Teppu is very blatant with showing which characters exhibit which aspects of hard work beats talent, the most notable being Natsuo herself. On top of her academic and athletic abilities, her appearance is slender, beautiful, and more importantly taller than everyone else, the very first page being her standing above a boy confessing to her. By comparison, Yuzuko is extremely boyish and short. So from the get-go, you would think that what this story is is just a classic underdog story but our perspective is reversed, yet that doesn’t seem to be the case. In order to explain why, we must first see how Teppuu frames the nature of talent and how it will go forward discussing it, and our best example is in Chapter 1 where Natsuo gives us the following inner dialogue:

By portraying talent as lonesome and a burden rather than something to be glorified, it could be argued that Teppuu’s approach towards these types of stories is very cynical, but it’s not as if this type of loneliness is necessarily new. We see characters like Natsuo in stories like One Punch Man, where the main theme of this series revolves around Saitama and his desire to have a fulfilling fight and thus being maligned or misunderstood due to his overwhelming power. But we also see characters like Gaara and Sosuke Aizen as major parts of their respective series dealing with a similar struggle; desperate for someone to understand them. Their talents that stand above others aren’t something they view as admirable, and often are a curse that prevents them from understanding those around them and for others to understand them, pushing Gaara to be as violent and hateful as he is and Aizen to desire power above all others. In this world we live in, we idolize those with talent as people to look up to, but more often than not we view them from a lens of jealousy. Those who are above others in ability can’t stand with them, and are forcefully pushed out into isolation over something they couldn’t control and never asked for. This inner monologue by Natsuo is preceded by her taping up her fingers before going to practice, with her asserting that doing so is less for her own sake but to give the others around her the idea that she’s trying when in reality she doesn’t even need it. Thus, we can see that the appeal of the underdog story is moreso this idea of camaraderie; that this person just like us in the audience, is showing me that I can try my best and achieve something great. To then carry that idea further, it then follows that talent is the opposite: a lonely mountain where only one person can stand. And while there are stories that blatantly spell out the burden of that loneliness, it’s Teppuu’s framing of it where we see that talent is not something to be admired as it’s the source of Natsuo’s conflict. 

Natsuo’s desire is to find something that actually challenges her and fulfills her the way she sees everyone else. She never had to try at anything, and as a result ended up with an attitude that made her look down on others, and the only way for her to even hold back the jealous stares was to pretend in some way that she was trying. It’s not a desire to win, but rather a wish to understand what pushing and craving that desire to win is like. Her love of crushing the spirits of people weaker than her is her own way of expressing the same jealousy others project at her, and her first encounter with Yuzuko shows her rage at the sight of someone having this fulfillment that she could never achieve, with not only Yuzuko fighting against her pretty well but making her bleed where no one else, even her childhood friend Sawamura Sanae, was capable of doing to that level. And much worse, with a face filled with joy. This exchange is followed by a single line:

Ironic as that may seem considering Natsuo’s immense talent and gifts, it’s through the story of Teppuu that we come to realize what she meant by that line, explained through the very idea that while Natsuo with her immense talent is seen as a monster in her own right, even Mawatari Yuzuko is frightening to the most talented of people, including her own rival Ringi Cordeiro, the pedigreed daughter of the world’s greatest MMA fighter Mario Cordeiro. In fact, Ringi is placed within the story to compound a very specific idea, because Teppuu isn’t just a story about MMA, but more accurately women’s MMA.

Though I want to discuss the importance of Teppuu focusing on gender roles and on women’s MMA in a future video where I can be far more in-depth on the discussion, it’s important to look at why Teppuu chose to not only focus on this specific aspect but also blatantly has a cast dominated by women. Considering the time that Teppu was published, there’s a couple things you have to keep in mind. In the year 2008 when this manga was published, the UFC was still far from being as big as it is now, let alone the whole of the sport of mixed martial arts and the female presence in that already niche of niches was miniscule. As portrayed by the events of the story, even the biggest and most famous of female mixed martial artists were only capable of drawing in a crowd that filled up less than half of the venue. Arguably, until the rise of Ronda Rousey in the early 2010’s, women’s MMA was a wasteland of crushing and unfulfilled expectations with women who were starved for the spotlight they felt they deserved yet never truly achieved. And more interesting is this quote from the series that rings all the more true as to why this is:

For a man, you’re taught that combat and strength are things to pursue for glory and praise; it’s encouraged by others around them to continue to build strength and dominate others with their power. Men naturally have biological advantages that make them better suited for combat and the capacity to build strength that women just don’t have. It’s as if the world itself is telling you that if you’re a girl not given the natural gifts of a man, then don’t even try to stand in this world: the epitome of natural talent standing above the hard work of others without it. Even Natsuo is shown to be trapped by this idea, as her relationship with her older brother is based around her belief that a man is stronger than a woman, believing her older brother to be above her despite her natural talent crushing him and saying otherwise. Thus, the only kind of person who can stand in this brutal world are people who are either exceptional or insane.

And Ringi’s defeat of Japan’s strongest male MMA fighter displays how monstrous she actually is. A girl, even more terrifyingly, a teenage girl, dominated a man who was supposed to be much stronger than her, live in front of his very own nation. She is the embodiment of a monster who stands above the others. Yet she is comparable to Mawatari Yuzuko. And we get this interesting description of her by not just herself but by Mario Cordeiro who trained her. She’s not exactly naturally talented, as in their childhood Ringi was able to far surpass her while she struggled to do the basic things. Yet now they stand neck and neck. And to compound this, Ringi as a kid was terrified of Yuzuko; this monster who could even crush men was afraid of this little girl…and it all had to do with the look on her face.

What made Yuzuko so terrifying wasn’t her skill. It wasn’t her ability or even her will; it was the look on her face when you fought her. No matter how many times you beat her down and no matter how many times she struggled and failed, she was always smiling as if it was the most fun thing in the world. Even when her parents came to stop her from getting beaten up, her response was simply:

And even in this story where monsters of talent capable of incredible feats of strength and skill, Yuzuko is the most terrifying of them all. That joy she has in fighting is all she needs to drive her. Whereas everyone else pursues strength for glory, family and proving their own worth, Yuzuko’s only drive is to continue having fun for as long as she can and that drive crushed every opponent that she faced. Rather than hard work beats talent, it’s simply her joy and her own awareness of who she is that allows her to be unstoppable. 

Natuso’s talent was a curse. It pushed everyone else around her away and branded her as a monster. It made her seem as if she was looking down on and disrespecting the efforts of others when that was never the case; she simply had no reason to struggle because she just managed to get everything easier than everyone else, but her own dislike of that talent made her miserable. She couldn’t have happiness because the very thing she had that everyone else desired was what caused her so much pain. It was so damaging that it crushed her older brother who she saw as her hero. She always envisioned him as being better than her and whether she realized it or not ended up placing that burden onto him to try to be stronger. But how could he do that when his little sister who admired him crushed his pride over and over again? It pushed him to the breaking point, and that line we see her say about Yuzuko is given new context, because her older brother who she wanted to protect and looked up to shouted in his rage and hatred of his own weakness:

What I’ve noticed about most underdog stories is that they are less about a person without talent beating someone with talent, but moreso about a person who believes themselves to be nothing realizing they are something; who begin the story rejecting a part of themselves that makes them more exceptional than they initially believe. Rocky Balboa isn’t an untalented boxer. In fact, throughout the course of the entire franchise, the very opposite is shown. Rather, he believes himself to be nothing more than a bum, a person bound to his circumstances and unable to achieve anything because he’s who he is. Yet Mickey asserted that Rocky could have been the best in the world if he just tried, and his fight against Apollo Creed was him realizing that potential. Because he doesn’t even win this first fight. Rocky loses to Apollo in the first film, and rather than celebrating that he’s there in that ring like everyone else around him is, he turns to Adrian, the person who believed in him from the start. Rocky is an underdog story, yet it’s not that he without talent defeated Apollo who had it, but that this person who had no joy in his life and didn’t believe in his own capabilities was given the chance to struggle and confront it. THIS is the core of the underdog story, and furthermore is the core of hard work beats talent. Think as well about who popularized the statement “hard work beats talent when talent don’t work hard”. It’s Kevin Durant, one of the greatest and most skilled basketball players in the NBA. To succeed requires both hard work AND talent. You can’t succeed with only one or the other, but more important than any of that is genuine love for what you’re doing and a belief in the capabilities that you have. The reason why Natsuo, for all of her talent and ability, was unable to defeat Yuzuko was simply because Yuzuko had everything: that everything being the drive to push past the worries of talent and hard work. 

Natsuo’s victory came not by beating anybody or by winning the right to enter G-Girl, but when she finally lost to Yuzuko. By finally tasting what it was like to lose, she was finally able to step down from the mountain of talent and feel the one thing she always desired. Because, when she finally was able to see what she accomplished, she realized that it wasn’t just her talent. She worked hard to enter G-Girl. She trained every single day leading up to that competition and was able to connect  with these people that she trained with and fought against. We see her lose that chip on her shoulder, best shown by her passing her childhood friend Sanae with no feelings of malice. And the resolution of this is her interaction with her older brother, who finally saw her competing and fighting with all of her might: in that octagon she didn’t seem like a monster anymore. She was trying just as hard as everyone else and loved fighting as much as any other human girl who stood in that ring. For the first time she appeared human, and she was able to see how far she came.

Teppuu is not a story that debunks hard work beats talent nor is it the subversion of the classic underdog story, because looking at it from this angle of the true meaning behind why Yuzuko, who worked so hard despite her apparent lack of natural talent, was still unstoppable in the face of the talented Natsuo, Natsuo from the very start WAS the underdog. There was no way she was going to beat Yuzuko, and even in their fight, she still had that look of joy the entire time. But more importantly, both of them were the same. Both were monsters in their own right and both were equally as excited to face the other because, looking at it from a different angle, Yuzuko was also alone. Everyone in her class was still afraid of her and saw her as weird, and even Natsuo identified that Yuzuko was excited because she thought she found someone in the same boat as her. Both were able to make a connection and find fulfillment in this fight because Natsuo was able to find that struggle and feeling of fighting in vain that would push her to new heights…and Yuzuko found someone else who loved MMA just like her; a love she didn’t have until she realized that focusing and despairing over talent and hard work is not the path to connection, but simply to push through all of that to do what makes you fulfilled.