Episode 32: Blue Genes

Airing as the eighth chapter of the second season and the thirty-second overall, this entry is titled Blue Genes and forms part of the U-20 Arc, sourced from chapters 118 through 121. With no on-page account of the main match recorded, the substance lies in the bonus Additional Time skit, subtitled Bon or Not-Bon.

Kitted out in a tuxedo, Raichi runs a mock game show with Zantetsu and Otoya serving as his assistants. The premise is simple: decide whether an item is Bon, meaning dull and unremarkable, or Not-Bon. Reo produces a sculpted brown jar worth five million that his father gifted him. Karasu, playing the professor, rules it Bon, reasoning that its maker shaped it only for money, which drains it of interest.

Igarashi offers a temple scroll passed down through his family and is crushed when Karasu also labels it Bon, calling it a forgery. Bachira then dumps out a fistful of trinkets gathered while dribbling, among them his baby teeth, marbles, and pebbles. Reo and Igarashi recoil at the pile as gross and worthless, yet Karasu lifts a single acorn and declares it Not-Bon, praising it as brimming with ego and originality found nowhere else. Once the show wraps, Bachira tells Isagi and Igarashi that this was a dream he had run three nights straight.

The episode premiered on November 23, 2024. It opens with Bо̄jaku no Charisma and ends on One, comes after Episode 31, and precedes Episode 33.