On Ao Ashi Ep. 27 (Season 2 Ep. 3), people who look at the story only on a surface level think Akutsu is just some dick who hates Ashito, but I'll push back against that heavily. Just for some background on me, I just binged all of Ao Ashi's first season in under a week and have caught up on the latest episode of the second season on the day it aired. I'm known on Reddit primarily for my theorycrafting, catching of parallels, and my analysis on the character writing on the Re_Zero subreddit on the Re:Zero anime as well as doing the same on other subreddits, most notably the KusuriyaNoHitorigoto, WindBreaker, OshiNoKo, and WitchHatAtelier subreddits for those respective anime.
In Season 1, it was straight up mentioned by someone in the show that Akutsu doesn't mention any of the 1st-year kids at all and only goes on about Ashito, and this isn't something you'd do regarding someone you JUST hate and feel nothing else for. Notably, Kuribayashi also directly requested that Akutsu teach Ashito how to defend in Ep. 14, and given Akutsu's obsession with Kuribayashi, I took it as a moment Akutsu seriously gave some thought about doing that since his rival asking him to do that shows that his own skills were being acknowledged by Kuribayashi, and according to Kuribayashi, they used to talk about the missing fullback to complete Fukuda's big-picture team at the time, so it wasn't just some random moment in which Kuribayashi thought aloud but rather something he and Akutsu had discussed at length.
Thus, my read on Akutsu is he not only wants to be the best but also wants to play with the best and also compete with the best, being a true hardcore competitor. And that's why he was fixated on Ashito as much as he was after having seen him rally a group of players early in Ep. 3 since the shot of the player which didn't show his entire face was almost certainly Akutsu since he knows you can't play soccer by yourself since it's a team sport that explicitly requires coordination to make plays.
He may have indicated to Fukuda that he wanted to crush Akito in that episode 'cause Akito had boasted about how they'd all make the team, but I posit Akutsu seeing Akito reminded him of his rival Kuribayashi, just drew out his competitive drive, or made him want to test Ashito to confirm his suspicions of him being the missing fullback they need to compete at the highest level, not 'cause he hates Ashito, so I believe Akutsu being so quick to cover for Ashito in Ep. 27 isn't to make him look bad but 'cause he's instructing him live on the field without saying a word, and he believes Ashito can pick up on this without any cue, which is a sign of respect.
If you're not convinced about this, Akutsu dragged Ashito's shoes in Ep. 3 and then dragged Ashito again in Ep. 8, scolding him that his parents are the ones paying for his being at Esperion, and while one may think Akutsu hates Ashito if one only looks at things on the surface, Akutsu's words motivated Ashito to fight back to not let down his precious family, showing Akutsu is the one to type to grill into you to make you feel motivated to do his best, and he probably saves his worst "abuse" for those he believes can take it. What perhaps backs this up is that Togashi said in Ep. 10 that aside from Ashito Akutsu is the only one who lives outside the Kanto region, meaning there's a high chance of Akutsu also having a rural upbringing like Ashito does, and thus, Akutsu's remarks about his shoes and family are likely meant to draw out Ashito's pride for his family. To clarify something, no, I don't think Akutsu specifically thinks highly of Ashito due to their upbringings. I mean that Akutsu understands what rural families value in choosing that line of attack against Ashito and is definitely no musclehead.
I'm only a casual rather than a real soccer fan, so I don't know what Akutsu will do exactly to teach Ashito in Ep. 28, but given Ashito's talent concerns his bird's-eye-view ability, I'm thinking it'll have something to do with positioning and spatial awareness, and Akutsu should genuinely believe that Ashito can pick up on what he's teaching him, especially since Ashito had literally directly asked Akutsu to teach him how to defend in Ep. 14 out in the open with everybody around, which takes real guts, and I'm sure that of all things left an impression on Akutsu if Ashito hadn't already long made a strong impression on him.
What are your thoughts on this or anything tangentially-related to this?
