#salmon boy is growing on me like mould

[boinin]

Blue Lock Manga

Chapter 221 scanlation ("Take Me With You") is out and ready for devouring! Going back to a numbered structure for this chapter's analysis. My half-formed thoughts are below the cut.

No chapter next week, due to a break.

Previous chapter analyses

1. How many injuries did that goal (and the shenanigans that lead up to it) cause??

Butt monkey Mandou Sendou, the Ubers goalie and best sharkboi Kurona all get benched this chapter. I'm glad Isagi is cognisant of how demanding he is of Kurona. He calls him his planet/satellite for a reason I guess, but must be exhausting, especially when Kurona doesn't know what he's planning or going for.

Meanwhile, Canoli the Ubers GK might have cracked a goddamn rib trying stop that crazy Kaiser goal. Mad respect, best NPC goalie so far. 💀 While Sendou's... being Sendou (comic relief/a victim of the narrative basically).

I'll say this once and only once:

Bless Igaguri for this, lol (and Neru). But most of all, poor Kurona - you don't have to hurt yourself orbiting Isagi bb 😭

2. Kaiser is done playing.

The reason I got excited seeing the leaks this week is because of how stone cold Kaiser is in this chapter. HE IS SO BOTHERED IT STINGS. Tell me that's not one pissed off catboi right there. Plus, the aura of thorns? Fuckin' sick dude. His ego is coming to the forefront now, and he's less king of the court, more tiger about to pounce.

Ugh, he's such an arse, but I really enjoy him as a character. He looks fit to murder Ness (who's unnerved, no bloody wonder) and all his dialogue revolves around how disgusted he is that he had to serve up Isagi's leftovers.

Imagine. You just scored THE GOAL of the Neo-Egoist League so far, but all you can think of is how badly you're doing in the feud you initiated against your seventeen year old Japanese teammate.

For once, I'm with Ness here. Kaiser what the hell? Just take the W and move on, man.

We saw Kaiser get more serious during the Manshine game, but he's never not been smug towards Isagi. Allow me a segue, as I flick through those chapters.

[[In chp 177, he leers at Isagi that he's losing interest (Isagi: and I took that personally).

In chp 181 he scores the first BM goal against Manshine. He shows the same cat-eyed focus (his version of Predator Eye I speculate), but he's still pretty satisfied with himself.

It's only when chp 182, when Isagi turns around and tells him I see hope in crushing you now that Kaiser starts to second-guess his little game with Isagi. Antagonising the Blue Lock ace is backfiring hard on him, because bullying Isagi is a surefire way of leveling him up.

Still. Even when Isagi sets up Kunigami's score in chp 185, and we get the I'm going to fucking kill you if it's the last thing I do moment, Kaiser's still like 😏 He's not bothered. Perhaps because Isagi's doing a fine job of usurping Ness's role, but not his own.

It's not until chp 202 that Isagi finally, seriously, starts getting at Kaiser. Because at the last minute, Isagi not only anticipated Kaiser fucking with him, but had a back up plan to specifically ensure Kaiser would not take the final score of the game. That's NG11 levels of playmaking, or at least approaching it. Itoshi Sae operates at that level, but he's a prodigy. Isagi's managed to close that gap in several intensive months of training and plays. that's why he's the protagonist 😎

After Yukimiya scores and ends the game in chp 203, that's when Kaiser approaches and proposes that, versus Ubers, they compete on goals alone.

That's when Kaiser starts to take Isagi seriously. And now that we're more than halfway through, you can see Kaiser is starting to worry about his odds of winning the competition he set.]]

I don't know how the BM v Ubers game will pan out. Convention suggests Ubers will win it. Barou is a serious rival to Isagi, and at the very least, he's going to get the next goal of the game. I wouldn't write off Ubers winning altogether, with Snuffy subbing on to turn the tide.

But I think there's a strong chance one of Isagi or Kaiser will score again, and I'm leaning towards it being Kaiser. Their rivalry is too good to wind up so soon, even with a rivalry-packed PXG match on the horizon. What will happen before that is Isagi driving a sea of change at Bastard Munchen. They're already five/eleven on the team. Change Ness or Grimm out for Hiori, and Blue Lock will have succeeded in infiltrating one of the best U20 teams in the world. No mean feat, and driven mainly by Isagi's playmaking.

Anyway, back on track. I couldn't sympathise with browbeaten Ness for too long. What in yandere hell was this panel??:

HE'S SO DERANGED. It's really well drawn and everything, but it's legit HAUNTING. Something about the V shaped mouth and massive teeth I think.

Anyway, Ness will need to be sedated after this match if Isagi ends up scoring the last goal, because man can't be trusted 😊🔪

Speaking of Isagi...

3. Japanese man obsessed with being the sole thing on German striker's brain, more PRIDE news at 10

they're so frickin gay, I--

Jokes aside, their rivalry is a feast for the eyes as well as us shippers. Everytime Kaiser talks shit about him, one of Isagi's cells morphs into a jigsaw piece. Man's going to have more puzzles than a ‎Ravensburger catalogue if he doesn't stop soon.

This panel goes so hard. Unfortunately the image quality of this week's scanlation is a little rough. I'm hoping there's better quality raws floating around for anyone that's into colouring, but this chapter has so many cool shots. This and Kaiser bitching out Ness are my personal favourites.

4. Star System Sub Alert! Marc Snuffy's coming in clutch for the Ubers side

I did kinda hope that neither Snuffy or Noa would sub in this game. Neither of them seem like the type to want to outshine their younger charges. Prince and Lavinho are both massive narcissists, while Loki is a peer as well as a coach to his PXG players. Those coming on in a game makes sense.

That said, Snuffy seems to really gel with and support the Ubers boys, and they're on the losing side. To me, that's the only sensible reason for him to step in, forcing Noa to come on also.

I think Snuffy's MO will be to set up a goal for Barou, while knocking Kaiser and Isagi down a peg. I hope he synergises with Lorenzo! Noa will be man marking Snuffy, but might get time to do some Isagi coaching while he's out there, who knows?

Either way, we get to see Snuffy in action on the field, which I'm down for.

Lastly: did anyone think Snuffy was that tall? Noa's got to be around Kunigami's range in height (so ~188cm/6'2" territory). From this panel, Snuffy's just as tall, which was a shock... 😶

5. OH LAWD HE COMIN

(and by comin, I mean: signing up to join Isagi Yoichi's harem of rehabilitated sad bois)

HIORI MY SON

WHEN WILL THEY SUB YOU INTO THIS GAME?

Not by the time I predicted, that's for sure. But I am excited to see his ego awakening as he looks with completely platonic admiration at Isagi.

All in all, a hype-worthy chapter, even after the adrenaline from Kaiser's mega goal fades. I'm so excited to see where it goes with two masters on the field (+ Fukaku Gen I guess? I feel validated for writing him into the national team in my post-canon fic haha).

Prediction tracker

(alternatively: how wrong can one nerd be week to week?)

Last time, I predicted: Chapter 221 will be both teams reckoning with this goal. We’ll likely get input from both Ubers and BM, and some sort of change in dynamic–be it a substitution or the coaches opting to play (reeeally doubt this will happen though, unless they get a nudge from Ego). In particular, I’m eager to see how Lorenzo and Hiori process this. Also, someone’s going to yell at Isagi. Kunigami or Raichi are my guess.

Egg on my face? Ah well.

We're down to two more chapters for Hiori to get subbed per my original prediction... chuckles nervously

Already went through my thoughts for where Snuffy/Noa are going to go with this, so I'll chalk that up as next chapter's prediction. See you then!

[woodstoneb-b]

Hello and welcome to Woodstone Manor - I have been here since the beginning, this house growing up in my shadow. A majestic mighty tree that has stood the test of

Nah this is weird...I'm Jay Arondekar and this is all just a simulation. Because video games are awesome and so is this ability my wife, Sam has. She can see ghosts!

She inherited this house from her Great Aunt and after falling down the stairs and kind of dying for a bit - she got better! - she can see actually see and hear ghosts.

There's 8 of them haunting here (well...not exactly, but more on that later)

This is them! Well, almost all of them... From left to right - Trevor aka "No Pants" (fortunately this game doesn't let Sims go pantsless, but he absolutely insisted on me putting him in tiny underpants after this...weirdo.) He's a finance bro from 2000 - he worked at Lehman Brothers (yeah those guys), despite this he's not as shitty as you'd think.

Then there's Sasappis, he goes by Sass (a well deserved nickname my wife tells me), he's a Lanape who's tribe used to live on the land here and he died back in the 1500s. Despite that he really loves TV.

Next to him is Flower - and you can totally guess where she's from right? The 1960s. She died on the property after trying to hug a bear, drugs were involved. She's cool though, if a bit spacey.

The guy next to her is an honest to God Viking from like the year 1000. Did you know there were Vikings in New York?! I did not so this was pretty epic to find out. According to my wife the good news about Thorfinn aka Thor - he's learnt to speak English, the bad news - he talks a lot about murdering and pillaging, also cod, salmon...any fish really.

And your eyes do not deceive you, next to Thor is a soldier from the Revolutionary War - Captain Isaac Higgintoot, who you can learn all about by reading my wife's recently released book on him The Forgotten Founding Father: The Isaac Higgintoot Story - available from all good bookstores! He died from dysentery, but we don't talk about that

The guy in front who looks like boy scout, is not a boy scout, he's Pete, Pine Cone Troop Leader and awesome travel agent (kids ask your parents about that), he's from the 80s, loves D&D, basketball.

And in the back wearing the eyecatching red, is Alberta who you may have heard about from the monthly Murder at the Manor?! podcast hosted by my wife and Todd Pearlman complete and a total loon who has one of Alberta's toenails and wants to clone her she was a raising star in the Jazz Age and her loss is utter tragedy for the music world.

And this is Henrietta "Hetty" Woodstone aka the owner of Woodstone Manor - well, that would actually be my wife, since Hetty is a ghost, but yeah. She wanted a screengrab of just her because as the owner of Woodstone she deserves it. She and her asshole (we're not striking that out? No? OK) husband/cousin, Elias - Mill Owners and Robber Barons built Woodstone in the 1850s. Apparently, there was a house on it when they started, but they made it the place it is today.

Here's the ground floor layout, there's a Ballroom, a Library, a Music Room and a Games Room. So yeah, the Woodstone's were rolling in it!

The first floor, where the bedrooms are, there's actually 9 of them - well 8 if you don't include the Owner's Suite, or 6 if you take out the ghosts' bedrooms (why do ghosts need their own bedrooms? Because getting walked through hurts. They bunk up, Thor and Trevor share the Private Living Room so that means only 3 bedrooms are out of commission. Although the one marked "Spruce" isn't actually available yet because of a terrible mould issue so there's actually 5 guest rooms at the B&B in real life. But for the purposes of the game here, each Ghost gets their own room, again! They're pretty jealous of their simselves to be honest.

We have a basement with an actual secret Vault in it! Sadly, the visions I had a piles of gold ala Scrooge McDuck did not come to be. But you can drink wine down there now, it's accessed by a secret room and passageway. Where exactly is the secret door? You'll have to visit us to find out!

There's also a whole group of ghosts in the hot water heater room that died of Cholera, my wife says be glad you can't see them.

And finally the attic, you don't wanna go up there, it's full of old stuff including metal things that are probably a tetanus hazard. Also there's a ghost of a teenage girl up there, she got murdered on her way to prom in the late 80s and she's pretty pissed about it. Which is totally understandable, although she's also a huge mean girl and that sucks.

So now you have a bit of background! Tune in next time to see how the Ghosts settle in and their excitement at actually being able to leave the Manor grounds! (Did you know Ghosts are bound to the places they haunt? Turns out they are...which is why my wife and I have to put up with them)