Thread: The final battle! The epic conclusion! The ultimate challenge! ...this is lame.

I don't know about you, but I feel this whole game against the Teikoku Alexanders is just fundamentally, at its core, lame. Frankly, the game against Hakkeshu was lame for the same reason- Inagaki has run out of interesting ideas for teams so now they just make them "ultimate" in some regard. All the previous teams Deimon faced were interesting because of their theme- from the heavyweight linemen on the Taiyo Sphinx, the kicking team Bando, the ultra-offensive Seibu and the ultra-defensive Ojo. Even Shinryuuji had the ultra-disciplined monk theme contrasted with the arrogant laxness of their evil star player. But what have we had recently?

Hakkeshu were lame because they were a team devoid of any ideas. Gaou was a big brute who smashed into people and crippled them. Kisaragi and Marco just stole the ball. No strategy was involved in beating them, Kurita, Monta and Sena just had to be 'better' than them. But then we get to the Christmas Bowl, the ultimate destination since the beginning of the series, to face their final opponents. And what kind of creative team has Inagaki saved for the final showdown?

The Alexanders are perfect. Period. And that's stupid. They've never lost a Christmas Bowl in the more than 20 years since the start of the competition? They've never EVER lost the lead in their entire history? That's just dumb. The way the first-string players were built up to be the best of the best of the best of the best of the best was ridiculous (players have to memorise a playbook of over 1000 plays just to move from 6th string to 5th? Oh please!) and Yamato and Taka are just so irritatingly unchallengeable in their perfection that it burns my soul. The way Yamato declares the Devil Bats -acknowledged as the most powerful offensive team in Kanto- will not score a single point against the Alexanders and Taka doesn't even bother acknowledging Monta makes them almost offensively unlikeable to me, despite clumsily manipulative attempts to make Yamato come across as a good guy in his introduction. Having a female quarterback is just a gimmick, largely so they can allow Kurita to hold his "strongest player in the game" title (introducing a guy even bigger than Gaou at this stage would plumb new depths of lame) without actually allowing him to achieve anything, and the idea of making her passes "easy to catch" is the lousiest idea for a quarterback since... uh... whenever.

And the worst thing is we know the Devil Bats are going to win. Despite making it abundantly clear in these opening chapters that they don't have an icicle's chance in hell of doing so. The concept of facing the "strongest team" worked when they faced Shinryuuji. They didn't dare drag it out again against Ojo, instead making the two teams arguably an even match from the start. But this game just doesn't interest me, because Teikoku are -there's no other word for it- BORING.

i agree with the entire rant. the shinryuuji arc would've fit beautifully into the end of the manga.

Agreed, and well said.

Agreed.
The Alexanders are filled with overpowered players with no signifigance in them whatsoever.

While I agree for the most part, you also have to realize that the alexanders at this point are obviously not taking the devilsbats seriously,like at all. Hopefully after a few chapters they'll see the threat that Deimon really represents (Hiruma's a magnificent bastard-level strategist and the entire team is full of rabidly determined players) and start depending more on actual strategy and not just pass everything to the Wonder Douches (that was a wonder twins joke BTW). In closing, it's still the beginning of the game and most of the other longer games in this series didn't get exciting until we were at least 8 to 10 chapters in. Just be patient it'll get better. I hope.

deimon has something that teikoku doesn't have... and that is determination, and it will compensate their lack of talent... all teikoku has is arrogance... but unlike agon who just hates weak people, these guys doesn't have any motives like destroying trashes... they just want to "get this over with"

Hakkeshu were lame because they were a team devoid of any ideas. Gaou was a big brute who smashed into people and crippled them. Kisaragi and Marco just stole the ball. No strategy was involved in beating them, Kurita, Monta and Sena just had to be 'better' than them. But then we get to the Christmas Bowl, the ultimate destination since the beginning of the series, to face their final opponents. And what kind of creative team has Inagaki saved for the final showdown?

Actually, Hakushuu had this whole dinosaur theme to it. Gaou was constantly compared to a T-rex, Pteraclaw was some variation pterodactyl, etc.

But I also agree. After Shinryuuji and Ojou, nothing has been able to live up to their matches. Being 'perfect' is not a theme, and the team match has degenerated into the usual pattern for Inagaki- make the only players who matter end up being the QBs, RBs, and receivers. No substantial recognition of growth or potential of the other players (aside from Kurita).

And not to mention, poorly rendered repetition. Taka is a coolheaded prettyboy version of Haruto and Koizumi is presented as a female version of Sena who somehow transformed herself into the 1st string qb in no time using her precise throws. Never mind that Sena was forced to grow due to the team's dependency on his skill or that he never had 6 strings of rbs pre-existing who had been contending for the position.

totally agree on every single word.

What makes this match even lamer is that we have no connection to the players what so ever and this is suposed to be the final game. wtf. It's as if ( let's take harry potter as an exemple since everybody knows enough about it) suddenly a new evil mage apears, we have heard nothing about after harry defeats voldemort and guess what he's enen stronger!!!!!!!......
this is all we know about them:
The real eyeshield 21: can predict well, is confident/ arrogant (yess arrogant, if you say the others have no chance and believe it you are arrogant) and he is perfect.....
Hercules: strong laughing guy
Achiles: strong angry guy?
that guy who jumps higher/ further than the guys in the olympicl: disinterested
QB: is a girl, throws easy (wtf) passes, has the same character as Sena
...yeah that's about it......

In almost every other major team we had more knowledge about the character, abilitys weaknesses, relation to deimon of one player ha the whole Teikou put together.
If the dinosaurs were crapy the Alexanders are a shitocean with no lifeboat in sight.

This last match seems so.... insignificant.

Is it even possible to throw and easy 100% always land in your hands pass? Also how could she be a first stinger anyway? From what I can tell she doesn't do any sports so how can she run the 40 in under 5 seconds if she only played the piano. Also wouldn't her stamina be super weak since she never did sports. At least Sena do the devil march where he ran across the whole coast.


Side note. The Alexanders are suppose to be the best right? So how did kurta beat that one guy if he suppose to be the best? Some of these things don't add up

Originally Posted by infamouse

Is it even possible to throw and easy 100% always land in your hands pass? Also how could she be a first stinger anyway? From what I can tell she doesn't do any sports so how can she run the 40 in under 5 seconds if she only played the piano. Also wouldn't her stamina be super weak since she never did sports. At least Sena do the devil march where he ran across the whole coast.

Good point. But ES has never exactly restrained itself with reality or human limitations. If Deimon can successfully do the death march, then other such unlikelihoods are also possibilities.

Originally Posted by infamouse

Side note. The Alexanders are suppose to be the best right? So how did kurta beat that one guy if he suppose to be the best? Some of these things don't add up

Teikoku doesn't have the most powerful player. Teikoku had the titles for 'best' given to the players last year, much like Shinryuuji's and Ojou's individual titles as well. Their titles mean nothing when you factor our 2 dark horse teams this year: Deimon and Hakushuu, which only were introduced after these other teams got their titles.

Originally Posted by jwhiskey

suddenly a new evil mage apears, we have heard nothing about after harry defeats voldemort and guess what he's enen stronger!!!!!!!......

Actually, I thought this feature was cool. We had only one reference to Teikoku before, and that's all that was needed to predict this outcome. In fact, I did predict that Teikoku would be the Kanto semifinalists: The Prediction Thread

The real eyeshield 21: can predict well, is confident/ arrogant (yess arrogant,
if you say the others have no chance and believe it you are arrogant) and he is perfect.....

Well, it's obvious that his arrogance will be the source of his defeat, even though he has been built up so much. Unfortunately, we've seen this character rendition done multiple times already within this manga. It's so lame at this point (not that it ever wasn't).

I sort of get a vague theme to Teikoku. They're supposed to represent the royal or divine of Greek and Japanese cultures. Achilles and Hercules were both Greek gods; Yamato is the name of the most powerful Japanese clan; Taka means hawk, an animal regarded importantly in Japan. I don't know what Koizumi means, so...Anyways, they have vague connection in being the best regarded or top tier, as the team name suggests.

In almost every other major team we had more knowledge about the character, abilitys weaknesses, relation to deimon of one player ha the whole Teikou put together.
This last match seems so.... insignificant.

This is exactly what we all said at the beginning of the Hakushuu match, and so far it's true for this one too. But we're sure to see much more reflections during the match, like usual. I'm hopeful to see Taka's reflection of his relationship with his father.