I wanna discuss how much Karasu roots for Hiori (i've talked a little about this in a prior post, regarding karasu's sincerity towards hiori here) and how deep his perception of Hiori is; a testament to just how closely he's been watching the guy to gain this level of understanding. Hence why he has a clear vision of how Hiori can get stronger, shed the weight of the world's expectations, and burst out his cacooon into the player he can tell Hiori is capable of being. Karasu loves stuff like this, after all, he's moved by these ordinary things. [continued below]
During his first appearance during U20 (ch. 129), Hiori's role was introduced as being an anchor for the Blue Lock team - 'a technician of stillness', slightly similarly to how Sae acted as an anchor for the U20 team with his incredible calm and levelheaded execution of passes. I mean just in the chapter before this one, his passes helped faciliate Shidou's vision leading to that incredible dragon drive goal that equalised the game.
But compared to Sae, Hiori's passes had different expectations, both from him and his teammates.
This style of play avoids direct confrontations, with no expectations of Hiori being able to best someone in a one-on-one. His job is to pass to someone else who can. He's accepted it and acts accordingly, passing it to Karasu.
It's a brilliant pass too, even the U20 guys are impressed. Karasu is too but he then immediately starts playfully provoking Hiori; 'You're only good when sending the ball away!' baiting him into a response, 'I can do more than that...'
To which Karasu then directly and with such intensity stares into his soul and says: 'Come on and show me...what makes you special' and passes it right back; a challenge. Hiori quips back with 'Yeah, yeah. Caw on, you crow,' rising to the challenge thrown his way.
Karasu then passes to him without even looking, to a spot Hiori's not even at yet, because he knows Hiori will be there. He's acutely aware of Hiori's potential, and that it exceeds the current scope of his role as an anchor; he's provoking him to go beyond the current expectations placed on him. It's almost like he's going head-to-head with Hiori despite being on the same side LMAO (we see a lot of that during this match e.g. Rin and Isagi, and Barou and Isagi, and this is basically Blue Lock's/Ego's entire philosophy). Despite it being explicitly stated that no one expecting a head-to-head with Hiori, Karasu is over here poking an prodding for one lol
And this is when we see Hiori's ego burning, the first time we've seen it show up and Isagi also notices it in the following panel! Hiori maintains the calm and precision of an anchor but something's changed, there's passion in his following play that culminates in a beautiful pass. Passion is also fiery, the opposite of 'still' and 'calm' but if combined all together in a player, makes for a formidable opponent. This wasn't present prior to Karasu's intervention and inspiration.
His first pass to Karasu was brilliantly precise, but this one was elevated to a new level where Sendou even compares its quality to Sae, who is the ultimate standard in this match (and generally).
Having read the two latest chapters (ch. 291 and 292), this interaction really mirrors their NEL face-off, and as a result you can see how much Hiori has grown in that time and it's so wonderful!!! (i discussed these two chapters in more detail here)
This idea of providing inspiration for plays is something that's mirrored in RyuSae's dynamic during this match too; how Sae guides Shidou's inspiration to lead him in the direction of the most explosive play possible. This is exactly what Karasu did for Hiori!
Also, I want to go back to that comment: 'In this moment, the anchor has found itself free...'
The 'free' here may refer to not being marked by any U20 players in that moment, but they're also right there, in the frame and we know how strong the U20's defense and marking ability was during the match, so I'm not really leaning towards this interpretation.
Rather, I think it's more so the narrative referring to Hiori being momentarily free from expectations, allowing him to embrace his ego and craft a skillfull pass that would've otherwise been difficult for him to pull off had to kept playing as he was expected to.
When it comes to Hiori's lifelong struggle with expectations, Karasu was the first person he confessed this to. Not even completely voluntarily at that; his heart was so moved, all his barrier dropped and he couldn't help but spill his inner turmoil to another person for the first time in his life.
For the first time in his entire life, Hiori was told that he doesn't have to live for anyone else but himself. That he should find what he likes, what excites him, believe in himself, expect from himself, and that that's the only way to move forward. Hiori, who was standing in one place, stagnating, rotting away in the intersection between his parents, video games, and football for so long, was finally given the key to move forward. Permission to break the cycle. Not for anyone else. Only for his own sake. This became the foundation upon which his future awakening during the NEL was built. The seeds from which he'd finally bloom into the player and person Karasu saw and was drawn to long before.
Which is why Karasu was so excited to face the new Hiori in the latest chapters, and even before that, earlier in the BM/PXG match, told him he'd been waiting for him to burst out of his chrysalis this whole time :')
I wanna delve into one last thing: Hiori's left leg
Okay, we know how Karasu feels about it, since he outright called it erotic to Hiori's face within mere moments of meeting the the guy which confused the hell out of poor Hiori (and us as the readers, too...) LMAOO
Aside from the fact that he was shamelessly flirting, Karasu has been closely watching Hiori for some time before he decided to make this comment, and prior to this he was genuinely praising his abilities as a player, so he was also being dead serious about how much he appreicates Hiori's left leg LMAO
And to be honest, he's right! In terms of soccer skills, Hiori's dominant leg is his left one and the narrative even draws attention to it during that shot in the U20 match when we see his ego glowing for the first time!
I guess what I'm trying to point out is the fact that Karasu's analysis lead him to recognising all this wonderful potential in Hiori even in his dormant state. He saw Hiori for who he was deep down and he really liked it. In fact, he was so drawn to it to the point where he even began thinking the leg that would be making it all happen was erotic dhjsfgjhsgfj it's like he could envision it, y'know??? like he'd probably think about what an awakened and strong Hiori would look like - how he'd play, how he'd use his left leg to shoot and make those incredible passes we now have seen Hiori curate during the NEL.
Granted, it's still an odd choice of adjective but Karasu is an just odd guy (affectionate). When i started probing for why he'd be so enticed by Hiori's leg to the point of labelling it as erotic, it really started making sense lol
To add onto this, Karasu is a self-admitted hyperaware analyst - he can read people down to the bone. He's aware of how others are perceived, how they may perceive themselves, and in turn how he himself is perceived by others. So he's also careful about what he puts out into the world, and therefore how he interacts with people. This includes the words and phrases he chooses to use in conversation. So what I'm getting at is this: he knows exactly how using the word 'erotic' to describe something about Hiori would come across. He knows, based on his long periods of observing the guy, how Hiori is probably not used to this type of banter and therefore would perceive such a comment, i.e. getting flustered and particularly hung up on it. Yet, he very intentionally used it anyway. So it's clear that he wanted to fluster Hiori. If you pay any attention to their interactions even on a surface-level, this type of teasing is something Karasu really enjoys and indulges in. An example being, as discussed earlier, in the U20 game when he calls Hiori's pass erotic again and all back-and-forth quipping he engaes in with Hiori during that play. He just loves teasing the guy, because Hiori's particular sensitivity and awareness of Karasu generates the best responses.
I know we consider Hiori as being the obsessed one (he absolutely is), but the fondness is truly mutual and reciprocal.
anyway, idk if i could totally communicate my vision with this left leg stuff, but i felt compelled to get this out there so i'll just leave it here for anyone else who might be on the same wavelength as me
and just for fun, here have some cool panels of Hiori and his (erotic) left leg so you can see Karasu's wonderful vision 😭
