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bluelockednyx · 2 years ago

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Isagirin meta part 4

Part 1, talking about Isagi's first meeting and match with Rin here.

Part 2, covering the rest of the Second Selection Arc, up until the formation of the Rin-Isagi-Bachira-Aryu-Tokimitsu 5-man team here.

Part 3, covering the 5v5 match against the World 5 team, as well as the Blue Lock Eleven tryout matches, up until Rin's kickoff in the Blue Lock vs U20 match here.

This is part 4 of my Rinsagi meta series, and will cover the first half of the Blue Lock vs U20 match, up till Isagi and Rin begin heading back to the field for the second half.

First Half (C113 - C126)

The game starts with Rin’s kickoff, and Blue Lock crowds the midfield as per their strategy. Bachira’s pass to Isagi gets blocked off by Aiku, whom Isagi now targets as his new challenge in the game proper. In the midst of breaking through the midfield towards the penalty area, Isagi’s attention is caught by Otoya, who can’t get past Darai.

Rin's clearly been paying attention, and likely having the same thoughts as Isagi (or mindreading Isagi, because let's face it, they've already done that plenty of times before now), because he tells Isagi to change up his train of thought.

Blue Lock gets stalled, and the ball stolen from possession. The U20 defense shows off their stuff, and when Sendou, U20's ace, fails to score, Sae makes a line drive shot and makes the first goal of the match.

While Isagi’s getting carried away by the crowd’s expectations, Rin maintains his cool, and once again calls out to Isagi, telling Isagi to focus on him.

“You just have to look at me.”

This was a nice little callback to Rin telling Isagi to watch his ascension to become the world's number one, by the way, but I digress.

C116

The game restarts with Rin's pass to Isagi again. While mired in doubt, Isagi hangs on to Rin's earlier words.

"I don't even know what I'm lacking right now. That's how strong they are. But I'm already past that. It's clear what I need to do... discard all unnecessary thoughts! Concentrate on what I can do right now! I'm going to use everything I've got and focus on building my plays with Rin!"

Rin ups the tempo of the passes, and Isagi matches up with him well enough that they jam the U20's defense temporarily. When Bachira gets a pass from Rin, he even remarks that he's jealous of their coordination.

Rin attempts to copy Sae's own shot, and narrowly misses out on scoring a goal. Yukimiya, then Otoya attempt to score as well, but it's ultimately Nagi who gets the first goal for Blue Lock.

In the dugout, Ego narrates that Rin's decision, his attack, was the underlying reason behind Blue Lock scoring, and that Isagi is key to Rin awakening. Isagi, likewise, understands that Rin’s actions were what led to the goal. He tries to comfort Rin, who doesn’t take too kindly to it (lol), because he wasn’t the one who scored the goal, pointing out that Isagi too, had split up from him the moment he found a chance to score. Rin even goes so far as to say that this distorted relationship of theirs is how they should be. Isagi accepts that as well; he doesn’t need to focus on teamwork with Rin. What he should do is focus on his own goals as well.

We'll see if that's where the narrative is going for, Rin

Rin faces off against Sae, and immediately rags on him for being a shitty sibling. Younger siblings unite against shitty older siblings!!

Isagi shouts to Rin that he'll back him up. Rin yells back at Isagi to back off.

As Niou says, this is a sibling fight at a national match, indeed. Rin keeps up with Sae, until Sae coolly informs Rin that so long as Rin is hung up on being Sae's brother, Rin won't beat hi, then gets past him.

Karasu, the third person (I think) to nickname Rin.

Niko steals the ball from Sendou, and Karasu breaks through together with Otoya, then passes to Chigiri. Chigiri cuts through to the right and passes back to Karasu, who's open. Sae comes in to block him, and the stray ball goes to Rin. Aiku defends, and while Isagi comes up behind Aiku, distracting him, Rin scores Blue Lock's second goal.

Isagi’s full of admiration over Rin’s goal, and goes in for a hug. He’s also the only one leaping in for a hug, which is an interesting parallel to Nagi earlier, who had so many others lunging at him. Rin dodges (too bad, Isagi, you haven’t unlocked friendship levels requirement for that yet). Rin tells Blue Lock that they’re finishing off the first half with plan B. The U20 move in, and all the Blue Lock members, besides Nagi who remains at midfield, move in to defend. Rin blocks Sae’s pass to Sendou, and the stray ball gets back in Sae’s possession, who then shoots a second time. Thanks to Aryu, they stave off the final minute, and Blue Lock goes into the second half in the lead, at 2-1.

In the locker rooms, Sae reveals that he’s playing in the game because of Aiku’s bet, and that his only interest is in Blue Lock. He reminisces Rin’s ‘guts pose’ after Rin scored Blue Lock’s second goal.

‘I saw what I came for, and I’m satisfied. So I have no reason to keep playing this match.’

That doesn't happen, as Aiku baits Sae into continuing the game using Shidou.

Over on the Blue Lock side, they celebrate their current lead and rest up. Ego then points out that Blue Lock’s goals began with Rin and Isagi’s combination. Rin explains that he needed to get past the U20 defenders, and used Isagi as a sacrificial lamb. Isagi then says that he has no intention of being simply a pawn in the game.

While Isagi ‘devours’ more of Rin’s game mentality, to push forward for the sake of his own goal no matter who or what he has to sacrifice, he watches Rin leave the locker room. Rin takes a quiet moment for himself, and we get Rin’s backstory with Sae.

Turns out that Sae was just as rude a little shit as a kid as he is now. Rin's clearly picked up a lot of habits and mannerisms from him too (lol). It's very cute though expected, that Rin started playing football because he admires Sae, and that's the start of his best striker in the world dream.

It's also nice to see here that Sae doesn't get mad over Rin interrupting his team's match. Rin's clearly expecting a scolding, from the way Sae marches over to him; instead, Sae praises Rin, even asking Rin to play football with him, though not without saying that Rin can be the best striker after him.

In this flashback, we learn of Sae's competitiveness, Rin and Sae's plays as a duo, and their overall success in games. As they chill at the edge of the sea with their ice pops, Sae asks Rin some important questions about his football, namely, what Rin is thinking of when he's out on the field.

"? Nothing much. I guess I just think about scoring. Since if I dash to where it looks critical, you'll pass to me."

"... What's critical?"

"Hm... Like where the enemy'd panic, and fall apart."

Sae scolds Rin a little for relying on his instincts too much, then asks Rin an important question:

"... What do you plan to do if I'm not there, then?"

"Dunno. Look for someone else to replace you, I guess."

Sae reacts unfavourably to this, then we learn why he's asking Rin those questions now: Sae has gotten scouted and will join Real Madrid, leaving Rin behind in Japan. As Rin and their parents see Sae off at the airport, Rin decides to catch up to Sae as promised.

Without Sae around, Rin finds it 'restricting', a repetition of what he told Isagi back in C88. He tries to emulate Sae, in a way, and lead his team to victory and become the best in Japan.

Sae returns after four years, walking in on Rin's solo practice and Rin notices something off with him immediately. He praises Sae's accomplishments, but Sae then reveals that he's changed his dream to become a midfielder instead of a striker. Rin is unable to accept it, then hurts Sae by calling him out on giving up on their shared dream. Sae, in turn, challenges Rin to a match. When Rin loses to him, Rin further laments that he has no reason to play football without Sae, who responds cruelly in return, ending in him telling Rin to 'get lost'.

Rin falls into a funk after that, and watches Sae playing football alone on TV in his room. He ultimately decides to continue with football to destroy Sae’s dream. At the end of this backstory sequence, we see Isagi coming up to bring Rin back to the start of the second half.

And this is the end of part 4!

There are a lot of nice shippy moments here, and the recurring motif of Isagi 'looking at' Rin, and Rin, much more subtly, is looking back at Isagi too. From early on when Isagi is nervous, then drawn into the crowd's fervour for Sae, to the second kick off where Rin starts changing things up by improvising, all the way up till the break where Rin goes off alone.

On Rin's end, we finally know his backstory and why his relationship with Sae soured. Although we don't know why Sae has changed his dream, and Sae's version of his time in Spain. it's a fair assessment that his experience there has caused him to lose his self-confidence and self-esteem in pursuing his dream to be the best striker in the world, given his lines about 'how vast the world is'.

We see Isagi and Rin's developing teamwork on the field, as well as the growing fierce competitive tension within it. Throughout the first half, Isagi and Rin build up the team's offense together, both through excellent teamwork initially, then ultimately, when the chance to score comes up, by pursuing their own thing. While Isagi targets Aiku as his main 'challenge', Rin's focus is almost solely on Sae.

Also another interesting thing to note, in Rin's flashback of his relationship with Sae: whenever they have ice pops, Rin always gets the winning stick instead of Sae.

The next part will cover the second half of the Blue Lock vs U20 match, including their mini-holiday chapters, up until C152.

Update: Part 5 now complete!

#blue lock #bllk #isagi yoichi #itoshi rin #isagirin #rinsagi #isagirin meta part 4 #rinsagi meta part 4 #otp: heart stolen by his beautiful parable

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