Blue Lock volume 34 cover unveils the most unexpected character feature

With Blue Lock volume 34 set to be released in July 2025, manga leakers online posted the cover art for the upcoming compiled volumes from the series. As shocking as it may sound, Blue Lock volume 34 is set to feature the chairman of the Japan Football Union, Hirotoshi Buratsuta.

Written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Yusuke Nomura, Blue Lock is a Japanese football manga serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine since August 2018. The manga has been collected into 33 volumes and has over 45 million copies in circulation worldwide.

Disclaimer: This article may contain spoilers from the Blue Lock manga.

Blue Lock volume 34 cover features Hirotoshi Buratsuta

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On Wednesday, April 30, 2025, manga leakers on X (formerly Twitter) posted the cover artwork for Blue Lock volume 34. To everyone's surprise, the volume cover did not feature any of the players or Master Strikers, but the chairman of the Japan Football Union, Hirotoshi Buratsuta.

Up until now, the only non-player characters featured on the volume covers were the general director/manager of the Blue Lock Project, Ego Jinpachi, and the person who hired him for this position, Anri Teieri.

Blue Lock volumes 11 and 18 covers (Image via Kodansha)

As for the Hirotoshi Buratsuta cover, it saw the Japan Football Union chairman happily grinning as he held on to the "chains" bound to his neck. However, unlike the other characters whose chains, while unique, looked like chains, Buratsuta's chains looked like coins. This might be a hint at the character's love for money and how strongly he was bound by it.

However, amidst all the coins with a football design on one side and a typical head on the other, there was a unique coin with two eyes and a mouth drawn. The manga leakers haven't explained the unique coin design, but fans believe the drawing looks similar to Seishiro Nagi's face.

Fans' reaction to the Blue Lock volume 34 cover art

Hirotoshi Buratsuta as seen in Blue Lock (Image via 8bit)

Most Blue Lock fans did not like the new volume cover, as some even called it the worst cover since the manga's serialization. While the artwork itself was fine, since fans did not like the character, they hated the cover art. Some fans even expressed that the manga creators could reuse characters for volume covers and do not always need to feature a new character on the cover.

"This gotta be the worst cover bro," said one fan.

"Someone tell Kaneshiro it’s okay to reuse characters for volume covers. Please," added another fan.

"I like the cover tbh its different from the others," said another fan.

"NAGI AS A COIN WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN TO MY GOAT," said another fan.

However, amidst this, some fans also expressed that they liked the Blue Lock volume 34 cover as it was quite different from the others. Meanwhile, the rest of the fans were left concerned about Seishiro Nagi. Considering how the one unique coin looked like it had Nagi's face drawn on it, fans were worried about the character's fate.

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About the author

Gokul has been an anime writer in Pop Culture division at Sportskeeda since 2022. His love for watching anime and his interest in the ever-growing anime industry inspire Gokul to produce insightful content about the genre on a daily basis. He holds a Master's degree in Communication & Journalism, and has worked for close to 3.5 years in the field.

Gokul likes to thoroughly research about the anime he is writing about and only credits a source after verifying its credibility. He loves the popular Shonen anime, Black Clover, for its memorable characters and their development throughout the story.

When not racking his brain behind his next anime story, Gokul likes to play video games, read manga, and play football.

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Edited by Gokul Chettiyar