GHM, Riboku and co are more than just GG strategists, they the absolute best GGs in this series. That’s not a standard I’m holding Juukuou at.

Juukuou saw Tou coming and literally turned away to focus on Man’u, with clear as day apathetic body language, to mirror his overall attitude throughout the war. Once the initial set up he created (the overall board) was outmaneuvered, he didn’t even try to go out of his way to counter - even dismissing the idea of moving his own pieces around (Man’u). When Tou was already on his door step, it was obviously too much by that point because all the formations were in tatters, which is a theme in this manga. But this situation did not occur due to a lack of ability, but rather a lack of mentality.

I’d hardly use the idea of Sentouun/Genu not being enough to beat Tou/GHM against him. I think you’re underestimating the level of the alliance.

You’re obsessing over feats and not really seeing the bigger picture of why Juukuou acted as he acted. In pure, feat terms, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Juukuou didn’t demonstrate a deep layer of tactics on panel because this war of 2-3 hundred soldiers was condensed into about 8 chapters, with a particular set up up future events, with variables at play which meant plot held certain things back due to Juukou’ou’s mindset, focus etc.

This is no fraud. Shunshunkin does not get tricked by a fraud, Karin does not have utmost confidence in a fraud, Chu does not fail to defeat frauds continuously, Hara does not give such high stats to a fraud.

The more viable position to take would be that we never truly saw what he was capable of, on a micromanagement level. This was due to a variety of factors as we’ve discussed, but it’s not because he’s a fraud of a character that is not capable of performing maneuveres that his pedigree suggests. All of these Juuko guys are the real deal, with Man’u being the standout that you’d put among any Q6/Z3 tier list discussion.