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Technician Versus Performer: Difference between revisions
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== [[Anime]] ==
* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'': In a way Vegeta is the Technician to Goku's performer. Vegeta trains and fights to be the strongest fighter in the universe, he also never spars, pushes himself waaaay too hard and his pride won't allow him to ask for help. Goku trains and fights because he loves it and is willing to learn from and train with others. In the end Goku is the better fighter despite not taking his training quite as seriously as Vegeta.
** A better example may be Piccolo (post [[Heel Face Turn]] anyway) and Goku... Or, frankly, anyone else in the series that isn't a normal little human. While preternaturally strong, he usually ends up registering about a 7 or 8 while others spike at 10-15. But he's just so damn ''good'' and knows so many techniques (when it doesn't just come down to a planet-busting [[Beam-O-War]]) that he can hold his own with the best of them. [[The Worf Effect|Unless he's the one that gets picked on to prove "how much a threat" the new villain is.]]
* ''[[Kaleido Star]]'': Sora is the Performer; Leon and May are mainly Technicians. Layla, however, has both traits despite her [[Defrosting Ice Queen]] persona. Marion lampshades this when she comments on Sora's incompetence as part of the reason she's such a crowd pleaser: knowing that she might screw up keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. Unlike Leon (too racked with guilt and angst to enjoy what he does) and May (too intent on winning to care about the audience), Sora loves her job and plays to the crowd... and sometimes too hard.
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* Briefly mentioned in a volume or episode of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', where Winry and Cheska debate over whether cooking is a science or an art.
* The ''[[Swan]]'' manga takes a different approach to this - heroine Masumi's originality and enthusiasm take her quite a long way, true...but it doesn't always triumph against her rivals, who often have superior skill on ''top'' of originality.
* Played in ''[[Skip Beat!]]'' with Kyoko and Kanae. While in the beginning it seemed that both were going to develop a Performer/Technician rivalry, soon it's revealed that Kanae, while more of a Technician actress than Kyoko, is able to pull Performer-like stunts when needed... and for a while, is ''Kanae'' who loves more her selected career (Kyoko was there more for the fame-making potential she needed for her revenge, [[Character Development|until she grows out of that]]). Besides, ''both'' girls are in the Love Me team, a division for people who, while very talented, still lacks a certain quality who drives the public to
* ''[[Nodame Cantabile]]'' initially seems to set up this kind of conflict between uptight perfectionist Chiaki and quirky free spirit Nodame, particularly when their mentor Stresemann criticizes Chiaki's performance of Rachmanioff for lacking "sexiness." The conflict never quite materializes, however; Chiaki, despite his more technician-like approach to his art, regularly stuns audiences with the quality of his performances, and his technical skill is accompanied by a genuine love of and passion for music. Meanwhile, although Nodame also loves music and has a natural talent which Chiaki recognizes immediately, the fact that she takes it much less seriously and lacks Chiaki's drive proves to be a problem which hinders her performances.
** The trope is deconstructed in ''[[Nodame Cantabile]]'', in that neither pure technician nor pure performer is right or better for classical music. A classical musician should have the mix of both. It is also implied that there is no right mix either. Chiaki and Kuroki are more towards the technician part, while Nodame and Jean Donnadieu are more towards the performer part. All of them are celebrated, but just in different ways, and it's difficult to say who is better.
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** Not necessarily. Those were losses in his professional career. And Jack's specialty, akin to Kaiba in the original, is that he favors beatdown. Yusei counters this with strategies often centered around weaker monsters with protective abilities.
** And take into account the definition of 'technician' in [[The Verse|the Yugiverse]]:For example: Yusei's combos for summoning Stardust Dragon, his level 8 Ace [[Mons]]ter, are truly numerous, with some marvels as Junk Warrior(5)+Junk Synchron(3), Debris Dragon(4)+Bolt Hedgehog(2)+Speed Warrior(2), and Junk Synchron+Bolt Hedgehog+Speed Warrior+Tuning Supporter(1). As for Jack and his [[Mon]]ster of equal level, Red Demon's Dragon, his usual is a Vice Dragon(5)+ Dark Resonator(3), and very few times does he deviate. In terms of combo and strategy creation, Yusei is the Performer and Jack is the Technician, because the former uses every card's effect to its fullest in near unheard of ways whilst he latter uses mainly tried and tested methods which tends to bore the audience, [[Truth in Television]] when looking at the [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys]] who look down on those not using Top-Tier Decks. Can be an [[Irony]] judging by the metagame. Yusei's flashy, interesting and complex combo is the basis on one of the most sucessful deck at the time, yet while decks that uses simpler tried and tested combo while sucessful(such example being Six Samurai and Dragunity) never manage to be as sucessful as the former.
* ''[[Bakuman｡]]'' has an interesting version of this, making the Technician(s) the protagonist, yet also putting both sides on equal ground. The main characters, Takagi and Mashiro, are clearly the technicians, being praised for their calculating intelligence and technical skill at writing manga together, yet get bogged when trying to write something mainstream because they can't come up with an exceptionally interesting premise. Their main rival, Niizuma Eiji is presented as a natural genius who simply draws whatever he feels like and cranks out hits, yet is also criticized for the lack of depth in his work. Then it turns out that the Performer is a
** The trope is still mostly played straight, since Eiji's work (especially Crow) consistently outperforms every other named character's manga, including the main pair's. But they're much closer to Eiji's level than most instances of this trope.
*** Lately in manga Eiji also came closer to Technician side, especially with {{spoiler|his new series, "Zombie Gun"}}, that is far more plotted than previous.
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* This is oddly inverted in ''[[The Cherry Project]]'', a pre-[[Sailor Moon]] [[Naoko Takeuchi]] manga. The protagonist and newcomer figure skater Chieri learns everything she knows by copying others' technical moves, but doesn't have the "artistic grace" that semi-pro Canty has.
* The Manga ''Piano no Mori'' exemplifies this trope in the relation between friends and competing pianists Shuhei (the technician) and Kai (the performer).
* Played with in ''[[Hikaru no Go]]'', with Hikaru (Performer) and Akira (Technician). The twist is that while Akira thinks Hikaru is good enough to play at his level from the start, that's actually not true, and it takes Hikaru years to reach a level where he can compete with him. Even then
* ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula]]'' has Hayato Kazami (performer) and Naoki Shinjyo (technician). While Hayato races with the help of an AI computer, Shinjyo has been racing for years. In the latter half of the TV series, Randoll plays the technician to Hayato's performer. Asuka lampshades this when she has a conversation with him.
* ''[[Macross Plus]]'' features a literal chart graphing the performances of test pilots Guld (the Technician) and Isamu (the Performer), with Isamu's wildly inconstant numbers nonetheless surpassing (most of) Guld's steady and even progression.
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* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has the Negi and Kotaro. Negi is the technician, Kotaro is the performer. Several of Negi's teachers try to show him the value of being a performer.
* Barnaby and Kotetsu in ''[[Tiger and Bunny]].'' Barnaby is the Technician who calculates his actions to win him the most points and garner the most fame. Kotetsu is the Performer who just goes by his instincts and puts his all into being a [[Superhero|Hero]] because [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|he wants to help people.]] {{spoiler|In the second half of the series, Barnaby admits that he admires Kotetsu's sincerity and dedication to the job, though he wouldn't necessarily adopt Kotetsu's methods as his own.}}
* The partnership between [[Keet|Eiji Kikumaru]] and [[Yamato Nadeshiko|Shuuichiro Oishi]] in ''[[The Prince of Tennis]]'' is this through and through. Eiji is the Performer: crowd-pleasing, flashy, acrobatic. Meanwhile, Oishi is the Technician: reliable, methodic, rational. Lampshaded in the manga where, in their first year, Eiji challenged Oishi to a duel since he thought he was a boring player... and was curb stomped ''thrice'', thus deciding to become his partner instead. It's also seen the Hyoutei matches: when Eiji has to team up with [[Boisterous Bruiser|Momoshirou]] due to Oishi being injured, he's [[Heroic BSOD|in such an emotional turmoil]] since they've never played without each other, that it takes him a while to recover his spirits and be able to synch better with Momoshirou.
** Actually, almost all partnerships have elements of this (though [[In-Series Nickname|the Golden Pair]] is the most blatant example). [[Samurai|Sanada]] and [[Magnificent Bastard|Atobe]] are good examples as well: Sanada is the Technician through and through, Atobe is both Performer ''and'' Technician, and it takes them a while to work well together.
* ''[[Yuri!!! on Ice]]'' gives a thorough examination on this duality, given that it revolves around figure skating, a sport that has both artistic and technical feat components:
** One of the first things we learn about Yuuri Katsuki is that he got to his current level because he practices constantly, making people inside and out of universe initially believe that he has a Technician-type of skater... except that, actually, Yuuri's actual strengths are in ''performer-like'' type of moves, like step sequence and figures, as he tends to choke while doing jumps and other highly technical moves, with only his presentation points to save his score. As Victor points out, Yuuri is "capable to create music while skating" but is held back on his potential by his comparatively lacking technical points, so when Victor coaches Yuuri he specifically goes into ironing those kinks (read, improve his jumps and make his performing anxiety under control) to increase his chances to medal.
** Victor Nikiforov is so incredibly skilled (he regularly gets technical scores that in real life would give anyone who gets them a world record), that we could peg him immediately as a Technician. His actual mentality, however, is of a Performer, constantly pushing himself to give more surprising performance each year. But after years of this, he has become extremely tired of the mental effort of speculating what could surprise the public this time and fears that he is getting [[Creative Sterility]], which, along with him getting old for competitive skating standards, factors on his retirement decision at the beginning of the series.
** This also becomes the problem with Yuri Plisetki. He was so accustomed in his Junior days to act as a Technician and steamroll his competition with his physical abilities, he isn't really prepared for the increase in physical exigences and performing abilities he needs for making the jump to the Seniors category. Most of his [[Character Development]] consists of him finally getting in the mental state to give a performance that can get to the public's hearts instead of merely skating very well.
** On the extremes on Performer and Tenchnician mindsets among the rest of the skaters, we have Pitchit Chulanont, which is described as "a natural crowd pleaser" and deliberately chose a popular song from a famous movie because he wanted to overwrite every other skater that previously skate to that, and Lee Seung-gil, whose mental dialogue while skating is him calculating his score with each move he does.
== [[Film]] ==
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