Blue Lock Volume Cover Analysis (Spreadsheet Edition)

I regularly update this post with analysis on the Blue Lock manga volume cover illustrations. But I find it doesn't really facilitate at-a-glance referencing. The post also only focuses on visual motifs, excluding any characters depicted without unusual chains or auras.

Anyway, hyperfixation kicked in, after Kaneshiro hinted to a fan that there was meaning to the numbers on the volume covers and/or jerseys. (tried finding the source twt/translation for this but no luck—please lmk if this rings a bell with anyone else!)

Here's a spreadsheet documenting all the released volumes. This covers ALL volumes, summarises my earlier analyses, and proposes speculative guesses as to the significance of some of the volume numbers/jersey numbers.

Check it out on Google Drive.

I've also dumped all the cover images into an Imgur album to save people squinting. English language covers were sourced from the UK e-book releases, while the Japanese ones come from Bookwalker or leaks.

Time to update the volume cover analysis post again I see 👀 leaked Volume 32 cover image below the cut

I'm not feeling this as an overall cover (the background is a lot)—but!

Seems to me that they're going for gold and silver as Charles's feature colours. Not grey and 💩 brown, as I've seen others put it. That's kind of cool, even if the presentation doesn't work overall.

The contrast chaos of the background is reflective of Charles's character, as are the Cheshire Cat spirals. Tbh I think if they didn't have the big BLUE down the bottom, and the gold/brown were cooler toned, this would be a complete hit.

Charles's pose and expression are great though—Nomura-sensei continues to kill it on the volume illustrations.

Hadn't seen this anywhere, but the Japanese volume 30 confirms we can expect volume 31's release on 17 October.

Here's some speculation about the characters who haven't received a volume cover yet but are likely to:

Otherwise, I'd expect new characters only, or post-time skip versions of the main characters (Egoist 4, Rin, Nagi, Reo, Barou imo).

For Tabiori fans, the latest EpiNagi chapter also gave crumbs:

Karasu is enamoured by simple things, such as the beauty of a butterfly leaving its crysallis.

It's also been confirmed that he reveres those whose talents and natural gifts exceed his own.

Off pitch, Karasu must have been smiling as he witnessed Hiori going through his own butterfly-chyrsallis development in round 4 of the NEL.

This is supported by their brief interaction early on in BM v PXG.

The contrast between Otoya and Karasu's backstories 😭

Actually soulmates, they weirdly compliment each other

(psst: mzk_70 has the goods)

"sorry" with the least apologetic expression everrrr

I love him.

that's it. that's the post.

Blue Lock Chapter 263

What a wild (and wordy) chapter. I have a few rambly thoughts on it.

Firstly, on translations - as someone who posts meta and likes sticking to canon in my fic writing, the official translation is the one I tend to share panels or quotes from. While I'll hold it's a better source for nuance, the consequence is some truly clunky dialogue choices. Karasu's trashtalking to Isagi suffered this week - the PO2 version on the right flows far better:

Getting called a "non-dunce shooter" isn't going to have Isagi rocking in the corner anytime soon, even if it better reflects the original Japanese.

On the flip side, the official translators went harder on the Kaisagi shipbaiting this week. While you could argue Isagi's only talking about the match, his line of thought is more distinctly about Kaiser in the official release...

The last example, I'm split on - the official translation made me laugh, but Kaiser squeezing an unnecessary f-bomb into his dialogue detracts from the sense of wonder at his transformation. Tracks with his habit of saying ex-fucking-cuse me though.

Either way: what a gorgeous panel.

The other things I liked? Rin continues to talk in childish terms about football. He'd mentioned before how he views other players as toys; this week, he's cranky that he hasn't had the ball in a while. Boo hoo!

Not to depress anyone, but who else bets Sae was really good at sharing the ball with Rin when they were kids? 🥲

The last panel sets up Kiyora to do something audacious next chapter, which I'm super hyped for. He's a loose canon with seemingly no loyalties, besides a grudge against Isagi, so I have no idea what to expect!

I enjoyed how they framed his appearance in the last panel. Beforehand, they show Isagi and Kaiser (loosely) co-operating, but we get a glance at some of the others too.

It lays out the dependencies really nicely:

It's just really well-done visual storytelling, so I wanted to point it out.

Now we've got another week or so to ponder what Kiyora might bring to the storm 🔥

Blue Lock / Episode Nagi

chapter 88 / chapter 23

Kunigami's POV and Reo's POV, before encountering Shidou.

Then there's Isagi, who's a even split of mom-dad genes. Fitting for the kid whose name is a portmanteau of his parents' names 💚

[Yoichi (世一) = Iyo (伊世) + Issei (一生)]

When the main manga doesn't have our backs Kunigiri stans, we can count on Episode Nagi 🔥