[with additional thoughts on Barou and Rin also not having friends]
I saw many posts expressing disappointment in the author's comment that Nagi isn't close with anyone outside of Team V trio.
I get it, considering some of his lighter, most wholesome and hilarious moments in the manga are with Barou and Chigiri, Isagi and also Bachira.
I love that people want Nagi to have friends and a strong support system since he didn't grow up with one. 🤍
However, as someone who feels very similar in personality to Nagi, I feel like I can immediately understand why he wouldn't feel "close" to people easily.
People who prefer their own company for the most part and don't get lonely that easily are used to keeping a distance from others. For Nagi, even meeting Reo was something serendipitous and becoming friends with him was definitely not achieved through his own efforts. Reo had to stalk him, kidnap him in a car, chase him around school, carry him on his back and get down on his knees with candy (lmao) in order to win his trust and his time.
I think that while other more naturally social characters would be able to form connections even in an environment like Blue Lock, characters like Nagi, Rin and Barou, owing to their personalities would find it hard to feel close to most people. Getting close to someone is extra effort on top of enjoying someone's company or liking them as a person. So it would not happen unless the other person continues to insert themselves into their lives by force until their presence becomes part of the new status quo.
I don't think this in any way means they aren't fond of any other people who are nice to them (I support all their condescending hater moments too! 😤)
Okay maybe a huge stretch to say Rin is fond of people 🙈 but Barou has gradually revealed a softer side albeit begrudgingly and Nagi too actively socialises when he does have the energy (usually when excited during matches or when something or someone piques his curiosity, or when trying to annoy Barou lmao). Nagi also readily expresses strong admiration for other Blue Lockers on many occasions throughout the main manga and his own.
So I believe there are many people he really likes and has fun with and learns a lot from (as much as you can like people while playing death-game style football that is) but "close" is something that would take time as this is a guy with a very low social battery who isn't really in the habit of sharing his thoughts (not for seventeen years at least). Even with Reo, who we can very safely say he is close to, he has been learning how to do that through trial and error which often leads to ugly misunderstandings. But maybe he will be able to do it more easily and with more people in the future.
Doesn't matter if you like Ness or dislike Ness, you can't deny that he was the most beautiful child.
His childhood was exactly how one's childhood should be like—full of innocence, imagination, creativity, curiousity and pure joy. He was everything a child of his age should be like. He was such a sweet soul.
I'll never understand why his parents and even his older siblings behaved the way they did—is it just a simple portrayal of stereotype revolving around Germans being really serious people? Because Science is itself so magical—Flame test, Titration, Iodine clock reaction, etc. and there are so many scientific phenomenon like Aurora Borealis, Ball lightning, Sonoluminescence, etc. that look so wizardry!!
I'll never forgive them. You both are awful.
It wasn't shown much, but Ness was pretty lonely too, you know. I'm glad he found soccer, and in a very strange way, I'm glad he found Kaiser too.
Such a precious lil boy.
You'll forever be the most magical child I know, Alexis. I hope you'll never stop building snowmen ☃️💕