Inagaki sensei losing his "touch"?????

Sorata · Sep 18, 2008

I didn´t create this thread to say that ES21 sucks, not at all, i have read almost 300 mangas and ES21 is my 3rd favorite(just behind One Piece and Berserk), but recently the manga is not has good has it used to be, one thing i loved about this manga was the fact that is was geting better and better in each chapter, and when it reached the Kantou tournament i was really stunned: the art of Murata sensei evolved a lot(it was good but became even better) and now he is probly the best mangaka in the Shonen Jump; the first two games were really great(Shinryuji and Oujou) with great build up, great emotional scenes during the game and amazing confrontations(Sena vs Agon, Sena vs Shin and Monta vs Ikkyu).

But the two games after(Hakushyu and Teikoku) were nowhere near as good as the first two ones: the Hakushyu one had a great build up and some good emotional scenes(mostly with Hiruma) but the game overall was not that good, because was the entire team against Gaou(which was not that bad); but the Teikoku match has been the worst of the four, the build up sucked, the emotional moments were not that good, and even if the match was better than the Hakushyu one it was not has good as the Oujou or Shinryuji ones.

For example, the Shinryuji and Oujou games had tons of emotional and amazing scenes:

Amazing Scenes
Shinryuji:
* Agon defeating the Devil bat Ghost and Hurricane
* Agon´s first touchdown(when he beat both Sena and Hiruma)
* The first time the Naga´s did the Dragon Fly(Agon beat Juumonji, Kurita and Sena)
* Hiruma does the Hail Mary pass(The Devils don´t ask gods for favours)
* Sena slams Agon´s face in the ground(owned)
* Monta defeats Ikkyu
* Juumonji touchdown
* Yukimitsu touchdown(beat Ikkyu and Agon)
* Deimon last touchdown
* Hiruma touchdown
Oujou:
* Shin lifting Kurita in the air
* Shin stoping Sena with one finger(the coments of the star players of the other teams after this play were awosome)
* Monta devil back fire
* Shin clocking 4,2 for the first time in the game
* Sakuraba and Shin doing the Sagitarius for the first time
* Takami explaining Hiruma why Shin is the perfect player(at the same time Shin scores a touchdown)
* Yukimitsu pushing Shin trough the goal line
* Sena doing the Devil Stun gun for the first time
* Sena defeating Shin

Emotional Scenes
Shinryuji:
* Monta is despair because Sena was doing good agains Agon and he couldn´t do anything against Ikkyu
* Yukimitsu flashback
* Unsui flashback
* Kurita/Musashi/Hiruma flashback
Oujou:
* Sena crying because he desapointed Shin
* When Onjo gives Monta the ball back
* Yukimitsu after making the last effort to push Shin trough the goal line, and everyone agreeing that that was a great play
* The reactions of both Sena and Shin after Sena defeats Shin in the last play

Another thing that makes the Teikoku a game of a lower level than the first two is the main characters, Yamato is not as charimatic as Shin, Agon or Gaou, but i think that this is not the character´s fault, the problem is that Yamato didn´t have the same build up as Shin, Agon, Gaou and even Ikkyu.

Anyway, my question is why did this happen??? Do you think that the fact that the mangaka maybe wants to end the manga at the christmas influenced this final rush??? Or there is other reason???

Linfone · Sep 18, 2008