Eyeshield 21 - 269th Down: The Strongest Guardian!

We open with a face-shot of a supremely confident Gaou, and why wouldn't he - he's more than held his own against Deimon's own guardian thus so far. Nobody would expect him to start letting down now, right?

Honestly, this chapter bored me a bit... though I'm sure Hakushuu fans (ie. Xophy) enjoyed it. To me, the chapter was more or less reiterating that Gaou is stronger than Kurita and that Marco has nothing to worry about as long as his little personal T-Rex is leading the way for him! Of course there's the part where Hakushuu won't give up... okay, admirable, but then who expected them to quit anyway? This is FOOTBALL! Even having a kicker who'll settle for nothing but third place isn't going to stop the rest of the team from thinking differently. Besides, no one likes a kicker anyway! (Unless his name is Musashi, who's damn cool.)

I did like the dramatic art though regarding Kurita's frightening presence as Marco saw him, though, and I'll agree that No. 4 does seem to be redeeming himself quite a bit since his little "stunt accident" - well, he's either very courageous, or he's completely daft. (Well, with his double personality, it could be both!)

And did Kisaragi just sob again at Gaou's matchless strength? Honestly... >.> That guy's a shameless fangirl.

Alright, there WAS the part where Gaou did defeat the "stunt play" this time, which means the plot's moving forward as ever - all well and good, I suppose. So Hakushuu takes the lead, 42-35. We see Kurita being suitably impressed (and why wouldn't he? It's been a while since the big guy's stared at the blue sky again!)

Then we see Hiruma confusing the heck of everybody else with his analysis of what's going on after Hakushuu went for a kick instead of a 2-point conversion, which was unexpectedly conservative of them considering Gaou's growing strength and confidence. But then, it's an apt reference to how the rest of the world seems to not understand the nuances of amefuto at times! Basically, with the game that close to the end, though, no sense taking unnecessary risks and risk being up only 6 points instead of 7, though.

Now the real fun starts, though, for me at least. Hiruma has to plan out a strategy to either tie or win this game. For once, though, he seems to not cover all the bases (maybe because he's so dizzy with pain, that he can't really think straight) and it takes a few comments from his teams, directed at Kurita's naivety, that turns on the light-bulb in his head. We see a flashback to Shinryuji's Dragonfly formation - wait, you're not telling me that...

Yup. Just as the NFL (National Football League) is a copycat league - everybody stealing plays from other teams' playbooks to incorporate into their own offenses and defenses - we're seeing it with Deimon now. They're gonna try the same play that Agon and Unsui were using against them - the double quarterback system - but will it work? Hakushuu seems to know what's going on, so there'll have to be some sort of twist to it in order to catch them off-guard, methinks. We'll find out next week!

Good, but not great, chapter. Very close to a filler chapter in my opinion, although there was a score so I suppose it can't be considered one, heh.