#rinsagi meta part 5 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bluelockednyx · 2 years

Text

Isagirin meta part 5

Part 1 detailing Isagi's first meeting and match with Rin here

Part 2 covers the rest of the Second Selection Arc, up until Rin, Isagi, Bachira, Aryu and Tokimitsu form a five man team here

Part 3 covers the 5v5 match against the world class players, as well as the Blue Lock Eleven tryouts up until Rin's kickoff in the Blue Lock vs U20 match

Part 4 covers the first half of the Blue Lock vs U20 match

We're now at Part 5 of this meta/manifesto. This section covers the remainder of the Blue Lock vs U20 match, the chapters of the mini-holiday they get after that, up until Isagi and co. return to Blue Lock for the start of the Neo-Egoist League arc.

Second Half (C126 - 148)

Isagi and Rin walk out together, and Rin immediately notices Shidou's presence on the field. They have their usual spat, with Shidou calling him under lashes junior (fourth nickname now, and third from Shidou) and a brocon this time.

(Isagi's seen enough of their fights that he panics right away).

Sae kicks off the U20 team's offense, and they get through to the penalty area with Sae, Shidou and Sendou. Niko gets a yellow card from blocking Shidou, who almost loses his temper and goes after him.

Sae successfully reins in Shidou's temper, and when Shidou demands the free kick, challenges Shidou's thinking. He gives Shidou advice about aiming for the 'most realistically possible' and 'ideal' play. Hearing that, Shidou concedes the free kick to Sae, and dashes on to the field. Chigiri is the earliest to notice and react, but fails to stop Shidou from scoring.

Isagi realizes that Sae and Shidou's teamwork was what he's been aiming for since the Blue Lock Eleven tryout match, based on Hiori's advice. Niko and Chigiri then gets subbed out for Reo and Hiori.

Blue Lock pushes through again. While Aiku defends Rin, Hiori passes to Nagi, who then gets blocked by Niou, (he's uncharacteristically grumpy too, because he lost an opportunity with being able to use Rin as rare bait), then swiftly passes to Isagi who’s been shadowing Rin.

Aiku blocks, and the U20 team counters. Sae passes to Shidou, but it gets intercepted by Reo who copied Aiku’s moves and sent the ball out of the field. When Sae passes to Shidou again, Reo irritates Shidou and successfully limits his scoring chances (guess all those matches with Shidou after losing to him in the 2v2 paid off). Gagamaru sends the ball back to midfield, but its intercepted by Sae, who passes yet again to Shidou. Shidou tries again, and after Gagamaru’s dive, manages to get into flow and score his second goal. Shidou, elated from the goal, jumps onto Sae’s back, and in true anti-touch Itoshi fashion, Sae immediately puts distance between them by unceremoniously tossing Shidou off his back (lmao).

Rin seethes from seeing Shidou and Sae's interactions. Isagi, on the other hand, runs up to Ego for advice, and Ego responds that Blue Lock has already won by making themselves known in this match.

And his response is, well, lukewarm, to say the least.

'The future doesn't matter. Losing here is the same as dying. And we're not gonna accept death just yet...! I only care about being the best in the world...!'

Isagi at his fiercest thus far, for sure.

In response, Ego substitutes Otoya for Barou, strengthening Blue Lock's offense. Rin too, has the team change tactics, telling the forwards to rush in and attack as they please.

'We'll win, even if we have to crush each other to do so.'

Rin and Isagi trade passes, until Rin passes back to Hiori. Seeing Isagi open, Hiori makes the pass, which gets stolen by Barou, who fails his shot. Yukimiya picks up the stray ball, and his shot gets blocked by Aiku, who gets into flow. We get Aiku’s backstory, then Rin gets the stray ball again. While Aiku moves in to stop him Isagi comes up to support Rin, and it prompts Aiku’s monologue that ‘they’re a duo so good it pisses him off’.

Rin ultimately doesn’t manage to get past Oliver, and the ball goes, once again, to Sae. Karasu stalls Sae, and the defenders mark the U20 strikers. Reo blocks Shidou well enough for Gagamaru to then successfully fend off Shidou’s latest shot, and Reo steals possession of the ball, sending it back to Nagi who's at midfield.

With the field in disarray, Blue Lock pushes forward, and Isagi monologues about finding the ‘thread’ of this match, to score his own goal. Karasu comes up to help the forwards, and Isagi passes to Nagi, who has to pass back to Isagi because of the defenders rushing in to press him.

Then Sae comes out, seemingly out of nowhere, to block Isagi, and he identifies Isagi as the ‘heart’ of Blue Lock, even complimenting Isagi’s intelligence. Isagi pushes forward, and as he attempts to shoot Sae upsets his balance. Three guesses as to who comes running in to help.

"Isagi!! Look at me!!"

Isagi passes to Rin, but Aiku blocks him. Then from the sides, Barou rushes in, steals the ball, and scores the equalizer for Blue Lock. Blue Lock celebrates the goal, and Barou explains how he got to that point.

Barou: ‘I just moved from start to finish with the intent of devouring you. When my style of focusing on you was read, I moved on to the next stage of that. Meaning I have to hunt the plays you made ‘when you evolved’. Not that I can predict what you’ll do when that happens. But I know for a fact that there’s a guy who can. Itoshi Rin. That guy would definitely react to however you evolved. By targeting that relationship, I could get in front of the goal… and I waited for when you would pass to Rin.’

Isagi: ‘So if you’re supposed to be moving while focusing on me… how do you visualize that? Stuff like Rin’s movements, positioning and all that…?’

Barou: ‘Huh? What are you on about, scrub? You and Rin are so synchronized you already look like one and the same.’

Isagi: ‘What?’

Barou: ‘It’s simple, really.’

Rin [background]: ‘…’

Barou: ‘To me… Rin is just another Isagi.’

Isagi’s expression matched mine as I read this bit, honestly. This is the natural outcome of Isagi and Rin’s mind reading, everyone, brought to you by Barou Shouei. Melding so well with each other that they basically become the other person (in Barou’s Isagi-obsessed mind, at least). And he's not the only one to do that, either. Nagi did it in the 4v4 match. Nanase did it in the Blue Lock Eleven tryouts. It's a legitimate tactic, y'all.

Isagi comes to the realization that to beat the U20, there needs to be a chain of ‘trances’, and he needs to move believing in the others overcoming their own challenges. Meanwhile, Itoshi the elder handily nixes the U20 coach’s plan of a new substitution, and Itoshi the younger seethes with frustration over not scoring again.

Last 15 mins of second half (C139)

Rin understands that at some point, the team, and the game, has begun to revolve around Isagi – from Karasu’s pass, to Nagi’s, then finally Isagi’s pass to he himself once Sae blocked Isagi, that got intercepted by Barou, leading to their 3rd goal. Rin’s furious, but also stressed and straining – see the teeth clench here, telling himself that he won’t be devoured by Isagi.

On the other hand, Isagi’s thinking about the exact opposite, how Rin is still the center piece of the match. Rin’s presence soaks up the attention of the U20 defenders, allowing Isagi to move freely around him, and it’s when Rin gets into gear that the rest of Blue Lock starts amping up their offense as well. He also understands that he needs to replicate the phenomenon from earlier to score successfully. Then we have the iconic page of the both of them thinking that they’ll devour each other and become the main star.

In response to Barou’s goal, Sae decides to turn up the heat and his game play. He easily blitzes pass Nagi, Isagi, Karasu and Barou, dodging Rin’s sliding tackle as well.

This stresses Rin further. Isagi's growing presence in the match, Sae's superior skill, the game that's almost over but still tied, with the possibility of Blue Lock's defeat at hand. Rin thus chooses to ‘synchronize’ with Sae, and figure out his intentions and method of destroying Blue Lock. Rin then accurately predicts Sae’s pass to Shidou, even getting himself hurt (that was a nasty collision) to stop Shidou from scoring. Even Sae is shocked by it.

Karasu tries to get Shidou carded for it, though the referee disagrees (nice try, though, Karasu).

Isagi immediately notices the change in Rin, realizing that Rin's moving with the intention to block/defeat Sae, admiring him for it and understanding that Rin is now evolving (like a pokemon)

Reo passes the ball back to Nagi at the midfield, and Isagi latches on to the changing game flow and circumstances, with the current evolution of Rin’s play style. And after a very long time of minimal presence in-game, Bachira comes up again (yes, I missed him a lot, Bachira’s fun).

Isagi gets the ball, and Bachira surges forward, taking what is normally Rin’s place on the field. Isagi is mindful of that, so much so that Barou spots an opportunity and comes in to steal. That prompts Nagi’s dissatisfaction (‘Quit it! After all Reo went to get the ball back for us!’ be still my Nagireo heart), and Bachira gains possession of the ball again. He bypasses the U20 defenders and shoots, but Sendou blocks his shot.

Having yet to catch up to Isagi and the others in the front, Rin defends the pass route from Sae to Shidou. Sae passes to the other U20 forwards instead, and when the ball goes to Sendou, Barou and Nagi block it with a spectacular head crash.

Isagi’s back to defend against Sae, who passes to Aiku. But just like when Aiku blocked him earlier, this time Rin intercepts Aiku’s shot with a sliding tackle.

‘Can’t believe you reached that, self-centered captain.’

‘Sorry, but I’m the little brother of someone self-centered too.’

As the game resumes with a corner kick off, Rin thinks that he has to overlap his thought processes with Sae’s as he struggles to beat his brother. Yet he’s also conflicted: he’s the only one who can keep up with and stop Sae, and if he doesn’t stop Sae Blue Lock will lose. However, if he focuses only on beating his brother, he won’t be able to score his own goals either.

Note the focus on Isagi’s back here.

Then Rin’s reaction:

C144: Libido

*looks at chapter title* uhhhhhh.....

Hiori’s gotten the ball, and as he’s prepping to pass, Rin comes in and steals the ball from him, blitzing past the rest of his teammates and surprising them. Realizing that the person whom he needs to crush is himself, Rin undergoes an evolution – entering his own ‘flow’, as it were. Sae too, notices the change in Rin. Isagi comes over to match up with him, but Rin ignores him, focusing instead of breaking through the U20 defenders by himself. He gets through Neru. Interestingly, as he goes up against Darai, he passes back to Isagi, who then passes back to Rin as well. Here, also, he stops Darai from turning with a hand and uses a backheel trap to stop Darai, He bursts through Niou’s charge. At this point, Nagi and Karasu have also both cottoned on to Rin’s change. Ego then notes Rin’s flow – a football that destroys hideously, one that uses his opponents strong points against them. A clear parallel and antithesis to Sae’s style of football.

Facing Aiku, the last defender, Shidou comes in and helps to block Rin’s assault (also a new nickname, which brings the count to five now? I think?)

Isagi comes to back Rin up, but Rin ignores Isagi. Shidou also calls Isagi ‘lover-boy’ here. So, with shipping goggles on, and after so many instances and chapters of people remarking on it I’m going to declare that Isagi is Not Subtle At All where Rin is concerned.

Rin makes the shot, but it doesn’t go through, and Sae gets the rebound, with one minute left in-game. Sae bypasses Isagi, Barou and Nagi. Karasu stalls him, and in this moment, Isagi notices Rin going in for yet another showdown with Sae, and gets a ‘prediction’ or ‘premonition’.

Meanwhile, Rin, still in his ‘flow’, finally gets the conversation with Sae he’s snapped at Sae for in their first showdown, but Sae is still cruel and disparaging to him, telling Rin that that’s as far as his ability gets, and that Rin would have been happier if he stayed home and the best Rin can ever do is live in his shadow. Rin violently rejects Sae’s words.

‘Stop trying to bind my ‘ego’ with words again!’

‘brother of a genius’ -- Sae

‘Partner’ – Isagi

‘Rival’ – Shidou

‘That list of values, so convenient to you people, has no place in my life. I’m not ‘something’ in any of your lives! I’m done being Itoshi Sae’s little brother!

I am me! Trust this indignation! Entrust your body to its destructive impulses! I am Itoshi Rin! The ‘egoist’!

C147 - 'last strike'

An evolved egoist Rin faces off against Sae, and wins. He gets the ball out of Sae’s possession, a feat no one in-game has managed thus far.

And that stray ball lands right into Isagi’s waiting arms (or legs, as it were).

Also the whole chapter??? A bomb in terms of the art. No words at all, besides the Itoshi siblings memory and the final narrative words declaring the end of the match, and consecutive double page spreads of Isagi making the shot, and getting the goal and win for Blue Lock.

C148 - C155 (After the end of the Blue Lock 11 vs Japan U20 match)

Blue Lock celebrates the win. Shidou questions Sae on why he didn’t pass to the front immediately. Aiku asks Isagi about his play. Isagi informs him that yes, he was aiming for Aiku’s blind spot, while looking for a place that he could score instantly. And finally, he believed that Rin would defeat Sae.

Rin watches Isagi shaking hands with Aiku, and Sae comes to talk to him again. But it’s not the talk Rin expects. Instead, Sae acknowledges and praises Isagi for being a striker that could even call forth Rin’s instincts, the striker that Japan was waiting for. Meanwhile, Isagi gets his moment in the paparazzi limelight, declaring that he would lead Japan to victory at the U20 World Cup.

In the locker room, Ego says that Rin’s awakening broke everything apart, and that only Isagi was able to respond to it, a mirror to what Barou said in the match about how he got his goal, about Rin being able to keep up with, and respond to Isagi’s evolved plays. He then tells them that things will get more heated in the future, and to prepare themselves. Anri informs them about the celebratory buffet she had prepared for them, and as everyone’s leaving the locker room, Isagi is the only one to notice Rin still lingering behind all alone. Bachira realizes this, then tactfully says that they’ll go on ahead, leaving Isagi to talk to Rin alone.

Isagi takes the chance to talk to an upset Rin, trying to comfort him, saying that the goal happened as much due to Rin’s efforts as his own trust in Rin… which, unfortunately, is the wrong thing to say to Rin right now. Rin declares Isagi his rival, and that he’ll kill him. Isagi maturely doesn’t escalate the situation further, telling Rin that he’s welcome to try and leaves Rin to cool down on his own.

Phase One of Blue Lock is thus complete. Blue Lock and U20 get two weeks off, and Isagi meets up with Bachira and Chigiri in Shibuya during this time. We learn that Blue Lock’s become famous, they run into what feels like half of the other Blue Lock members as well, jump Nagi at the arcade, come across the U20 team at karaoke, and have a bowling match with them. All in all, fun shenanigans.

[On a side note, Reo and co. were talking about a cutting-edge style summit, the stock market, and futures. This group is clearly the ones from the upper class.]

Halfway through the bowling match, Isagi leaves, and he meets up with his old friend, Tada, the one whom he passed to in the very first chapter of the series. When Tada says that Isagi was lucky in picking up the stray ball from Rin and making that last goal, it upsets Isagi, and he notices how he and his view of the world has changed significantly from Tada.

After this, we get the hint of Ego’s upcoming entertainment project with Blue Lock, phase two, before the story cuts to Rin.

Rin checks up on news about Sae, and muses over the match. He recognizes that he beat Sae, but he was one step short of something to score that final goal, and doesn’t know the ‘awakened’ him that beat Sae. He’s also still hung up that Sae acknowledged Isagi, and that Isagi ultimately ‘won’, and not him.

Back to Isagi: we see his parents supporting him, and Isagi, too, ruminates on his experiences in Blue Lock, before declaring that he wants to live in Blue Lock and continue pursuing his dream of becoming the best in the world. He gets the message of the restart of the Blue Lock project, and the arc ends with the Blue Lock members returning to the project’s site.

In summary for the Blue Lock 11 vs Japan U20 match:

The match’s main focus and character development was on Isagi, Rin, Sae and Shidou, with a bit of Aiku, though the rest of course gets some spotlight when they’re due.

We see Isagi and Rin’s developing teamwork on the field, as well as the increasingly fierce competitive tension in it, primarily instigated and upheld by Rin. Throughout the match, Isagi and Rin build up the team’s offense together, both through excellent teamwork initially, then ultimately, when the chance to score occurs, by pursuing their own thing. While Isagi targets Aiku as his main ‘challenge’, Rin’s focus from start to end, is almost solely on Sae.

Shidou subs in in the second half, and immediately, in combination with Sae’s plays, wind up putting Blue Lock 2 goals behind. It’s also the first time we see Shidou move so freely on the field, and enter flow. We learn his mindset towards the game, and though he falls off the radar somewhat after Barou gets subbed in as well, he still actively hinders Blue Lock’s efforts.

On Sae, we learn that he is clearly a step above the U20 members and the Blue Lock members. He successfully worked together with Shidou, the one person none of the other U20 and Blue Lock members could deal with. No one really successfully defeats him in this match, although Rin does become his biggest obstacle after Barou’s equalizing goal, and Rin’s win was at the very end of the match, after he awakened, and not, from the looks of C152, one that he himself can fully grasp the mechanics of. There are also many instances where Sae could have scored throughout the match, but chose not to.

Rin, too, is clearly still coming into his own as an egoist. Compared to the Second Selection Arc, and the pre-U20 matches against the World Team (where he was thoroughly outclassed) and tryout matches between the top six, this is where Rin is really pushed and challenged. As captain, he makes the tactical calls in game with the other Blue Lockers. He challenges Sae to a 1v1 and loses, and Sae mostly ignores him throughout the match up until the last thirty minutes. When the game clearly begins to revolve around Isagi, he starts to feel the pressure, further compounded by Sae choosing to step up his play. He’s pushed to his limits and is forced to choose – try to keep scoring himself and potentially lose the whole game, or focus on dealing with Sae for the sake of the team. He chooses the latter, which ultimately leads him to his ‘awakening’, but while Rin realizes that he doesn’t have to defeat Sae alone, as the rest of Blue Lock is there to back him up, he also finds it ‘disgusting’ (no power of friendship allowed here yet, folks). His choice to challenge Sae, and the added challenge his growing rivalry with Isagi causes him ultimately leads him to awaken as an egoist and get into flow.

Isagi on the other hand, is still very much the underdog here, despite how it seems with that last goal. He doesn’t get many chances at scoring a goal in the first half, and in 1-on-1 situations he never really comes out on top of anyone, and moves more as a supportive relay for Rin and the rest of the team overall. It’s only when Blue Lock gets cornered with Shidou and Sae’s combo, and Barou comes out, that Isagi gets to build up his plays to the point of getting to shoot a goal himself, which is reminiscent of Rin’s own play style in the Second Selection Arc. Even at that point, he loses to Sae (the shoulder tackle that broke his balance), and the equalizing goal ultimately went to Barou instead. In the last minutes, where Rin goes into flow, Rin also refuses his support and defeats the U20 defenders on his own, but fails to get the shot. He thus replicates Rin’s success in the 4v4 in the Second Selection Arc, by positioning himself accordingly to his belief that an awakened Rin would defeat Sae, and gets his day in the limelight as the hero of the Blue Lock vs U20 game.

The next part will be the final part of this meta, and details the ‘why’ of what draws me, personally, to the Isagirin or Rinsagi ship in Blue Lock, my opinions on the narrative importance of their relationship to the story of Blue Lock as a whole, and my own speculations and hopes of the future of Blue Lock's story development.

Update: Part 6 now completed

#blue lock #bllk #isagi yoichi #itoshi rin #isagirin #rinsagi #isagirin meta part 5 #rinsagi meta part 5 #otp: heart stolen by his beautiful parable

44 notes · View notes

bluelockednyx · 2 years

Text

Isagirin meta part 1

“You should aim to choose, rather than be chosen”

AKA Blue Lock, its focus on ‘egoism’, the impact of that philosophy and Kaneshiro Muneyuki’s + illustrator Nomura Yusuke’s opinion on what constitutes a good relationship in the series and how it ties into Isagirin/Rinsagi

An Isagirin/Rinsagi ship manifesto/meta. Spoilers up till the end of Blue Lock Phase 1, where Isagi and co. return to Blue Lock after the Blue Lock vs U20 match. Do note that I am flipping between both the JP tankabon for the OG text + official + fan translations for the english.

I’m going to preface by saying that I adore Blue Lock for all the reasons I also think it’s ridiculous: the hyper-competitiveness amongst fictional teenage characters in their pursuit of becoming the world’s best striker, all done in a glorified high-tech jail cell (which, as of the Neo-Egoist League arc, also serves as a reality tv show background!), where they are able to do and think of nothing but football and football only. Yet with all that, the series has chosen a fascinating take on its characters’ relationships with each other: the pursuit of a relationship, that prioritizes individual growth and independence, and where the characters, after separating, come back together stronger both individually and as a unit.

To start off with, a quick look at egoism, the main theme of the series.

What is egoism? It is the doctrine that human behaviour is motivated by self-interest, as per Merriam-Webster’s definition. Thus, from an extreme viewpoint, a fully egoistic person would regard oneself as the center of every interest, and every action made is done for one’s own benefit and one’s own benefit only, without any regard given to others.

In the context of Blue Lock, our main character, Isagi Yoichi begins to discover his own egoism through participating in the project. Over time, he learns to develop his skills while trusting in his ego, and on occasion even use other’s egos to his own advantage, and every step of the way he encounters/learns from his teammates and opponents in Blue Lock, then the U20, and as of now, the Bastard Munchen team.

And even with this hugely colourful cast of characters, Itoshi Rin still manages to stand out from the rest of the cast since his very first appearance, as well as Isagi’s first meeting with him.

As this is again, mostly a shipping meta, and an organisation of my thoughts about Isagirin’s relationship with the primary focus being the series’ narrative – Isagi’s egoism and his path to become the world’s best striker.

A note: I use football and soccer interchangeably throughout this series of posts. Fight me on my British English centric education. This is also very long (at least 5 parts, I'm still editing pics and whatnot), to say the least, because there are so many things to talk about where they are concerned in relation to the story.

As this is all about Isagi/Rin, I’ll start with Rin’s first appearance as part 1.

First impression (C40)

The first time Isagi (and we, the readers) meets Rin is in Chapter 40. Everyone is exhausted after the two weeks of physical training, and Ego has just announced that beyond the doors are the second selection trials. While everyone is hesitating over being the first to go in, Isagi included, Rin takes the initiative. We know immediately that this guy’s gonna be important: Rin appears larger than life by artistic positioning of his full body before the manga panels.

Isagi, along with several team Z members are immediately impressed by his first shot. Isagi calls it a ‘beautiful kick, a tall gentle curve’. He’s taken aback by the second shoot Rin makes, which hits the first. Rin declares his warm-up over and tells the AI system (or Ego?) to open up the doors, and becomes the first person to head inside the Second Selection Trial.

Upon seeing his surname, Igaguri immediately links Rin to Sae, who is, as of yet, a minor character who appeared early on in the story, and is already considered one of the top 11 players in the football world stage. It further reinforces Rin’s future importance in the series.

This chapter is the start, though definitely not the end, of Isagi’s, uh, fixation on Rin.

C44

Isagi’s the first person from Team Z to go through and complete the individual ability challenge. He teams up with Bachira and Nagi, (who leaves behind an upset Reo), and they head to the next stage, where they immediately encounter Rin, Aryuu and Tokimitsu, who’ve teamed up. Ego explains the rules, and emphasises that to play, both teams have to agree to the match-up. At first, Isagi is hesitant to clash head-on with Rin, Aryu and Tokimitsu, and Aryu, too would prefer to fight against better opponents rather than Isagi and co. Then Rin says he wants to win quickly and move on.

Rin’s self-centredness and stand-offishness is out in full focus here, and it almost causes a fight between him and Aryu. His speech about getting into the Japan U20 to crush Sae reveals his fixation on his brother, but at the same time incites/intrigues the other five present. Then we get this:

Neither Bachira nor Nagi seem to be all that keen to duke it out against the top 3. Contrast Bachira and Nagi’s reaction to Isagi’s upon seeing the top 3’s antics, and finally Rin’s declaration. Bachira’s amused, while Nagi looks a little perplexed, or perpetually bored.

But Isagi.

“But… my ego is telling me – I want to fight this guy! And most importantly… I want this guy!”

So yeah. The most important story theme to Blue Lock, one’s ego, and Isagi uses it in reference to wanting Rin. Okay, I’ll concede, he wants to fight Rin first and foremost, but, even within story and context included, this line is definitely an eyebrow raiser. And even in other fujoshi bait sports anime, this line is definitely a 'wow they laid it thick' moment.

At this point, Rin definitely couldn’t care less so long as he moves ahead. So they match up. The first 3v3 in Blue Lock is set.

C45

Game starts in a mini field, Isagi-Bachira-Nagi team score, but all it gets from Rin is a scoff. It’s in this match that Isagi encounters the concept of football being a deathmatch, and the field a battlefield.

‘This is… a battlefield.’

‘Soccer is a death match as far as I’m concerned.’

This is somewhat of a rehash of Ego’s speech in the earliest chapters of the series, when the 300 strikers were first gathered before him.

“True strikers tread a path of winning or losing everything… every single day, in order to keep on surviving.”

Isagi’s response?

"Interesting... I'll join this death match!"

C46-48

The match is quick, and brutally one-sided. Besides the first goal, scored from the joint effort of Bachira-Nagi-Isagi, Rin, Aryu and Tokimitsu score one goal after the other. Isagi struggles to keep up with Rin the whole time, and the game ends with Rin scoring thrice. Isagi hardly does anything worth mentioning, other than the first goal and successfully blocking one of Rin’s goals.

Chapter 48 is a real goldmine for this ship, and sets the course for Isagi’s future skills growth and character arc in the manga very deliberately.

‘Think you found a good space or something? At least go study how human eyeballs work, you trash.’

As the realisation of his impending loss sinks in, this is his reaction:

From a shipping perspective, Isagi’s whole response to the loss is spectacular. Note the blacked in panels of Isagi’s monologue of despair, the inevitability of losing dragging his movements down putting him distantly in perspective. Then note the switchover from black to white again in his monologue, down to the way his eyes widen, and the light in his eyes when Rin makes that final goal to trounce Isagi-Bachira-Nagi team 5-2. The monologue itself reads like a love confession, even with context.

‘We’ll lose. Are you kidding?! With my current capability… I can’t even measure… how much the difference between me and Rin is – I can’t tell… the difference is just that overwhelming… and despairing… Even so... why… In spite of the fact that we’re going to lose… my eyes… my heart… I’m completely smitten. by the beauty of the parable that his kick drew --’

In the OG Japanese, Isagi says his eyes and heart were stolen.

「敗北という現実とは裏腹に　俺の目は　心は　奪われていた　糸師凛のけり描く　その放物線の美しさに　―」

In this moment, Isagi should be absolutely devastated by the loss. Yet, he’s not. He’s hung up, he’s smitten, his heart is stolen by Rin's beautiful kick, which neatly bookends with the first time he sees Rin shooting back in chapter 40, where he was surprised and fascinated by the tall, gentle kick that Rin made.

And isn’t that fascinating?

I’ll be wrapping this up here for now. Part 2, covering the rest of the Second Selection Arc coming soon!

#blue lock #bllk #isagi yoichi #itoshi rin #isagirin #rinsagi #isagirin meta part 1 #rinsagi meta part 1 #otp: heart stolen by his beautiful parable

124 notes · View notes

bluelockednyx · 2 years

Text

Isagirin meta part 4

Part 1, talking about Isagi's first meeting and match with Rin here.

Part 2, covering the rest of the Second Selection Arc, up until the formation of the Rin-Isagi-Bachira-Aryu-Tokimitsu 5-man team here.

Part 3, covering the 5v5 match against the World 5 team, as well as the Blue Lock Eleven tryout matches, up until Rin's kickoff in the Blue Lock vs U20 match here.

This is part 4 of my Rinsagi meta series, and will cover the first half of the Blue Lock vs U20 match, up till Isagi and Rin begin heading back to the field for the second half.

First Half (C113 - C126)

The game starts with Rin’s kickoff, and Blue Lock crowds the midfield as per their strategy. Bachira’s pass to Isagi gets blocked off by Aiku, whom Isagi now targets as his new challenge in the game proper. In the midst of breaking through the midfield towards the penalty area, Isagi’s attention is caught by Otoya, who can’t get past Darai.

Rin's clearly been paying attention, and likely having the same thoughts as Isagi (or mindreading Isagi, because let's face it, they've already done that plenty of times before now), because he tells Isagi to change up his train of thought.

Blue Lock gets stalled, and the ball stolen from possession. The U20 defense shows off their stuff, and when Sendou, U20's ace, fails to score, Sae makes a line drive shot and makes the first goal of the match.

While Isagi’s getting carried away by the crowd’s expectations, Rin maintains his cool, and once again calls out to Isagi, telling Isagi to focus on him.

“You just have to look at me.”

This was a nice little callback to Rin telling Isagi to watch his ascension to become the world's number one, by the way, but I digress.

C116

The game restarts with Rin's pass to Isagi again. While mired in doubt, Isagi hangs on to Rin's earlier words.

"I don't even know what I'm lacking right now. That's how strong they are. But I'm already past that. It's clear what I need to do... discard all unnecessary thoughts! Concentrate on what I can do right now! I'm going to use everything I've got and focus on building my plays with Rin!"

Rin ups the tempo of the passes, and Isagi matches up with him well enough that they jam the U20's defense temporarily. When Bachira gets a pass from Rin, he even remarks that he's jealous of their coordination.

Rin attempts to copy Sae's own shot, and narrowly misses out on scoring a goal. Yukimiya, then Otoya attempt to score as well, but it's ultimately Nagi who gets the first goal for Blue Lock.

In the dugout, Ego narrates that Rin's decision, his attack, was the underlying reason behind Blue Lock scoring, and that Isagi is key to Rin awakening. Isagi, likewise, understands that Rin’s actions were what led to the goal. He tries to comfort Rin, who doesn’t take too kindly to it (lol), because he wasn’t the one who scored the goal, pointing out that Isagi too, had split up from him the moment he found a chance to score. Rin even goes so far as to say that this distorted relationship of theirs is how they should be. Isagi accepts that as well; he doesn’t need to focus on teamwork with Rin. What he should do is focus on his own goals as well.

We'll see if that's where the narrative is going for, Rin

Rin faces off against Sae, and immediately rags on him for being a shitty sibling. Younger siblings unite against shitty older siblings!!

Isagi shouts to Rin that he'll back him up. Rin yells back at Isagi to back off.

As Niou says, this is a sibling fight at a national match, indeed. Rin keeps up with Sae, until Sae coolly informs Rin that so long as Rin is hung up on being Sae's brother, Rin won't beat hi, then gets past him.

Karasu, the third person (I think) to nickname Rin.

Niko steals the ball from Sendou, and Karasu breaks through together with Otoya, then passes to Chigiri. Chigiri cuts through to the right and passes back to Karasu, who's open. Sae comes in to block him, and the stray ball goes to Rin. Aiku defends, and while Isagi comes up behind Aiku, distracting him, Rin scores Blue Lock's second goal.

Isagi’s full of admiration over Rin’s goal, and goes in for a hug. He’s also the only one leaping in for a hug, which is an interesting parallel to Nagi earlier, who had so many others lunging at him. Rin dodges (too bad, Isagi, you haven’t unlocked friendship levels requirement for that yet). Rin tells Blue Lock that they’re finishing off the first half with plan B. The U20 move in, and all the Blue Lock members, besides Nagi who remains at midfield, move in to defend. Rin blocks Sae’s pass to Sendou, and the stray ball gets back in Sae’s possession, who then shoots a second time. Thanks to Aryu, they stave off the final minute, and Blue Lock goes into the second half in the lead, at 2-1.

In the locker rooms, Sae reveals that he’s playing in the game because of Aiku’s bet, and that his only interest is in Blue Lock. He reminisces Rin’s ‘guts pose’ after Rin scored Blue Lock’s second goal.

‘I saw what I came for, and I’m satisfied. So I have no reason to keep playing this match.’

That doesn't happen, as Aiku baits Sae into continuing the game using Shidou.

Over on the Blue Lock side, they celebrate their current lead and rest up. Ego then points out that Blue Lock’s goals began with Rin and Isagi’s combination. Rin explains that he needed to get past the U20 defenders, and used Isagi as a sacrificial lamb. Isagi then says that he has no intention of being simply a pawn in the game.

While Isagi ‘devours’ more of Rin’s game mentality, to push forward for the sake of his own goal no matter who or what he has to sacrifice, he watches Rin leave the locker room. Rin takes a quiet moment for himself, and we get Rin’s backstory with Sae.

Turns out that Sae was just as rude a little shit as a kid as he is now. Rin's clearly picked up a lot of habits and mannerisms from him too (lol). It's very cute though expected, that Rin started playing football because he admires Sae, and that's the start of his best striker in the world dream.

It's also nice to see here that Sae doesn't get mad over Rin interrupting his team's match. Rin's clearly expecting a scolding, from the way Sae marches over to him; instead, Sae praises Rin, even asking Rin to play football with him, though not without saying that Rin can be the best striker after him.

In this flashback, we learn of Sae's competitiveness, Rin and Sae's plays as a duo, and their overall success in games. As they chill at the edge of the sea with their ice pops, Sae asks Rin some important questions about his football, namely, what Rin is thinking of when he's out on the field.

"? Nothing much. I guess I just think about scoring. Since if I dash to where it looks critical, you'll pass to me."

"... What's critical?"

"Hm... Like where the enemy'd panic, and fall apart."

Sae scolds Rin a little for relying on his instincts too much, then asks Rin an important question:

"... What do you plan to do if I'm not there, then?"

"Dunno. Look for someone else to replace you, I guess."

Sae reacts unfavourably to this, then we learn why he's asking Rin those questions now: Sae has gotten scouted and will join Real Madrid, leaving Rin behind in Japan. As Rin and their parents see Sae off at the airport, Rin decides to catch up to Sae as promised.

Without Sae around, Rin finds it 'restricting', a repetition of what he told Isagi back in C88. He tries to emulate Sae, in a way, and lead his team to victory and become the best in Japan.

Sae returns after four years, walking in on Rin's solo practice and Rin notices something off with him immediately. He praises Sae's accomplishments, but Sae then reveals that he's changed his dream to become a midfielder instead of a striker. Rin is unable to accept it, then hurts Sae by calling him out on giving up on their shared dream. Sae, in turn, challenges Rin to a match. When Rin loses to him, Rin further laments that he has no reason to play football without Sae, who responds cruelly in return, ending in him telling Rin to 'get lost'.

Rin falls into a funk after that, and watches Sae playing football alone on TV in his room. He ultimately decides to continue with football to destroy Sae’s dream. At the end of this backstory sequence, we see Isagi coming up to bring Rin back to the start of the second half.

And this is the end of part 4!

There are a lot of nice shippy moments here, and the recurring motif of Isagi 'looking at' Rin, and Rin, much more subtly, is looking back at Isagi too. From early on when Isagi is nervous, then drawn into the crowd's fervour for Sae, to the second kick off where Rin starts changing things up by improvising, all the way up till the break where Rin goes off alone.

On Rin's end, we finally know his backstory and why his relationship with Sae soured. Although we don't know why Sae has changed his dream, and Sae's version of his time in Spain. it's a fair assessment that his experience there has caused him to lose his self-confidence and self-esteem in pursuing his dream to be the best striker in the world, given his lines about 'how vast the world is'.

We see Isagi and Rin's developing teamwork on the field, as well as the growing fierce competitive tension within it. Throughout the first half, Isagi and Rin build up the team's offense together, both through excellent teamwork initially, then ultimately, when the chance to score comes up, by pursuing their own thing. While Isagi targets Aiku as his main 'challenge', Rin's focus is almost solely on Sae.

Also another interesting thing to note, in Rin's flashback of his relationship with Sae: whenever they have ice pops, Rin always gets the winning stick instead of Sae.

The next part will cover the second half of the Blue Lock vs U20 match, including their mini-holiday chapters, up until C152.

Update: Part 5 now complete!

#blue lock #bllk #isagi yoichi #itoshi rin #isagirin #rinsagi #isagirin meta part 4 #rinsagi meta part 4 #otp: heart stolen by his beautiful parable

34 notes · View notes