A highly incoherent thread on ch 394 and the concept of luck since this chapter breaks my mind on several levels.

The thing is this concept of "luck" is not anything new. It lies at the heart of the central conflict of the series:

Those who are lucky enough to be blessed with the right physique/talent/mindset versus those who are not.

It's also one of the ingredients making up the one (1) theme that has been drilled into us again and again:

No victory is certain.

Sometimes, it boils down to luck.

Ch 394 sums these themes up and puts a neat pretty name on them. But as per usual, it also pushes them a little bit further.

By putting two different aspects of "luck" together, the chapter shows just how capricious luck can be.

Sometimes, luck lets you fight it, like in the cases of Hoshiumi and Hinata.

Sometimes, luck has the final say. And even then, its answers might still be different.

Losing your star player because of injuries is a matter of luck. But that doesn't immediately doom your team. You can lose, like Karasuno and Itachiyama, and Nehobi hundreds of chapters ago.

You can also win, like Nekoma.

To me, the best thing about this chapter is how forthright it is about luck.

Because sometimes, especially in sports, we are reluctant to speak of luck, to admit its presence, since we believe that doing so will undermine both the winners and the losers.

We don't like luck in general, since its existence seems to take away our will, dooming us to a life that's completely out of our control.

The chapter shows just how prevalent luck can be. It's really not anything good nor bad, just a string of events that..happens.

But at the same time, luck doesn't strip away your agency completely. Luck gives you the settings, but you're still the one that makes the decisions.

We see this briefly with Sakusa's comment on Hinata and Hoshiumi.

But it's Sakusa's dig at the end that drives this point home.

That dig is luck, but it's also not luck.

It's luck, because it's a matter of luck that there is someone like Ushijima for Sakusa to meet, someone that shows him what he's lacking.

But it's also not luck, because it's Sakusa who made the decision to practice digging balls with strange spins.

The entire chapter is this brilliant contemplation of luck, in sports and in life. It honestly goes far beyond what I have the brain power to say here.

All I can say is HQ!! = goat.