I think my ayatop just took a weird route (thank you for reading!)
Some extra thoughts I had: I think the idea of ayatop as kriselle drives me so crazy because you really take ayabe's distant, fake nonchalant demeanour with topro's almost unwavering faith in ayabe(alongside how ayabe tends to play a helping role to everyone in 99gen) and have ayabe commit evils against her will all the while topro still has this belief in ayabe doing all of this for a purpose she just cant understand yet LOL.
Also, theres that ambiguity in their friendship in the classic year during ayabe's career where topro says "Do you really think I don't care about you" which really made me have this thought in my brain where its like. Topro herself might not know where she stands with ayabe but throws herself out there anyway(though in the anime it is basically implied that she still feels intimidated by ayabe in some way). So its even fucking better when you put them into kriselle's situation where ayabe literally cannot say whats on her mind and topro's just unable to read ayabe so she has to make these assumptions on her own lolllll but yeah basically put ayatop through the grinder for me thanks ^_^
i think people are starting to confuse class analysis with bioessentialism. like... no not all men do this, but Men as a constructed social class do do this. that's still okay to say. that is regular material analysis of the world around us.
guess whos at it again 🤑 bluelock isagithoughtsposting on how he could be an interesting character going forward (see last post if you dont know why i dont think hes interesting now)
i will say even after my last post about isagi being boring i do think he has a potential interesting plotline in the future. with his rebel style being established we now know isagis playstyle will center around destroying the strongest, which we’ve known for a while but now he seems to know and wants to lean into this aspect of play. i think one of the few ways isagi can remain interesting as a main character is if his new rebel style starts tying into the egos of other characters.
the best example i can think of right now is sae. rin wholeheartedly wants to defeat sae and prove him wrong. with sae being a guaranteed member in the new buratsuta three and blue lock beginning to turn against isagi, i could really see a future where isagi and rins goals become aligned to defeating sae and breaking off from his system. through this isagi remains the catalyst of blue lock but gives space for more interesting characters to share the spotlight and develop their stories.
there are definitely other interesting ways to go about it as well. teaming with kunigami to beat shidou, with reo to prove nagi wrong (although i dont think thats exactly what reo wants anymore), that sort of thing. letting him share the spotlight is probably the best way for isagi to stay the main character but not overpower the other narratives in the story, and is in line with his playstyle
i still definitely think that the best move for the story wouldve been to never make it a series where isagi exists as THE main character where all the others are relevant enough to be interesting but not relevant enough to steal the show. this format creates intrigue around characters that inevitably get nothing compared to the character who is rapidly becoming stale and predictable. however, isagi has always been a character who can draw out the best in others and is almost always the reason a character awakens/becomes more interesting (chigiri, bachira, hiori, kaiser, rin, barou, nagi, the list probably goes on) so i think leaning into the role as the heart of blue lock would be great for him even though blue lock is so sad and hateful now (i miss when they were all friends and held hands or whatever)
ooh more blue lock thoughts because thats what the world needs from me
its about 346 chapters in at this point and im really starting to wish blue lock was a story without a single main character.
i want to preface this by saying isagi is honestly a breath of fresh air when it comes to shonen protagonists. i really appreciate that he gets adequate time to be intense and weird and kind of a dick to the people around him just like everyone else does. in that regard i am happy with the main character blue lock has, and with nagi as a second mc its pretty satisfying.
but at this point in the story, it feels like isagi has been cruising off plot armor for the past hundred+ chapters with no end in sight. he is consistently a deciding factor in matches and gets a lot of screentime doing important things. is that to be expected of a main character? yeah for sure, but its reached a point where it’s not tense anymore.
we all know isagi is going to be the striker who makes it out of the blue lock program. hes already #1 with so much more time left in the series. it feels like nobody can keep up anymore and its really hurting the series. at the beginning of the france match they seemed nearly untouchable, like a wall isagi couldnt do anything about. he was shut out of his own team, began to question himself, and everyone left him to join karasu as the dominant system of play. which is awesome and an interesting plotline.
why is he already over it? the match hasnt even ended and hes back to being the star player. why isnt he struggling with the ideas hugo put forth? why is he not allowed to have one match where things go bad for him?
isagi has grown and continues to grow too rapidly for anyone else in the series to pose a significant challenge to him for a significant amount of time. matches have become a waiting game to see how many chapters it takes isagi to go from losing badly to scoring the winning goal. hes outgrown everyone else in blue lock and continues to improve faster than they do.
wouldnt a less set in stone main character make it better?
isagi has become to everyone else what rin was to him over half the manga ago. hes the final boss that everyone has to struggle to keep up with. at this point he works better as an antagonist. it feels pointless to follow the best player when so many other characters are extremely interesting and now have a new goal to aspire to?
chigiri and bachira are already isagis friends. itd be interesting to see how they rise to meet this new challenge, with personal stakes. kunigami is sad and angry now, but his past with isagi could be an interesting plotline (how? idk im not a professional writer clearly.) reo and nagi both have a lot more to offer. there are all the defenders who are basically forced to give up on their egos as strikers, why dont we see how that hurts them? karasu, otoya, yukimiya and hiori are all very interesting characters with a lot to explore.
not even to mention barou, rin, or shidou. barou and rin have intense history with isagi and already have an intense desire to beat him. shidous stakes arent as personal but with isagi beginning to take him over and even emulate sae in certain plays, i could definitely see him taking an interest in him.
its just disappointing how soon isagis underdog story has turned into an overwhelming and growing gap between him and everyone else, and i truly believe that him being at the top now gives every other character a chance to shine and try to catch up to their old friend who used to rest at the very bottom of blue lock.
idk how to end this. i just want more screentime for the characters i like. kaneshiro is a villain for making so many interesting characters but limiting himself and the audience to just one (and arguably the least interesting one. not that hes bad but the competition is strong.)
theres only so much to say about the flaws of chainsaw man at this point but i think the famine devil is the biggest waste by far. in a series where eating is constantly used as metaphor for love, where denji eats makima because he loves her, enjoys meals with aki and power, and ate horribly during poverty, the devil personifying hunger had no importance in the story at all, let alone thematically.
asa got the falling devil for her own personal traumas i feel like denji and famine couldve had a similar relationship
