Red Blue - Ch. 183 - Emerging From the Darkness

[likv0r]

Thanks for the translation!

Good technical fight overall. I liked how the author used flashbacks with Kureishi and his grandfather. Reminded me of another MMA manga - Martial Master Asumi.

That said, I did not like how the eyepoke was handled in the final chapter. The double eyepoke itself was a good twist, but the ref not pausing the fight sends the wrong message. Eyes are very fragile, and both fighters could've sustained serious injuries, which, in the worst case, could be permanent and career-ending. Both Aoba and Kureishi are essentially kids just starting their MMA careers, and it's the referee's job to make an additional effort to protect young fighters from excessive damage.

Alternative: stop the fight, take a short break to assess vision, then restart properly. Make Aoba hurt Kureishi on the feet (who will slow down coz of the eyepoke) and proceed with the same choke finish.

BTW, this win proves that Aoba is the most talented of his MMA Koshien tournament generation. To reach such a high level in such a short timespan is crazy.
But this fight did reveal one weakness in his game: sometimes he is mentally too determined to finish the fight in a specific way (by submission), despite his coach's advice. Might backfire in the next fight.

 

[Pollomonteros]

It would be funny if the fact that Aoba had eyepoked his opponent becomes known to the public and dude ends up looking even more like a villain because of it

 

[Sigilbreaker26]

Thanks for the translation!

Good technical fight overall. I liked how the author used flashbacks with Kureishi and his grandfather. Reminded me of another MMA manga - Martial Master Asumi.

That said, I did not like how the eyepoke was handled in the final chapter. The double eyepoke itself was a good twist, but the ref not pausing the fight sends the wrong message. Eyes are very fragile, and both fighters could've sustained serious injuries, which, in the worst case, could be permanent and career-ending. Both Aoba and Kureishi are essentially kids just starting their MMA careers, and it's the referee's job to make an additional effort to protect young fighters from excessive damage.

Alternative: stop the fight, take a short break to assess vision, then restart properly. Make Aoba hurt Kureishi on the feet (who will slow down coz of the eyepoke) and proceed with the same choke finish.

This manga is about presenting the sport not showing what ideally would happen. Just a couple chapters ago the audience basically dozed off because it stopped being a slugfest and became a grappling match (which is actually a little unfair because it was quite high paced grappling which doesn't tend to invite boos so quickly but I digress). A ref not intervening before a fighter takes advantage of a chaotic situation is actually something that happens all the time. Headclashes or eyepokes into TKO finishes do happen.

 

[likv0r]

This manga is about presenting the sport not showing what ideally would happen. Just a couple chapters ago the audience basically dozed off because it stopped being a slugfest and became a grappling match (which is actually a little unfair because it was quite high paced grappling which doesn't tend to invite boos so quickly but I digress). A ref not intervening before a fighter takes advantage of a chaotic situation is actually something that happens all the time. Headclashes or eyepokes into TKO finishes do happen.

Refs do not make errors all the time; they do their job well most of the time. It's just that rare mistakes often get into highlights and spark controversies, which people remember way better than the usual good referring (i.e., availability bias).

Also, fighters often actively signal fouls like eyepokes themselves (because it would be imprudent to give the opponent an advantage), which helps refs to react.

You say yourself this manga is about representing the sport, so it would be good to see some solid referee work, not blind Mario Yamasaki clones (if he dies, he dies) like in other mangas.

 

[Sigilbreaker26]

Refs do not make errors all the time; they do their job well most of the time. It's just that rare mistakes often get into highlights and spark controversies, which people remember way better than the usual good referring (i.e., availability bias).

Also, fighters often actively signal fouls like eyepokes themselves (because it would be imprudent to give the opponent an advantage), which helps refs to react.

You say yourself this manga is about representing the sport, so it would be good to see some solid referee work, not blind Mario Yamasaki clones (if he dies, he dies) like in other mangas.

There are tons of finishes off of eyepokes or head clashes where fighters just get away with it if the ref doesn't intervene, in this case Aoba immediately pushing for action just after it happened meant that the ref may not have been able to pick up an eyepoke had happened.

Kureishi probably would have signalled if he'd gotten distance, honestly an attentive ref could have spotted it just from his reaction but we don't know where the ref was standing, if he'd lost position momentarily and wasn't in the right angle to see he wouldn't have necessarily been able to realise what was going on.

This isn't massive gross misconduct where something blatantly goes wrong this is a mistake a lot of MMA refs could make.

 

[xRigellx]

I shouldn't be reading this before sleeping, now I'm raring to do some exercise.