So Feel Free To Ask Me - Blog Posts

fraybury

3 months ago

Illustration of Sakuma Jirou from Inazuma Eleven in his Shin Teikoku Gakuen design. Sakuma is depicted crying in fetal position. On the left top corner is a crying eye. From top to middle right is a sequence of drawings of Sakuma in patient outfit closing the window's curtains.

Shin Teikoku Sakuma piece from 2024 when I was trying to analyze Sakuma's feelings in the arc (I keep forgetting to repost it outside twitter, oops)

Explanation under read more

The idea for the piece is to convey what Sakuma actually felt in the arc. What the aliea meteorite did was amplifying his negative emotions and converting them to hunger for power. Like how Kazemaru originally only started seeking power in a bout of deteorirating mental health; Sakuma (and Genda) only seeked the meteorite because he felt that Kidou abandoned him / them because they weren't good enough. So the idea here is to convey sorrow.

Unfortunately I'm very bad at writing analysis post in Tumblr's blogpost format as I'm very used to Twitter and Bluesky's thread style of writing; so I perhaps will revisit and rewrite this explanation.

Sakuma with covered eyepatch

Based on this frame from the end of episode 38, after he came to his senses:

Screenshot of Sakuma in his shin teikoku gakuen design from episode 38. the revealed eye on his eyepatch is covered by his hair

The windows

Sakuma is wearing the same patient outfit as he did in episode 37's flashback

A frame of Sakuma in his patient outfit from episode 37's flashback lying on the hospital's bed with a frustrated expression

The sequence of closing the curtains is to express "closing one's heart off" (accepting the meteorite, going back to Kageyama, cutting ties with Kidou; etc etc anything works LOL). Also a reference to how Fudou entered their hospital room from the window lmao.

The eye

Should be self explanatory. It's also a reference to eye as a common symbolism used in Sakuma's character, which... he has... because Kidou himself has eye motif. gay ass.