okay so: I've mentioned on this post that during the course of the story, hiori fails miserably at a metaphorical suicide; @nesscel this is, in so many more words than needed, what I meant.
Hiori, in my opinion, is one of the easiest characters to use to explain my theory on Blue Lock using football as a metaphor for life; mostly, because we're talking about the guy who doesn't want to play football and came to Blue Lock to finally have a reason to let go of it (one of the.. enough to use the plural).
So, if football is meant to be a metaphor for life, how do you translate the constant need to pretend to like it and enjoy it when that's not the case while seemingly effortlessly being good at it? Not sure. But I think I know how to convey the numbness and even mild annoyance at the very mention of the sport. I’d say that it’s being passively suicidal - and then some more.
Also, as an approach, it’s interesting that Hiori was set both on surviving long enough in Blue Lock so that his inevitable elimination wouldn’t have looked like giving up, and on never making any return at all. In the chapter where he explains his backstory, and how come he’s waiting to be eliminated, he explains that when he left home for Blue Lock, he did so with no intention of ever returning home.
Interesting implications to say the least.
It wouldn’t be the first mention of suicide, but it would be an overly scandalous one, because as it is (and if I understood that right) it’s Hiori making explicit a desire to either run away from home or end his life, for once completely stripped of the football metaphor. Even Rin’s masosadistic and whatnot nature got covered under the playing pretense blanket, so it would appear that Hiori is the first ever character who can actively wish for death freely, which is very good? for him (no its not).
Also, since there’s actually little to say about his complete detachment from reality and himself and the profound nothing he used to feel for football that needs me to point it out — it's all literally there — let's just jump straight to the most meaningful element of this metaphor: Hiori Yo’s very desperate but unnecessarily satisfying failed attempt at letting go.
The main problem with it, for me, sits on the fact that all of his words are lies he has made up several years ago, but was never asked to say. During the BM vs. Uber match, when we learn of his backstory, and immediately after, in chapter 238, he tries to let go of football and tells the reader that he tried to keep on playing, and that since now that he’s tried and has failed anyway, he can let go of all those suffocating expectation and return home with a lighter heart. This is all a stupid lie, obviously, as we see immediately after, and as we were led to believe with all his pleas to Isagi of taking him along to enjoy the game with as much fervor as Isagi has and display.
I think it’s interesting also because Hiori’s approach reminds me of Chigiri’s, but it’s also extremely different: while Chigiri was trying to look for a reason to stop playing football out of the love he felt for the sport, Hiori is doing so because he can’t take playing in a way he doesn’t like or that doesn’t represent him, anymore; Hiori is doing so out of (what he thinks is) hate for the sport. He also outright says that he hates football only when he’s talking about the numbness he feels towards it: where he thinks he should feel something, and compares it to the extreme emotions other Blue Lock players feel for it.
In other words, he’s lamenting a phantom love he knows he should feel but doesn’t.
Something else that’s different between Chigiri and Hiori is in their satisfaction: Chigiri’s was obviously fake, it’s dumb to even point it out; but Hiori’s isn’t. He really is glad that he’s reached the point where he can finally stop playing: all that relief that’s showing on his face is the complete opposite of Chigiri’s embarrassing attempt at displaying it.
Hiori really doesn’t like football, because he’s not playing in a way he can like it - he is not playing a football he can like. He doesn’t even know he can enjoy it, probably, has always just seen it as something he had to do.
So, to finally end with this topic, panels time:
Here are some examples on the panels that, reference or tease Hiori’s backstory; This also gives us a hindsight on Hiori’s take on football: he doesn’t get as fired up as Isagi (who he looks up to), and he finds it tiring, whereas Isagi has always described even training as ‘fun’.
And it almost has you fooled: when Hiori gets finally put on the field, after thinking that it was finally the first time he’s wanted something like that himself, after trying his best to fulfill his desire to play (desire he’s never had before), he fails miserably: it’s the perfect occasion to finally give up.
And he does! And as mentioned before, Hiori really does look relieved that it’s over, and he believes himself finally free of those feelings he’s had eating at him from the inside probably since he can remember.
"I am finally done with football.” No you are not. What you are is a liar.
Anyway: after Hiori gives up and has seemingly accepted that he simply wasn’t born for football, or the appeasement of others, Isagi once again plays the role of the spark of ignition (Hiori and Chigiri’s awakenings are polar opposite on all layers, btw), but this time as a benevolent factor. He reminds Hiori of something he technically should have already known, or figured out: whatever Karasu had told him that time that birthed in his heart the need to know where he lived (fact not true but for the sake of humor let’s assume it is): That he’s a good player, but it’s obvious he’s not really giving it his all (unlike what he says as his final goodbye), because it’s obvious that he’s not playing with his heart in it or his life on the line or some other stupid thing like that.
So, finally back to square one, Hiori decides to start playing like he actually enjoys running around a giant field all day chasing a ball and going to sleep every night with sore muscles. And lo and behold, it’s apparently the discovery of the century.
All this running around lets him finally understand that he does, in fact, like football, when he’s actually playing it and giving it his all for no one else’s sake but his.
This is the finish line: Hiori's character's pipeline goes from ‘comically wasted potential’ to ‘expert in all that’s gore but football’ to ‘ultrasadist’. mh
So, Hiori manages to end all of this character development with the discovery that not only you have to enjoy life to keep on living, or it becomes unbearable, but also that sometimes indulging in a little sadomasochism football roleplay with your friends helps you through your darkest times.
Okay sorry, jokes aside, his ultrasadist bit almost moved me to tears (extremely embarrassing to admit) because, and this doesn't need to be seen under the metaphor lens, it means that he started playing — and living — only for himself.
