Umihara Norika Analysis
Umihara Norika is surely one of the bravest, strongest, kindest character of the new season and in this analysis we’ll see why!
First thing first, it’s rare in a sport anime to see such a well written female character so I’d like to give my kudos to Level5 for bringing her to life (even if they abandoned her during Orion grr) and for giving little girls someone they could relate to.
We first meet her at the very beginning of Ares, facing, alongside her teammates, a very difficult decision: leaving the island or not in order to keep playing football. Now, of course we already knew that they all were going to agree, but seeing Norika’s thoughts process was very insightful of her character.
She wants to go, she loves soccer and long for a way to keep playing it, but at the same time she lives with a single mom and has always been there for her and with her, helping her out in the job that gave them the money to go on. It’s obviously not an easy choice when those are the premises, is it? One would normally falter and decide to put their dreams on hold to be helpful for the family, and it’s a thing that many kids with single parents experience daily. It’s painful but needed.
So she would’ve probably refused the offer, but her mother came in, encouraging her to go seek her dreams and silently telling her to not worry about her. Go be a kid, basically, don’t try and bare your own mother’s weight on your young shoulders because you think you HAVE TO.
With this subtext in mind, Norika did leave with the others, acting a bit like everyone’s mother with her kind spirit, but that’s not all her character is about, not at all!
She’s the only one we see seriously training, and not just any training, Endou’s one.
She was tasked with the harshest one, the coach “tested” her and her strength and she didn’t back down, she didn’t refuse the challenge she was given.
Norika kept on training and training with all the other team’s members looking at her with fear in their eyes, fear she wouldn’t take it. Fear that she would break.
And she did, after days of being hit violently by a giant tire, she admitted she couldn’t go any further,
causing the coach to say that he probably asked too much of her. That’s when she snapped.
That’s what made her so depressed she cried alone in the dark on her bed.
Somebody told her she wasn’t enough, after all she did, after all she had to bear both physically (the training) an mentally (being far from home at such a young age), of course she felt like shit! But then her mom indirectly reminded her about the strength she always had had inside her, about the strength of hard work and the determination she was capable of since a very young age.
After that she didn’t waste any time, no waiting for morning to come, she just rushed to train in the middle of the night because her fire was renewed and she was READY!
And her hard work paid off!
From that moment on we see her stepping up her training game,
going always for the hardest route, pushing her body to the limit and never, ever ever giving up.
It’s inspiring how she’s always ready to fight and face adversity even with no instructions at all, she simply always does her best with no need for anybody to remind her to.
She’s THAT much of an hard worker. And she’s always learning, but not from somebody else, not from the coach or another player, but from herself. In the most crucial moments she always remembers something happened in her past that will grant her the key to success now in the present,
meaning that everything she needs to know, everything she should become… she already knows and she already is.
No one has anything to teach her because she’s already strong, she’s already brave, she’s already kind. She simply needs to remember, to dive deep inside her own heart to rediscover who Umihara Norika really is.
And she’s a woman of the sea, the fiercest kind.
