#q270

Alright so... I loved this chapter and have too many feelings about it. I'm also really really happy because the new "power up" was actually more teamwork.

But beyond that, I want to analyze for a bit the fact that the person "guarding" the door was Kuroko.

First of all, let's establish something: The Zone is a mental state. It makes your body more effective because your mind is 100% focused on what you're doing. I'm pretty sure that if you watched irl sports before, you've heard about the zone or commentators randomly saying "it's like he's in the zone!". But in case you don't know, the zone is a real thing. Nobody really has any idea of how it works tbqh, but generally speaking the 'requirements' are usually:

1. A deep knowledge of how the game works. In the case of the KnB characters, we could say that a lot of them have this since they can easily comment on other games and understand things other people wouldn't get so easily ('Internalized mastery' usually goes from "I kinda get this but I do it unconsciously" to "I understand this, I can do it consciously with complete control of my actions and I can also put into words what I'm doing").

2. A great passion for what you're doing, because otherwise you wouldn't care enough to focus 100% on it.

KnB added the detail that a person needs to have talent to get into that state. That's why only the GoM and Kagami have a chance of actually get in the Zone, while what we have with the rest of Rakuzan right now is an "almost there but not really in the Zone" thing.

But the point here is that the Zone is a mental state. Aomine and the rest describe it with analogies like the door thing because it's a way to put into words something that's not easy to describe. And well, because sport animes are seriously over the top and love ridiculous analogies, but that's something else. The fact that it's a mental state also means that it doesn't work in the same way for everyone. It also means that all the descriptions of it, all the analogies, come from the head and feelings of the person describing it.

Which means that-- it isn't like Kuroko is actually there standing at the door, deciding who gets into the Zoneception and who doesn't. I mean, I think that much is obvious, right?

When Aomine said that the person standing at the door was Kuroko, I think he didn't literally mean that Kuroko was there. But the Zoneception is a state where you're not only 100% focused on your game, but your team also synchronizes perfectly with you. In other words, it's actually a perfect teamwork. In this manga, Kuroko is the one that represents that perfect teamwork, because that's his basketball. So, Aomine saw Kuroko there because: 1. Aomine probably was never as synchronized and in perfect teamwork with someone as he was with Kuroko, 2. Kuroko represents to him the ideal of teamwork.

And the same analogy works for Kagami because Kuroko was the first one to try to synchronize perfectly with him. So Kuroko opened the door to the Zone within the Zone to him, metaphorically speaking. Although Kuroko was the trigger, the actual Zoneception is a perfectly synchronized teamwork with all of your team. Which is the reason why it's even harder to get there than to get into the first Zone: you don't just need your own talent and determination, you also need a complete trust from your team and their ability to synchronize with you.

This also show Seirin's growth. I don't think the perfect sync came out of nowhere for Seirin, to be honest. The story has always been building up for this. KnB can be really over the top 90% of the time, but every over the top thing that shows up was actually hinted before, so...