The Garden of Eden Symbolism Explained: Why Tadashi Matters
Alternative Titles: The Parallels Between Renga And Tadai; Tadashi Is God Theory
*deep inhale* TADASHI IS ARGUABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER IN SK8 THE INFINITY. GIVE THIS MAN THE RESPECT HE DESERVES!! and he is metaphorically both God and Satan but i digress.
disclaimer: (hello! i wrote this last year when I was deep in my hyperfixations, but I left it in my drafts because I wasn’t analytical enough to write this the way my brain saw it. collecting dust. and it had been eating me not to share this so I’m posting it in all its flaws and inarticulation!) this is not a coherent, well-written essay, nor would i even call it an essay. it's more of the ramblings of a fan undergoing sk8 withdrawals. you have been warned.
When focusing on the main plot of Sk8, only 4 characters really matter or contribute to it: Reki, Langa, Tadashi, and Adam. And when you analyze each character and their relationships (Renga and Tadai), you realize just how much in common the two pairings have with each other. Particularly between Reki and Tadashi, and Langa and Adam.
Another thing that needs to be established before I continue is the constant allusions to the Bible, wherein the series (particularly Adam/Ainosuke) compares the four to the main people in Genesis 2:
-> While not explicitly mentioned exactly, it can theorized that Reki = The Fruit of Wisdom
If you've watched the show, the allusions seem pretty cut and dry; Adam wants to forever be in the Garden of Eden (The Zone) with his Eve, who he declares was Langa. (certified loverboy? certified pdf.)
BUT after constant Sk8 brainrot, I'm here to explain why it works so well, and why Tadashi is more than just the Snake.
Tadai and Renga: The Similarities
Tadashi and Reki both had no other company but their respective partners in their skating lives: Tadashi being the child of a servant and Reki losing his only skate partner years prior. In fact, they're the reason why their partners became the great skaters they are in the present; they taught them everything they knew and thus formed such a close bond with them. They're kind of like their mentors/teachers.
Adam and Langa truly connected with their partners at a time in their lives when they were most vulnerable and traumatized: Adam being pressured into carrying the family legacy while also suffering abuse from his guardians, and Langa losing his father, the closest person he had at the time, and needing to move to Japan after living in Canada his whole life. They got the support they needed through Tadashi and Reki's company and skateboarding with them, that was when they were at their happiest.
So, with these things in mind, how did Tadai fall apart while Renga thrived? What did Renga have that Tadai didn't?
Tadai and Renga: The Contrasts
The loss of Tadai's relationship wasn't their fault but rather the external factors they were forced to live in. There is an apparent power imbalance, what with Tadashi being inferior to Adam being only a servant. That along with the societal pressure held on Adam and his lack of any kind of support system other than Tadashi, whose status up until that point as an equal was taken away by his father and replaced with something more professional, or conventionally more appropriate.
Contrastingly, Reki and Langa weren't alone. They may be each other's main source of happiness and support, but they weren't the only people they had. They had friends and family that supported them during their fallout or at the very least cared about them (Kokomi tried to cheer her brother up, Nanako gave her son relationship advice, Joe encouraged the two of them to communicate, etc.). And another thing, they were equals from the start. Neither Reki nor Langa had superiority over the other in terms of social status. You could argue that Langa was technically superior due to his skating skills, but he didn't think of himself as better than Reki, there was no external factor that forced them to be apart, it was more of Reki's mentality.
Thematically (symbolically?) speaking, another way to view this is that Tadai is a more mature, older version of Renga, a relationship that has been struck with the burdens of reality and adulthood and therefore wilted away, meanwhile Renga still thrives in its youthful naiive state. (as said by a plethora of queer analyses on sk8)
They're foils of each other, sure, but they were both cut from the same cloth.
Interestingly enough though, because they're foils, both relationships managed to get mended in the end through their differences.
(we're almost there, i promise)
How It All Connects / The Garden Of Eden
The Love Hotel scene in episode 10 when Tadashi was advising Reki to quit skateboarding presents us with a juxtaposition between two conflicting ideas: The Love and Hatred For Skateboarding.
After Adam's father burned his skateboard and made him focus on his political career, Tadai's view on skateboarding now revolved around how skillful one is in it and how that translates to their self-worth how much respect they deserve, a selfish and destructive mindset that ultimately made Tadashi want to compete against his superior to take skateboarding away from him.
We can see this mindset taking over Renga as well; Reki's inferiority complex to Langa was one of the main causes of the break of their friendship, thinking he wasn't good enough to skate with everyone else and that being validated even more by Adam's insults and Langa's skill.
But while Reki and Tadashi may have similarities in the way they viewed skateboarding at the time, Reki has a support system and positive influences in his life (Oka, Joe, etc.) while Tadashi doesn't. And so when he was confronted by Tadashi, Reki was basically being confronted by himself and his own negative emotions, and because of that, he was able to self-reflect and get reminded by the contrasts between them both why he started skating in the first place. TL;DR, Tadashi influenced Reki.
Metaphorically speaking, Tadashi created the Fruit of Wisdom through Reki, which ironically contains the inverted version of his beliefs in skateboarding. Does that make sense?
Then, Reki uses this knowledge to make amends with Langa, thereby reminding him why he began skating too.
Eve took a bite of the Fruit of Wisdom, which was curated by the Snake.
Now, this analogy makes even more sense during episode 11 in Reki's beef with Adam.
-> only langa is able to get through to adam and remind him what tadashi taught him years ago because they are equals, unlike tadashi who is socially inferior to adam because he is his servant (dog), and reki who is nowhere near the skill level as adam. and symbolically, eve was the one who convinced adam to eat the fruit of wisdom too, which makes sense because they are both equals, the only humans in god's garden of eden.
SO! in the end, langa reminds adam the joy in skating, joy that isnt tethered to any form of superiority or power, but joy that was taught to him a long time ago when that sort of thing was never even considered, a joy taught to him by tadashi. adam, reki, and langa's arcs were either directly or indirectly created and resolved by tadashi, it all traces back to him, which is why he is the single most important character in the main plot of sk8 the infinity.
(also technically in this metaphor, since tadashi created the fruit of wisdom, and even shaped adam’s character, does that mean he is not only snake but also god?)
