A pandemonium of ninis

Regarding the ending scene between him and Kaiser I now understand why I saw so many people hating it. I feel like for me it's frustrating because of how real it felt—Ness was fixated on Kaiser to the point of absorbing his personality, it would've been a lot more unrealistic if he did immediately turn around and cut him off just because of one football match, no matter how emotional. And I suppose in a sense it was trying to show how wrong Kaiser was about him, not only with regard to his talent but also the fact that Ness isn't like all the other people in his life who either didn't want him or just wanted to exploit him. Ness cares about Kaiser way beyond football, his attention isn't concentrated on how well Kaiser performs in a court. And that devastated face Kaiser made in the end was because he was forced to acknowledge that and he's terrified of it, of being genuinely seen, it throws all of his preconceived notions about how the world works into question.

All the same, it just doesn't sound right that Ness would have let it all slide so easily. It's the kind of painful situation that, again, just felt so real. Should Ness have abandoned Kaiser? It would have exacerbated his self-destruction and proven to him every bad thing he already believed. But Ness was, by definition of the word, emotionally manipulated and abused, Kaiser literally approached with the express purpose of doing just that. He of all people shouldn't be left responsible for Kaiser, to forgive him for all his cruelty.