Blue Lock won't let go of Nagi and this spinoff manga strongly suggests it

With the release of the latest Blue Lock chapter, the manga revealed the final auction rankings for the Neo Egoist League. This ranking was not only meant to reveal the rankings of all players but also to decide which players would play for Japan in the U-20 World Cup.

While fans expected all major characters to qualify for the U-20 Japan World Cup squad, Seishiro Nagi was ranked 24th. This meant he was "locked off" from the training program and was no longer in contention for the Japan squad.

Most fans are disappointed by this development and think that far worse players have qualified. Nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that manga creators Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura would not abandon Seishiro Nagi and will bring him back in the future.

Disclaimer: This article is speculative and contains spoilers from the Blue Lock manga.

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Blue Lock's spinoff manga suggests that Nagi will return

Seishiro Nagi as seen in the manga (Image via Kodansha)

As fans must know, Seishiro Nagi from Blue Lock is a very important character. He has been present in the series since the first arc and his performances have seen him be ranked one of the best players within the training program.

The character became so popular that manga author Muneyuki Kaneshiro featured his storyline parallel to protagonist Yoichi Isagi and launched a spinoff manga focused on him called Blue Lock: EPISODE Nagi alongside manga artist Kouta Sannomiya.

Seishiro Nagi as seen in the manga (Image via Kodansha)

Blue Lock: EPISODE Nagi follows Seishiro Nagi and reveals everything from his perspective. This manga not only includes events that weren't featured in the original manga but also puts a spin on the already-revealed developments by unveiling how Nagi viewed them.

The sheer fact that this spinoff manga exists should be enough reason for manga author Muneyuki Kaneshiro to bring Seishiro Nagi back to the main series even after he got disqualified. As fans must remember, Kunigami Rensuke and the U-20 Japan team participated in the Neo Egoist League after they supposedly were removed from contention.

Seishiro Nagi as seen in the manga (Image via Kodansha)

Therefore, even though Ego Jinpachi has painted the training program as a high-contention competition where elimination meant "death," there is a good chance that Kaneshiro only "eliminated" Nagi to give him a character development arc. With that, the manga author likely aims to focus on the character separately through the spinoff manga.

Such a move not only gives Seishiro Nagi some valuable time for character development but allows Muneyuki Kaneshiro to extend the spinoff manga's serialization and introduce new subplots. Had Seishiro Nagi qualified alongside Yochi Isagi, Reo Mikage, and others for the U-20 Japan team, the spinoff manga may have had nothing new to add for quite a while. Hence, with Nagi's disqualification fans can expect to see developments that may never be revealed in the main manga.

For now, fans can only hope that the manga author soon introduces the twist that will see Seishiro Nagi join Japan's team for the U-20 World Cup.

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