Eyeshield 21/Headscratchers

• All the Positive Discrimination Panther gets. I love Panther, I think he's awesome, but really, does people (Sena and Apollo to name two examples) have to start rambling about the superiority of black men in football when it comes to him? I realize Sena has certain physiological limits that Panther doesn't, but...there has to be a better way to say it.
  • Values Dissonance. Racial superiority is still kind of a big thing in Japanese culture, in a pretty out and taken for granted way. The fact that for once it's directed at a black person is pretty strange really, but in some ways it's just an extension of the usual "Those filthy gaijin think they're so hot, but we'll show them the true superiority of the Japanese people" sort of thing.
• How did the Devil Bats get those new home and away jerseys when they played against the Bando Spiders and the Shinryuuji Naga?
  • Hiruma blackmailing Deimon's director.
• How did Kurita's face scars suddenly disappear?
  • One, mostly a lack of detail on that part of the art. Two, Kurita went through a couple weeks of training where Banba went through a whole summer of it; his scars are more likely to stay where as Kurita's are a bit more minor. They still appeared off-and-on though.
• Before Musashi joined the Devil Bats, why did they always just give up the extra point instead of going for two? For that matter, why did we never even see the kick attempts? Hiruma is very poor at kicking, yet still apparently hits 35% of the time; Deimon should have gotten at least the occasional extra point.
  • Going for the two points was dangerous since, at the time, all they had was the Devil Bat Dive. This required Sena jumping over the linemen, spiraling, hoping that he would make it across AND not break his neck. The other option was throwing a pass to Monta, which is just as hopeless since passing for a try-for-point is very, very easy to block. (Passing at all so close to the goal is difficult in itself.)
    • Seems like a stretch, but okay. Still doesn't explain why Hiruma -never- connected, or why his attempts were never shown.
      • It's a big stretch, actually. Going for two and not making it isn't any more "dangerous" than kicking and not making it.
    • Maybe they didn't want the impact to be lessened when Musashi came back. Y'know, instead of it being, "hey look another kicker but this time he's good", it's finally this exhalation of, "OH THANK THE LORD WE'VE GOT A KICKER."
      • Well yes, narrative convenience is obviously the correct answer, but that goes for 90% of all Headscratchers. In-universe, there's no good reason, you're just not supposed to think about it. But since the series makes such a big deal of how the Devil Bats' super-offensive style being because they can only ever get 6 points from each touchdown and can't get field goals, it's really just one of the series' bigger Plot Holes.
• Why do the Seibu Wild Gunmen use the Shotgun if The Kid only ever passes to Tetsuma?
  • We only ever see it be passed to Tetsuma. It's probably been passed multiple times to all the other receivers. Not to mention it's wicked fast and can weaken the other team's defense if they try to block just one person or all of them.
• All the other characters--or, rather, a very large chunk of them--get an epilogue. Like, which college they go to, or what job they got. Unfortunately, Kakei doesn't get any explanation. What happens to him in the end?
  • If you buy the final volume, there's end notes that describe what happened to characters not featured in the last chapter. Kakei went to the States to attend university there.
  • The notes, however, do not describe where Marco, Kisaragi, and Yamabushi ended up going.
• In the match against Shinryuuji, Sena has a flashback to Kurita's rejection from Shinryuuji. The one scene that really bugs me from that flashback is the one in which Hiruma and Agon are sitting on opposite sides of a bench, and Agon tells him to stop dreaming. How would Sena know about this? Hiruma really doesn't seem the type to tell this to anyone.
• Why doesn't Hiruma blackmail the principal into changing the rules and letting him play in his third year? It's not like he hasn't made him do way more absurd stuff before.
  • Technically, there's no evidence that he didn't; the epilogue part that covers this is graphical, and could be interpreted either way. If he did, he didn't mention it to the others for the same reason he never mentioned that one loss wouldn't boot you completely out of that one early tournament.
• Why is Apollo considered racist, as the main page says? It seems that he just wanted a team with no players that stand out. Panther just happened to be black, and he stood out a lot. Everything Is Racist?
  • He seems to outwardly discriminate anyone who isn't white. He also calls the Japanese players "Yellow Monkeys"...
  • It was because he thought Panther was superior because he was black. This was downplayed in the anime.
    • In the manga, not a panel goes by where he doesn't makes a racist comment.
• Agon's hair. It's just a giant plothole on his head.
  • How so? If you mean how it went from frizzy to dreadlocks, Art Evolution is to blame.
  • There's also the freakish speed with which it grows at. And how in flashbacks, Murata can never decide if Agon was blonde or dreaded in middle school.
• Something that bothers me is that it is never specified what level of team the NASA Aliens/Shuttles are. Are they high school, college, or professional?
  • They're high school level obviously. They're from Nasa High School.
• Something I never quite understood is why Panther's speed is magnified to an extent beyond reason. He's only a tenth of a second faster than Sena over 40 yards, yet he's always portrayed as being the goddamn Flash. A great example- in the Xmas Bowl game, Yamato was able to stop Sena cold in a head to head every time, but in the World Cup Match, despite having the same power as Sena and only a LITTLE BIT more speed, Panther's able to burn past Yamato like he's not even there. I realize the "I can't catch up" factor, but some of it's just ridiculous.
  • This troper agrees, but it should be noted that Yamato's Caesar Charge is supposed to make him temporarily faster (4.2 presumably). Panther (unlike Sena) is tall and has a long reach, a lot of what made Panther such a great runner by the time of World Cup (unlike during the Nasa match) was that he became great at using his arms to get past opponents.
• Before Deimon's second match with Ojou, there was a lot of talk about them meeting in the Christmas Bowl. Then we find out that the Christmas Bowl is played between the champs of two divisions, with Ojou and Deimon being in the same division; only one of them could play in the Christmas Bowl. Why didn't anyone ever mention this before the Christmas Bowl?
  • Basically, it was a Retcon. Originally the Christmas Bowl would have been meant to have been played between Deimon and their ultimate rivals, Ojou, with the understanding that the winners of the Spring season tournament would play the winners of the Fall season tournament. However Serial Escalation meant they needed something bigger so Murata created Teikoku to be the ultimate opponents instead. There's a fair bit of Retcon in the series, which is pretty typical for a Shonen Jump manga.