omg a essay
Kay so I gave in and finally made some decisions about what Sano's family life is like based on the two lines about them in the series. And also some of Sano's behavior in canon. There's some not-so-random rambling on bits of his personality near the end of it too.
So. In the series Sano is given very little in the way of a background. All we know about his family is that he moves because of his father's job, his grandfather likes to spout sayings at him apparently, and he is pretty much allowed to do whatever he wants (this last one is a bit of assumption based on things he does in canon). SO what does all this say about his family life?
First let's look at the moving. Sano mentions this very casually. He's clearly not resentful or sad about the move, which indicates a few things. A) He is fond enough of his family to not be upset with them for the move, B) he is dependent enough on them to need to follow them when they move, and C) he is either independent enough to not be bothered by leaving friends behind, or he's the sort to keep in touch and therefore not be concerned about drifting away. I play Sano as the latter of option C given his dedication to Wanko and teammates during the series. A and B are the only ones really relevant to this essay -- Sano likes his family and is financially and/or emotionally dependent on them and relies on them for the support they can give him. He has little to no problems accepting major life changes brought on by his family.
Next is his grandfather's random wise love commentary. What his grandfather said was something along the lines of 'It's difficult to hate someone once you've loved them,' and we know that 'cause Sano shares it with Rinko in the late episodes. Sano says that it wasn't something he understood at the time which, to me, implies two possibilities. First, that Sano was too young to properly process the information, and/or that his grandfather was speaking about a situation that Sano was not directly involved in -- that it was an attempt to explain why a friend or relative was having difficulty in a relationship or ending a relationship. And I note that because his grandfather has to be/had to have been close enough to Sano to a) notice or realize that the situation was or could affect him and b) care enough to try and explain it to him. It's a very offhand comment that could be easily overlooked or just connected to a Rinko/Sano shipping, but it does carry implications of, at the least, a friendly family environment. Sano gets along with his family and they like him and things are good. It's supportive.
Of course then we get to all the crazy stuff Sano does in the series and just go wtf. The guy rock-climbs without gear. He rides on top of vans. He travels around on his own no apparent interference from parents -- both during and after the tournament. The travel during the tournament is an assumption I've made, admittedly. Sano defeated a notably large number of people during the first round, and a good portion of those people were defeated when he was actively avoiding Wanko and reluctantly working for Robert's Ten. He had to have been able to travel around on his own to find all those people and defeat them, and he never makes any mention of having to make up excuses to his parents or arguments about skipping school. Even assuming every power user lived no more than a days journey from him, he had to have missed enough classes for his parents to wonder. If they paid attention to that kind of thing. So, while his parents likely are caring people and like to see their son happy, they're pretty inattentive about his safety and whereabouts. There's an indifference or assumption that 'oh he'll be fine. |D He'll be back soon, don't worry about it! You'll get wrinkles :| Oh damnit did he get scarred AGAIN? D:'
All this boils down to a couple of things -- Sano is used to supportive and close, friendly family-type groups. This is reflected a bit in how he treats his teammates during the series. He's very dedicated to them and is protective and really does do his best to encourage Hideyoshi, the member with the most useless power. He looks out for them and wants them to be okay and cares about them. He is also used to little to no actual supervision -- and this doesn't bother him! |D He's very independent and likes to do things on his own. He makes a lot of his own decisions: joining the tournament, wanting to find his own onsen, going off to travel the world at the series end, etc. He likes this freedom and this, in part, contributes to him getting pretty irritable when someone does try to obviously exercise control over him. He's not used to it. It's pretty foreign and he's had REALLY BAD EXPERIENCE with people trying to control him. (D< DAMN YOU TEN) People he views as friends are an exception to this rule -- Wanko and Roy being good examples of this as they're both adults and in positions of authority in one way or another. They're nonthreatening and tend to ask more often than they tell him to do things. And as a result if they ever did tell him to do something, so long as he didn't think it was completely retarded or would end up harming them/someone else in some way, he'd most likely do it without a lot of arguing 'cause he likes and respects them, not because he sees them as an authority figure.
Tell me if I missed anything/something doesn't make sense! |D Or if you want me to expand on something I dunno.
So. In the series Sano is given very little in the way of a background. All we know about his family is that he moves because of his father's job, his grandfather likes to spout sayings at him apparently, and he is pretty much allowed to do whatever he wants (this last one is a bit of assumption based on things he does in canon). SO what does all this say about his family life?
First let's look at the moving. Sano mentions this very casually. He's clearly not resentful or sad about the move, which indicates a few things. A) He is fond enough of his family to not be upset with them for the move, B) he is dependent enough on them to need to follow them when they move, and C) he is either independent enough to not be bothered by leaving friends behind, or he's the sort to keep in touch and therefore not be concerned about drifting away. I play Sano as the latter of option C given his dedication to Wanko and teammates during the series. A and B are the only ones really relevant to this essay -- Sano likes his family and is financially and/or emotionally dependent on them and relies on them for the support they can give him. He has little to no problems accepting major life changes brought on by his family.
Next is his grandfather's random wise love commentary. What his grandfather said was something along the lines of 'It's difficult to hate someone once you've loved them,' and we know that 'cause Sano shares it with Rinko in the late episodes. Sano says that it wasn't something he understood at the time which, to me, implies two possibilities. First, that Sano was too young to properly process the information, and/or that his grandfather was speaking about a situation that Sano was not directly involved in -- that it was an attempt to explain why a friend or relative was having difficulty in a relationship or ending a relationship. And I note that because his grandfather has to be/had to have been close enough to Sano to a) notice or realize that the situation was or could affect him and b) care enough to try and explain it to him. It's a very offhand comment that could be easily overlooked or just connected to a Rinko/Sano shipping, but it does carry implications of, at the least, a friendly family environment. Sano gets along with his family and they like him and things are good. It's supportive.
Of course then we get to all the crazy stuff Sano does in the series and just go wtf. The guy rock-climbs without gear. He rides on top of vans. He travels around on his own no apparent interference from parents -- both during and after the tournament. The travel during the tournament is an assumption I've made, admittedly. Sano defeated a notably large number of people during the first round, and a good portion of those people were defeated when he was actively avoiding Wanko and reluctantly working for Robert's Ten. He had to have been able to travel around on his own to find all those people and defeat them, and he never makes any mention of having to make up excuses to his parents or arguments about skipping school. Even assuming every power user lived no more than a days journey from him, he had to have missed enough classes for his parents to wonder. If they paid attention to that kind of thing. So, while his parents likely are caring people and like to see their son happy, they're pretty inattentive about his safety and whereabouts. There's an indifference or assumption that 'oh he'll be fine. |D He'll be back soon, don't worry about it! You'll get wrinkles :| Oh damnit did he get scarred AGAIN? D:'
All this boils down to a couple of things -- Sano is used to supportive and close, friendly family-type groups. This is reflected a bit in how he treats his teammates during the series. He's very dedicated to them and is protective and really does do his best to encourage Hideyoshi, the member with the most useless power. He looks out for them and wants them to be okay and cares about them. He is also used to little to no actual supervision -- and this doesn't bother him! |D He's very independent and likes to do things on his own. He makes a lot of his own decisions: joining the tournament, wanting to find his own onsen, going off to travel the world at the series end, etc. He likes this freedom and this, in part, contributes to him getting pretty irritable when someone does try to obviously exercise control over him. He's not used to it. It's pretty foreign and he's had REALLY BAD EXPERIENCE with people trying to control him. (D< DAMN YOU TEN) People he views as friends are an exception to this rule -- Wanko and Roy being good examples of this as they're both adults and in positions of authority in one way or another. They're nonthreatening and tend to ask more often than they tell him to do things. And as a result if they ever did tell him to do something, so long as he didn't think it was completely retarded or would end up harming them/someone else in some way, he'd most likely do it without a lot of arguing 'cause he likes and respects them, not because he sees them as an authority figure.
Tell me if I missed anything/something doesn't make sense! |D Or if you want me to expand on something I dunno.