#gachagon

Like, there has to be suspense first. We get to appreciate something more if it’s done gradually and not all of a sudden.

Look at other character arcs involving a personality change: Eren from Attack on Titan, Leo from Pandora Hearts, and even Mob from MP100. Their stories are completely different and shouldn’t be compared with Chigiri’s, but I want to point out here that their personality change was so stark that people couldn’t help but reminisce about their previous personality. But for Chigiri, there’s none of that. It’s as if his mysterious side never even existed.

And since Isagi’s the protagonist, through whom we get to know other people’s stories, there should have been more interactions between him and Chigiri before the latter’s arc. You have to expect at least that for a character set as one of the main four in this series.

But before the set-up for Chigiri’s arc (which started when he and Isagi watched that footage together), we don’t even see them talking to each other. Nor have we seen Isagi at least commenting about Chigiri in his head. A simple thought of “why is this guy so uncooperative” would have been enough. Or, the author could’ve let Isagi respond to when Chigiri said that Ego shouldn’t be completely trusted, or at least let Isagi think about his words in his head.

Even better, we could’ve had a scene of Isagi complaining about Chigiri taking too long to get to their meetings, and then cue in a panel of Chigiri actually taking care of his injury without anyone in Team Z knowing. That would’ve made the audience curious: Is he injured? How bad is it? That could’ve also built indignance among the audience! Shut up, Isagi. You really don’t know what he’s going through.

Or, if they want to make the injury less obvious, maybe just show a panel of Chigiri doing his stretches.

Like, there are so many ways that the author could’ve built up Chigiri while still having his character arc as early as in the First Selection. But they didn’t do that. Yukimiya’s backstory got more build-up, and he’s not even one of the main characters.

I get what you mean though that Chigiri’s arc being revealed after Bachira’s, Reo’s, or Nagi’s would make it less impactful. But as for his backstory not being too complex, I disagree.

I mean, look at Barou. His backstory is much more simple. Like Chigiri, he also came to Blue Lock already confident. His backstory is simply that he was put on a pedestal since he was young and it got into his head. But part of the reason Barou’s arc feels more satisfying is because we see a lot of him pre-development. We see him interact with Isagi several times in the First Selection, and we see him exchange insults with Nagi in the Second Selection. We, the audience, got so much of him that we started to find him annoying, so when his arc came, it was a big fucking finally.

If Chigiri were just any other side character, maybe I wouldn’t care much. But since he’s being set up as one of the main four, I really expect more of him.

Someone on Twitter also mentioned how Chigiri was a victim in the Germany vs England match. There was only one chapter about him, and then it was as if he wasn’t part of the story. His character was sidelined to make way for the intersecting stories of Nagi, Reo, Yukimiya, Isagi, and Kaiser. Chigiri was like an extra who just appeared once in a while to show a cool move or two. His story no longer affects the plot.