Ao Ashi - Ch. 385 - Football is dead (2)
- Thread starter MangaDex
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More aura than anyone in Blue Cock
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Holy cringe. What happened to this series.
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Nah, that could be Argentina. Barefeet kids playing football is a thing in most South American countries.
i dont think yuugo know about that part so he just draws like its brazil or any other south american countries. Most kids start on the streets anyways
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I think rather than cocky, he's desperate. He believes that failing will means he's forsaken by God, and that he has to go back to Argentina, and that he'll literally die. He's constructed his whole personality around avoiding that.
Needlessly edgy? Probably, but I thought that's what Blue Lock fans liked? Maybe the author thought he needs to pander to that demographic?
As to whether Demian is superhuman or not, idk. He's playing at high school level still.
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Aoi being mind crushed is pretty interesting. His biggest strength throughout the series has been his mental and his positivity. Even if it takes him a while to get something, he always roughly has an idea of where he needs to improve, and that's one of the reasons why the story is fun -- immediately after he grasps the current concept, he's thrown into the next stage of development, a la Baby Steps. He is absurdly good at applying and internalizing concepts that he's spent the time to understand; honestly reminds me of some mathematicians I know...
His second biggest strength, and his biggest during any single actual match, has been his "eagle eye" or "crow's eye" or whatever: amazing spatial memory combined with understanding the intentions, and thus the movement, of players on the pitch. Even when he is stuck or lost earlier in the series (e.g. "why are Asari and Kuroda mad at me"), he is still able to lean back on this as his foundation. He's able to reason from his own first principles about why and how other players make decisions.
Aoi's comfort and absolute confidence in this skill are why he's able to stay positive and grow so quickly: he knows that what he's missing are knowledge and experience, but his game intelligence and intuition can help him grasp those quickly.
But now he's put in a spot where he is completely unable to understand what the intentions of his opponents are! Part of it is that Barca's tactics are outside of his comprehension; this is a normal occurrence for him. More importantly, he can't remotely understand Demian's personal intentions (not normal), which clouds his judgement on what everyone else on Barca wants to do. So he can't apply any of his first-principles reasoning here, because Demian breaks his foundational assumptions somehow.
And it's not just him who's lost -- the coaches (except Fukuda, I'm hoping) also have no idea what to do! He doesn't have any hints or clues on how to move forward. The only Esperion people who are still productively thinking about how to win the game right now are Fukuda, Kuribayashi, Ootomo, and maybe the goalie. Aoi is still trying, but he no longer has a starting point to build on.
I'm optimistic because this could be a way for Aoi to fundamentally rebuild his core assumptions about the game, and if the author can do that well, that'll be really cool.
I understand if people don't like how the author is dragging this arc out forever, harping on Aoi's confusion too much, presenting Demian as some ridiculous edgelord, etc. The execution of this arc has been questionable.
But if you don't like the fact that the author is reducing football to "something to be understood and reasoned about from first principles" (and that is a totally valid point of view), and that this arc is challenging that line of thought, then why are you a fan of this manga in the first place?
2-1 i guess
