“sorry Reo, In The End Wanting To Be The World’s Best Wasn’t As Strong A Feeling As My Fear Of

[RELEASE] D.Gray-man Chapters 249 & 250

Releases 150-151 // [04.22.24]

⚠️ Important Announcement ⚠️

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Chapter 249

Mangadex | Mirror

Chapter 250

Mangadex | Mirror

Petitions - UK Government and Parliament

Petition: Do not stop transgender people from receiving care in mainstream hospital wards

The previous government proposed changes to the NHS constitution which would mean transgender hospital patients in England may not be treate

Well fucks? Get to it!

The Foxes as Kermit the Frog

Neil:

Andrew:

Kevin:

Aaron:

Nicky:

Renee:

Allison:

Matt:

Dan:

Wymack:

Link Click is hilarious because all the main characters all think they're in drastically different genres of story.

Cheng Xiaoshi thinks he's in a buddy cop movie. There's a bit of comedy, a bit of suspense, some romance, but everything turns out all right at the end of the day.

Lu Guang is standing somewhere between Shakespearean Tradgedy and a psychological horror. Nothing is ever okay, and he cannot escape but he also can't ask for help because how would he even start.

Qiao Ling thinks her life is like a mystery novel. People are clearly hiding things from her and people she loves keep getting hurt but by god is she going to get to the bottom of this no matter what.

Xia Fei (as far as we've seen so far) is trapped in a coming of age story. He's just lost his mentor and is going to have to go off and figure the world out on his own. But he's making friends and learning the error of his ways.

Vein thinks this is a romance. Do not deny it. He's trying to live out his dark romance fantasy, and it's so bad for everyone involved.

Liu Xiao is a mystery to me. He's been playing Tetris on set. Honestly, he probably thinks he's the narrator, smug bastard.

i'm obsessed with these lines because they speak so much to ciel's faith in own worldview - and there's this moment of doubt, where he recognises that what he thinks isn't necessarily fact, but belief

not only does it say a lot about his character, i think it majorly contributes to the events that occur later in the arc

🚫under the cut for being way longer than intended MAJOR spoilers, both for the rest of the emerald witch arc and chapter 126+🚫

faith and higher power

ciel doesn't just lose his faith once - he loses it twice. the first time is after he is tortured by the cult, when he denounces the christian god. but his faith in the protection of a higher power isn't actually gone, it just transfers to r!ciel.

it's only when r!ciel is sacrificed that his belief in higher power is truly broken, leaving a vacuum for a demon to exploit.

ciel never looks outside himself for strength after this. not to a god that he now has good reason to believe exists, and not to sebastian, the most powerful tool he has. he only trusts himself. it's worth noting here that he sees sebastian's power as something he owns the rights to, at least until his revenge is complete. it is his, gained not only through sacrifice, but through his own intellect.

through the terms of the contract, he believes he has successfully collared the demon without falling for it's tricks. he now views his intellect as the one power with which he can navigate the world - there is no higher power that is safe to rely on.

christianity and doubt

ciel doesn't believe in witches, not only because it isn't 'logical', but because without realising it, he still views the world through the lense of a christian upbringing. he 'knows' that witches and curses are pagan nonsense - at most, witches are humans that worship demons, a power that christianity recognises and one that's been confirmed to him as real. he converses with sebastian about it, but he doesn't consider sebastian's perspective above his own. ciel is the mastermind, and he trusts in his own logic above everything - sebastian is only a chess piece.

but there is a seed of doubt in ciel's mind that he might not know as much about the rules of this world as he thinks. and the second seed of doubt comes right after;

this is new information, and it has the potential to reframe the circumstances under which he made the contract. he brushes it off, choosing not to pursue that line of enquiry - deep down, i think he's scared of what the answer might be. it challenges the knowledge with which he negotiated the contract, and so it challenges his sense of control, and the strength of sebastian's collar.

whilst this conversation isn't what triggers his ptsd episode later in the arc, imo it does have a role to play in the severity of it.

the curse

when his ptsd is triggered and he passes out, he dreams of the moment he lost r!ciel. the last time he lost his faith.

he wakes up blind - he has quite literally lost his sight. to me, that is representative of the fact that he doesn't trust his own mind anymore. in a way, it's the third time he loses his faith. he held himself and his intelligence above everything, but the situation is perhaps not what he thought it was. he could overlook those two tiny cracks in his worldview, but with his ptsd delivering a final blow, he's stuck doubting every move he has ever made.

he doesn't know the rules of this world anymore, a world with witches and curses. he doesn't even know if sebastian told the truth about why he appeared that night. did he outwit the devil, or did he make a terrible mistake? with all these doubts, he can't be 'ciel phantomhive' any more. he can only be himself as he last left him - the weak, frightened twin.

and it's sebastian that frightens him the most. his demon suddenly feels much less like a tool, and much more like an active player.

it's only when sebastian forces him into a life-or-death decision that he decides to move back into play. these are the same dire circumstances under which the contract was made - and ever the opportunist, sebastian manipulates ciel all over again, even more thoroughly than before.

imo, the whole scene with ciel and r!ciel on the chessboard? it's sebastian. he's using the face of his twin to reiterate that it was ciel who sacrificed his soul, he's using the faces of the people tied to his deepest regrets to drive home that ciel is a selfish, greedy human being.

he must make his opening move all over again, this time for himself alone. he must disregard all the other circumstances that coaxed him into the first bargain, all the grief and love for his brother, and all the hatred for himself, who dared to survive. it's only with this new clarity in purpose that he is able to function again, to trust in himself and make the next move.

Football, fame, and solitude

In the emotional and thematic climax of the Neo Egoist League, Blue Lock concludes this arc not with shouts of victory, but with silences that resonate louder than any ovation. Chapter 301 presents a delicate counterpoint between the noise of fame and the echo of intimacy, and in that contrast, its true heart emerges: the insatiable desire that drives the players, and what is sacrificed in its name.

Kaiser and Ness: ruin, redemption, and the spell of affection

The first act of the chapter is a fall. Kaiser, broken, faces utter loss: not only of victory, but of the image he held of himself. His rhetoric is filled with self-loathing “I’m trash,” “I’m destroyed” as if his worth depended solely on winning. In front of him, Ness takes a step that subverts everything we’ve seen from him up until now: no longer a servant, but an individual who chooses to stay. “I’m not going to do what you say anymore,” he says, and it’s perhaps his most powerful line in the entire manga.

What follows is not a promise of success, nor a motivational speech. Ness speaks of a spell, a cure for the broken Kaiser. He speaks of affection, of humanity. What he’s trying to revive is not the player, but the human being. Until this point, football seemed to consume everything. But Ness reminds us that bonds when not based on dependence or manipulation can also be a form of resistance.

The parade of new heroes: masks of glory

The scene shifts abruptly, transporting us to a bus with the 23 players, still unaware of where they’re headed. There are jokes, anxiety, trivialities. The confinement in the bus recalls the early episodes of Blue Lock, when everyone was merely a number. But now, they’re about to face the other extreme: the public showcase.

The parade in Roppongi is the consecration of this transformation. The world applauds them, shouts their names, fights for their images. It’s the highest point of visibility they’ve ever experienced. Yet, Isagi’s monologue blankets it all with a disturbing haze of clarity: “With a single shot, you can become a hero or plummet.”

That line encapsulates the essence of the new football: there is no safety net, only the vertigo of the result. The spectacle is glorious, yes, but it’s also cruel.

Compared to the early days of the manga (that closed space, without windows, filled with psychological bars this parade is an external triumph). But internally, the bars remain. They’ve changed form: now they’re made of expectations.

The silence of Nagi: a world without football

And then, just as the noise reaches its peak, Blue Lock chooses to be silent.

The chapter ends with Nagi. Alone. At home. Facing his cactus, Choki, the same one that accompanied him before entering Blue Lock. His monologue is neither a celebration, nor a reflection. It’s a statement: “Nothing has changed. We’ve simply returned to the routine, to an empty everyday life.”

This ending contrasts with the frenzy of the parade. While everyone bathes in applause, Nagi returns to square one. There are no teammates. No football. Only the void. His “I’m back” doesn’t sound like victory; it’s a surrender, an acceptance that, without that competitive fire, the world loses its colour. Nagi represents the player whose motivation was external—the duo with Reo and now that that bond is broken, he seems to wonder if there’s anything left to fight for.

The comparison couldn’t be starker: while Isagi sees the summit as an abyss he must climb, Nagi looks at his surroundings as a desert he doesn’t know how to fill. One finds meaning in the vertigo; the other drowns in the silence.

Conclusion

The chapter doesn’t close with a coronation, but with an open question. What is left of the human being after submitting to a system that turns them into a hero? Is that recognition worth it when bonds, certainties, and even purpose crumble off-screen?

Blue Lock has often shown us that egoism can be a tool for greatness. But in this chapter, it suggests that it can also be an unbearable burden if not balanced with humanity, with meaning, with something beyond the result.

Because when everything fades away, when there are no stadiums, no applause, no rivals... the only thing left is silence. And not everyone knows how to live in it.

By @isthepame

Make no mistake, the Palestinian resistance caused this. Just hours ago, they announced a successful operation against the IDF

Its operations like these that has made it difficult for the IDF to conduct a genocide in Gaza

Of course the biggest credit goes to the people of Northern Gaza who steadfastly refused for 16 months to let their land get colonised

This is the worst timeline. (x)

[EN Sum-up] Hoshino Katsura’s livestream about chapter 253.5 (part 2/3)

Hello everyone, As promised here is a sum-up (more of a transcription?) of the one hour livestream Hoshino Katsura did last Sunday, February 2nd, 2025. The livestream was about chapter 253.5, which came out on January 29th in the SQ. RISE WINTER 2025 issue. This sum-up is very long and will be divided into three parts:

Part 1 about the context around chapter 253.5 (How she came to draw it, etc.)

Part 2 about the art style of chapter 253.5

Part 3 about the story itself and some details which will allow us to theorize about what’s coming next

Obviously, this sum-up is full of spoilers, please be careful if you haven’t read chapter 253.5! This sum-up is not an exact transcription of what has been said: I skipped all the parts where she answered comments (except if it was relevant!) and I mixed some parts, because she has a tendency to repeat herself.

About chapter 253.5 art style (part 2/3)

Hoshino Katsura: “The drawing hell started after I moved to Kobe.

I wanted to give more paternity leaves to my assistant, but, at the same time, I needed him to work. Sadly, I could only give him one month of paternity leaves. We were both tired as hell, him because of his baby, me because of my house move, we were totally down, we worked super silently, just saying “Good morning” “The deadline is…”, when the new year came, we were too tired to wish each other a happy new year. When I asked him about his baby, he was like “the baby is crying all night long” I could only say how sorry I was for him. That’s how we started to draw the chapter.

(Someone asks if she drew about Lavi because he is a top seller character): Well, not exactly. I was totally free to draw whatever I wanted, and I found Lavi the easiest to draw. Actually, my editor was very happy when he heard I was going to draw Lavi. (Someone asks: do you draw the characters first? Or the backgrounds?) For me, inking the characters is my top priority, so first, the characters, and when I finish, I go to see what my assistants have done for the background, and I select what I want. I have also to check what my assistants are drawing.

1. Drawing nature

Do you know which background was the worst to draw this time? It’s not the city background, or those houses with weirds windows, no, not at all. It’s nature. It’s plants. It’s so hard to draw nature, it’s difficult to suggest something through nature, and besides, depending on the plants, they have different positions. We took a lot of time to decide what kind of image we wanted to suggest to the reader through the background. Also, nature is a complex thing: it has its own order without having a physical order. It’s hard to make it natural. It’s important, when you draw nature, to give a realistic touch. For instance, how much do you fill the spots? How large do you make them? This time, we drew weeds, so the question was: how high do you make them? (…)

In D. Gray-man, you often see the wheat field of the Campbell residence, right? It has been years since I have been drawing it, so I’m used now. Of course, at first I struggled, but now, it’s really easy. But the field in the extra-chapter, it’s my first time drawing it, so I had to start everything from zero. It was really hard. Besides, even if I say to my assistants “please draw like this” when it comes to plants and nature, it’s really hard for them to understand what I mean. Because every one of us has a different impression when it comes to nature.

So, in order to avoid creating a weird background, one of my assistants started to do some research on the internet about plants which grow in the area where Lavi is. Basically, I want to make the background as plausible as possible: in this country, there are those kinds of plants, in this season, this plant is growing, etc. I want him to draw something which matches with the universe of the story. While he was doing his research, I started to draw because I didn’t have much time (laughs) (…) I wanted the weeds to be at knee level, in order to make it impossible to distinguish someone from afar. And then, we were wondering if we should add trees, what season it was, what the weather was, etc.

2. Drawing the helix of life

(Someone comments on the fact that drawing the helix of life looks difficult): About this! Actually, I am the one drawing the helix, I am not letting my assistants drawing it. I feel bad saying this, sorry to destroy all your dreams but…it’s really easy. Like really REALLY easy. (…) I’m saying it’s easy to draw but, the thing is, I asked my assistant to make me a special digital brush to draw the helix of life. I was like “this is how I imagine the helix; do you think there would be any good brush?” and he made me one. That’s why now, I am able to draw the helix as I imagine. Anyways, I am the one in charge of making the drawings progressing, and my assistants are my helpers. (Someone says they remembered Bookman’s glass pen design when they saw the helix of life): Thank you for remembering. Yes, it’s exactly this. I forgot what I said back then, but yes (laughs)

3. Screen tones and oblique lines

By the way, when you read the extra chapter, did you feel there were more details than usual?

It’s because I had to draw more lines. Why? Well, I told you my assistant just became a father, right? I could not give him a proper paternity leave and honestly, having a newborn looks like hell, so, in order to avoid losing time on laying screen tones, I drew a lot of details with lines. For instance, take a look at the first page [which is actually the second, the cover doesn’t count] or the second page [same, it’s the third], you see Lavi stretching out his hand, right? Well, in normal conditions, I would have used screen tones to make shadows. But here, I created the shadow with oblique lines: this way, we would not have to use screen tones, and if at the end, we realized we would not have time to use screen tones, we could let it that way. So, I drew a lot of oblique lines. Until now, I used to draw shadows with screen tones, but here, everything is made with oblique lines. You can compare it with other chapters, you’ll realize that usually, everything is made with screen tones. (…) Please think that those oblique lines are a guarantee for me in case I don’t have time to use screen tones. But, since my assistant is far from being over with his newborn, I guess we’ll keep using this technique for the next chapters.

(Someone says “Is this the reason why you do not use screen tones anymore for Lavi’s hair?): Ah no, I stopped using screen tones for a long time when it comes to Lavi’s hair. I realized I would never finish in time, so I decided to stop using screen tones.

On the first and second pages [Second and third pages, actually], you can see the shadow I drew with oblique lines on Bookman’s face and, look at Past Lavi: I drew his silhouette with oblique lines as well. You might think it is faster to use screen tones but actually, it takes a lot of time during the final check to adjust them. Do you see the page where Past Lavi says “That’s right, keep breathing”? It’s the fourth page [It’s the fifth]. It’s the last page we drew, actually. Also, please look! Lavi is bleeding, right? The blood is drawn with oblique lines as well. I spent a whole month only drawing oblique lines: everything, his mouth, his hand, his stomach, I was always drawing oblique lines. Actually, we wanted to draw more panels with a background, but it was impossible for my assistant who didn’t have any sleep with the baby crying all night, so we had to suppress a whole page of backgrounds. But I think it doesn’t affect the reading experience.

4. Drawing smoke

Besides nature, you also have the smoke coming from an explosion. We discussed a lot about it with my assistants, we had difficulties exchanging our views on it. You know, dusty smoke coming out of a simple explosion, for instance a building, is very different from a smoke caused by gunpowder. In the chapter, the explosion is caused by gunpowder. At first, we drew white smoke, but greyish smoke gives more an impression of an explosion caused by gun powder. (Comment: The smoke appearing on the cover is whiter than the smoke in the chapter): Exactly, on the cover, it’s just almost like dust, it’s a different sort of smoke. In the chapter, it’s gunpowder smoke, it’s not the same texture. It looks like it’s bad for the body, right?

That’s it for part 2 on the art style, to be continued in the third and last part!

There's got to be some variety. So here you go, Rina.