It isn't that Reo doesn't believe in magic. There is a years-old, well-worn tarot deck in his dorm room, and the only times it's steered him wrong is when he misread the cards. If that isn't magic, then Reo would like to know what it is.
But the magic there is in the cards, in the workings of the universe. Reading them is a learned skill, not an innate one. Plus, there's the same problem Haley herself was grappling with before the game began: what on earth would magic be doing in basketball? Reo loves basketball, but it's a mundane activity. There's talent and hard work and passion in it, yes, but not magic.
He tries not to look skeptical to an impolite degree, wishes not for the first time that English had layers of formality built into it the way Japanese does, and answers as carefully as he can.
"What I do with that shot is disrupt my opponent's - ah, equilibrium by moving just so. It disorients him so he can't move."
He has been told more than once by his teammates here that that doesn't make any sense, but he doesn't see why. It isn't as if there's any better explanation.
(Even if Ms Dresden does seem to think otherwise.)
"Basketball is - different in Japan. We learn it differently and some of us create plays that American players - don't have."
Not many of them, it's true, but some of them. Reo's time in America has led him to doubt very strongly that the Generation of Miracles could have happened here.
no subject
But the magic there is in the cards, in the workings of the universe. Reading them is a learned skill, not an innate one. Plus, there's the same problem Haley herself was grappling with before the game began: what on earth would magic be doing in basketball? Reo loves basketball, but it's a mundane activity. There's talent and hard work and passion in it, yes, but not magic.
He tries not to look skeptical to an impolite degree, wishes not for the first time that English had layers of formality built into it the way Japanese does, and answers as carefully as he can.
"What I do with that shot is disrupt my opponent's - ah, equilibrium by moving just so. It disorients him so he can't move."
He has been told more than once by his teammates here that that doesn't make any sense, but he doesn't see why. It isn't as if there's any better explanation.
(Even if Ms Dresden does seem to think otherwise.)
"Basketball is - different in Japan. We learn it differently and some of us create plays that American players - don't have."
Not many of them, it's true, but some of them. Reo's time in America has led him to doubt very strongly that the Generation of Miracles could have happened here.