Happy Birthday, Isagi 😊

happy birthday, isagi 😊

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎, 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚣𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝙸𝚝𝚘𝚜𝚑𝚒 𝚂𝚊𝚎.

One of my favourite topics when it comes to anime is the misunderstanding of complex yet well written characters such as Mr Itoshi Sae himself. Due to his blunt and cold nature, many people seem to assume that Sae is the bad guy and wants to purposely crush the dreams of aspiring footballers (such as Rin) however it's not the case at all.

In reality, we haven't seen enough of Sae (both in the manga or anime) to paint a solid character profile and come to a solid conclusion as to why he is the way he is. I believe football and the exposure to it at such a high level whilst only being 13 would have massively impacted his personality and he suggests this himself in his profile within the Egoist Bible. When asked 'What do you think you'd turn out to be if you hadn't met soccer?', he replied with "I'd have lived a normal happy life. My personality might not have turned out like this either.". Sae is a gentle soul, we see this in how he is with Rin when they were younger and you can tell he does care for Rin however I reckon he would have had to 'toughen' up when being exposed to the cruel reality of being a professional footballer.

Professional sports is brutal. And so is the environment in which you are surrounded by. I'm not sure in regards to other countries, but English football can have some of the most toxic and vile fans, racism is a super common occurrence. In 2020, Marcus Rashford missed a penalty during the shootout in the England vs Italy match and received an influx of racism and abuse. I bring this point up because in Season 1 of Blue Lock we see Sae is wearing black and white wristbands which is what footballers normally wear to symbolise the 'Stand Up Speak Up' campaign created for battling racism within European Football. This could suggest one of two things: Sae is wearing it to promote the campaign or Sae experienced racism whilst in Spain. Experiencing something like this can be absolutely detrimental to a person, at the end of the day professional athletes are also human beings, if it is the case that Sae has experienced this, then it makes a lot of sense as to why he is the way he is ESPECIALLY towards Rin. Why? Because he wants to protect Rin from the harsh cruel reality of professional football.

Which brings me on to my next point! Sae and Rin's relationship as of now. This dynamic is heavily misread by a lot of people, even friends who I have discussed this with have said that Sae is just cruel and hates his brother. This is just not the case. If anything, Sae is super emotionally constipated, he cares but he doesn't exactly show it in the best way and I believe that Sae is just trying to protect Rin. Yes, he can be an ass but he's just naturally blunt as is anyways. My favourite thing to mention that not many people do, is that we have only ever seen Sae from Rin's perspective and so the portrayal of Sae is biased to Rin's feelings about him. During the fateful night where the brothers 'fought', I believe it was fully shown to us from Rin's perspective alone, Sae's dialogue and attitude is how Rin perceived him at the time which to us looks like: cold, cruel and bad. In reality, Sae had been through a lot in the four years he'd been away from home, he was only a baby himself and went through so much. When we see Sae in that scene he looks tired and Rin does ask if he's lost weight, this alone backs up that we saw the fight through only Rin's perspective. The whole point of me ranting on about this is because I don't believe Sae would have straight up told rin "You're not necessary in my life anymore", he cares about him too much. I think because of the shock that they aren't sharing the same dream anymore and Rin's refusal to see that Spain has drastically changed Sae and his personality, he paints Sae in a cruel way in order to try and dissociate his feelings from the situation. It's common knowledge that Sae didn't view that night as a fight and instead just saw it as Rin being a rebellious teen. I think it would be interesting to see how that encounter went down from Sae's perspective.

I literally adore Sae as a character, he is so real. He is the perfect representation of what professional sports can do to a person, but some of y'all wanna hate on my glorious king. I will literally defend this man to the end of time.

Dividers from: https://rxttenflesh.tumblr.com/post/677807751539425280

73 notes View Post

karasublog

3 months ago