Blue Lock ブルーロック

2022 fall | Episodes: 24 | Score: 8.2 (436993)

Updated every Sundays at 01:30 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Synopsis

Yoichi Isagi was mere moments away from scoring a goal that would have sent his high school soccer team to the nationals, but a split-second decision to pass the ball to his teammate cost him that reality. Bitter, confused, and disappointed, Isagi wonders if the outcome would have been different had he not made the pass. When the young striker returns home, an invitation from the Japan Football Union awaits him. Through an arbitrary and biased decision-making process, Isagi is one of three hundred U-18 strikers selected for a controversial project named Blue Lock. The project's ultimate goal is to turn one of the selected players into the star striker for the Japanese national team. To find the best participant, each diamond in the rough must compete against others through a series of solo and team competitions to rise to the top. Putting aside his ethical objections to the project, Isagi feels compelled to fight his way to the top, even if it means ruthlessly crushing the dreams of 299 aspiring young strikers. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Voice Actors

Kaito, Tasuku

Okasaki, Miho

Saitou, Souma

Ura, Kazuki

Yukimura, Eri

Ono, Yuuki

News

Reviews

farcillieftw
01/22/2025, 12:52 AM
I must let it be known: I have NO respect for this show AT ALL lmfao and my rating is solely for the absolutely delicious yaoi content. As a sports anime it’s absolutely ridiculous with a nonsensical plot that it’s impossible for a mature, developed brain to accept—that being said, pretty boys talking about devouring each other? Yeaaaahhhh baby that’s the stuff! Homoerotic tension has surpassed subtext and is very much literal in Blue Lock (BL for a reason LMFAO) and for that reason alone, I’d recommend this train wreck of an anime. My advice is to avoid bothering to understand whatever “lore” or logicthat goes into this (trust me, it’s not worth the headache or strain that comes from rolling your eyes so hard) and just appreciate the wonderful yaoi feast laid before you instead. Isagi harem, Reo Nagi break ups and make ups…absolutely beautiful. You seriously cannot get this anywhere else.
Gwynbleidd_Alan
09/18/2024, 11:55 AM
Honestly, Blue Lock surprised me. I haven't seen many sports anime, because it's very different from what I usually enjoy, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I ended up liking it. The plot has a good balance between being based in realism and including made up elements and players, which made it both fun and surprisingly believable. They even throw in real-life events, like Germany winning the World Cup, and casually mention stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. It gives the whole thing a cool sense of realism while still being its own story. The plot is solid for what it sets outto do. Japan is on the hunt for its next star striker to lead them to a World Cup victory. They gather 300 talented young strikers at a special facility, where they compete in different tournaments and matches to find the absolute best of the best. It has solid antagonists, protagonists and plot twist which keep the story interesting though it's obviously a bit limited on how far it can go (considering it's an anime about sports). I personally really dislike CGI in anime if it's badly done and Blue Lock suffers a lot from having way too much bad CGI. They use CGI in basically every episode and it looks comically bad. People run across around the field looking like an NPC from a PS2 game and their model looks lifeless which is a shame. I understand that animating some of the scenes was probably hard but opting for CGI was the wrong choice, in my humble opinion. It breaks immersion and negatively impacted my experience of watching. I really enjoyed watching it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys football. The way they weave in real events and players adds a nice touch of realism. It’s rare to see an anime balance real life and fiction so effectively, but this one does it surprisingly well. I suppose some people might not feel as annoyed or disturbed by the CGI, but I guess that varies from person to person. I can only speak from myself and say that I found it so bad at times that I couldn't help but laugh. A charming and entertaining story nevertheless all around, which was better than I thought it would be.
200px
05/28/2024, 10:10 PM
The anime managed to surprise me. I planned to watch it in the background while eating, but from the first episodes I was drawn in. This anime is not about characters or football, it is about healthy egoism, personal growth, the ability to say no to other people's desires in order to achieve your own. It helped me a lot, to cultivate egoism and the ability to be in a leading role, especially in online games, where I was transformed from a good support into a furious berserker in the core role! The art is good, the characters are written well enough so as not to seemempty, but also not to draw attention to themselves. The plot is good and there is a good amount of tension and intrigue throughout. In short, if you want to see how to break from Yuji Itadori to Ryomen Sukuna, you should watch this.
exvxa
10/06/2023, 01:01 AM
Story: Literally non-existent. Each episode resolves of pseudo-developing football skills. The characters get a pass from another player and than stand face o face for 30 seconds and talk toxic redudant bullshit to each other to make sure the one speaking is more alpha than the other. Characters: Nothing special here. Typical shounen character set, fancy hair styles. There is the already mentioned pseudo-developing of each character's individual skill set, which some people might find interesting. While this is a shounen anime i can understand this doesn't have to be near to realism, but it gets boring pretty soon. Its a typical schema: Isagi faces abetter oponent which is depicted as super overpowerd, then he get's an epiphany on his oponents individual skill and tactic set and becomes better in ca. 45min. And this repeats on each story stage. Boring. Only Bachira's stoy background is kind of interesting and supports his development but thats all. The other 40 characters are not very individual to each other, they are all a bunch of toxic, narcistic losers who should better go to college. Music: Typical shounen garbage. Design: Some chars look cool, most of them have guffy hairstyles. Another boring part about the anime is the surroundings. These wannabes are caged inside a isolated cage. There is nothing, really nothing, that makes this anime in any way beautiful and a piece of art. Animation: Literally non-existent. There is maybe 5min of total football animation in this anime, the rest are stand alone pictures. I didnt know time pauses when you play football. Overall: Bad, redundaant, meaningless shounen anime, A score of 8.25 is blasphemy but shows, how bad anime fans can judge art lmao
chips901
07/06/2023, 11:58 PM
Okay, Blue Lock. Even though nobody cares about default L opinions, I'm doing myself a favour by typing out my harsh rating here instead of filling out the comment section of the anilist entry. It'd look better anyways. Looking at Blue Lock holistically, it's a very well-done adaptation. It faithfully follows the beats of the manga, focusing the drawings on high-points and extensively using 3d during its low-points. It's definitely worth noting that this is the most impressive implementation of 3D I've seen thus far. But the quality of the production... still feels rather cheap and underwhelming. The drawings are well done but aren't dynamic and lack fluidity.The effects (in particular, some of the character glows) are even cheaper and you can even see the pixilation in them. And the extensive use of 3D to make up for the lack of moving 2D parts clearly expose the limitations of what the 2-slide-long-powerpoint team could achieve. So the limitations become the question then. Do you accept a faithful adaptation for a trade of explicit quality? My answer is no, because having read the manga... my mind will always flock to the manga and none of the moments from the anime. And ultimately, I don't settle for less. This isn't to disrespect the production team. This is the best lowly B-tier anime that I've seen and sets the bar quite high... in its own weight class. I can only imagine two scenarios that can explain the quality of this show. 1. The shareholders didn't believe that Blue Lock would take off. Hence, smaller team, lower budget, lower risk. 2. The small team with small budget really wanted to work on Blue Lock, so they went out of their way to secure the contract and le bags. The thing about this consoomerist era is that very, *very*, VERY high quality stuff is presented to you without any action from the consoomer. It's very cutthroat. Trends move extremely fast and things are so easily forgettable in favour of the next flavour of the month limited edition cute anime twink butt plug. Therefore, if scenario 1 was true, then the shareholders are to blame for gimping the overall quality of the anime. Case closed. If scenario 2 was true... I would congratulate the team on their success and hope they can expand in the future. Why would you settle for less in an era where you can always ask for more? There isn't anything wrong with asking for more. You are the target and you can always ask for more. Settling for less... That's a bit weird in an era where past anime can easily outrun the small game anytime, anywhere. In conclusion, My recommendation is simple. Completely ignore the anime and read the manga instead. If you can envision a better looking Blue Lock anime that's more dynamic and fluid than the show itself... the anime will feel completely underwhelming in every single regard. To me, Blue Lock feels like one of the best B-tier anime. Under the hood, it clearly showcases the importance of raw manpower as it defines the limitations of your work. So, if Blue Lock defines the upper limits of a B-tier anime... ... Then the upper limits themselves continue to be quite the disappointment. 3/10. Until next time.
smol_minnies
06/20/2023, 07:53 AM
The beginning was very promising. The whole idea behind Project Blue Lock seemed interesting, though from a realistic point of view quite foolish and childish. However my main gripe with this show was the pacing. During every match and without failure, every move and thought process is over-explained and over-analysed until all the momentum of the previous action gets lost. It's all build-up without peak, which in turn just leaves you frustrated and unfulfilled. To make things worse, they just just had to add melodrama on top of it all. Why are these teenagers dramatically breaking up with each other, or in some cases withthe monster inside of them? Why are they all having an existential crisis in the middle of the match? Even our main guy Isagi, cosigned with the one and only Ego as an Average Joe, dismantles and rebuilds himself every episode or so. This guy just took learn and adapt to a whole new level. Also the damn vocabulary used in this anime makes me want to bite my fingers off from the second hand embarrassment. How can these guys talk about being a hero or a king, about creating "chemical reactions" together, about "devouring" each other and not just die from cringe?? Well I guess they're teenagers after all and well that's as good of an excuse as any for such behaviour. Now, the animation was all over the place. Awkward still frames and rigid CGI on some parts, but fluid 2D and stunning visuals on others. The art definitely played a huge role in saving the day as it's quiet phenomenal. Character design is absolutely stunning and leaves nothing to complain about. Lastly, Ego. This guy single-handedly carrying the title of the biggest bitch on this show. Every time he opens his damn mouth, I wonder how come he made it alive so far when he's just begging for a beating. For a football anime, Blue Lock was more talking than ball kicking but well it had its fun moments which saved it from being an utter bore to watch.
AnnMochii
04/06/2023, 06:34 AM
First and foremost, I would like to delve into the key aspects that Blue Lock brings to the table. Following that matter, it can be argued that the anime has a rather questionable moral compass. Personally speaking, I couldn't help but draw comparisons between Blue Lock and Danganronpa. Although there are very obvious similarities in the plot, the show stands apart with its focus on the characters' perspectives. Unlike in Danganronpa, where Monokuma is almost always the common enemy of the group, in Blue Lock, Ego is portrayed as this wise mentor - almost like a deity and the real “enimies” of the playersare their own teammates. While the characters in Danganronpa question their own morality, those in Blue Lock seem to relish in dismantling it. The "Blue Lock experiment," rather than being a mere endeavor to create the strongest striker in the world, is a breeding ground for underage psychopaths. The characters, instead of progressing, spiral downwards, trapped in their own bubble. It is important to highlight that, although such a mentality may lead to success in football, became a problem when translated to other areas of life. One can see this phenomenon mirrored in the lives of real-life football players, who often lack moral grounding and are, therefore, not deserving of icon status. Now, onto the anime itself: Story: 4/10 Unfortunately, the story falls short and fails to leave a lasting impact. It's just another mediocre shounen that fails to stand out from the rest. Character Evolution: 1/10 There's not much to say here. The characters don't grow or evolve in any meaningful way. Instead, they become more and more childlike, which doesn't make for a compelling viewing experience. The main character is a classic edgelord who thinks he's better off without friends or a team. Character Design: 7/10 On the bright side, the character design is impressive. Each character is unique and stands out in their way. However, don't expect to predict what's going to happen based on their appearances. The show throws a few curveballs your way, which is always appreciated. Animation: 9/10 The animation is top-notch and elevates the super-long monologues. The show flows smoothly, except for some of the CGI elements during the matches. Overall Rating: 5/10 All in all, while Blue Lock may not be the worst anime out there, it doesn't offer anything groundbreaking. It's a show that can be enjoyed casually, but don't expect to be wowed.
math20082
04/05/2023, 02:53 AM
Blue Lock is quite an interesting anime, quite different from typical sports anime. I think that one thing which is important to understand in order not to be disappointed is that this anime isn't really about football. What I mean by that is that if you are here to see depictions of football matches in anime, whether it is realistic or not, you won't find it here. It's probably the main reason why some of the top reviews didn't like the anime, but it should have been obvious from the premise. The anime is about strikers. Obviously, the position of striker will be considered more important thanother positions in the anime, even if you think football in real life is different. I would even say the reasoning explained in the anime is pretty convincing: Japanese people tend to prioritize the team before themselves and don't deal well with unexpected situations because everything is well organized. I have no idea if this is true for the actual Japanese team and I don't know much about football, but the situation in the anime is clear: Japan is missing a striker and this Blue Lock Project is here to create one. Another interesting part in this anime is that it doesn't follow the usual setting where the main characters are a school club trying to win the national tournament. Now the negatives, because the anime isn't perfect. The characters are rather shallow, and you'll only learn more about a handful so if you're here for character development it's probably not for you. The anime also often focuses on a single character so the field view is often narrow even during the plays. There are also a lot of monologues during the actions which can be annoying. The animation is pretty good, although the few bird's-eye views that are used are pretty bad. Overall I really recommend the anime whether you're a football fan or not, 9/10.
tmunee
03/27/2023, 07:31 AM
The entire premise of this show just bugs me to no end... First and foremost, the idea that a "striker" is the most important player on the field is a HUGE assumption that could be discussed in numerous ways, but I'll just mention the fact that goalkeeper seems to be ignored as a prime reason this show is already junk. Want to check basically any league? You'll find the teams with best keepers are the most winning. But, ok let's ignore that. WTF is a striker in modern soccer? Traditionally its a mid-foreward when you run an archaic offense that wouldn't win anything in modernsoccer (the premise of bluelock from the getgo). Soccer is a TEAM sport! Messi plays center mid, center forward, wing forward. Ronaldo plays mostly wing forward, center forward, and even center full-back in counterstrike. The entire concept of running an offense through a "striker" as opposed to "a system based on the talent of the players you have" is so far from modernization that it makes the concept of the show embarrassing. Also, let's get real, real. No amount of fancy anime magic is going to make you 4 inches taller, 20 lbs heavier, 1 second quicker, 3mph faster, or 2x stronger. Good sports animes address these realities. Terrible ones make up BS to act like "my special absorb skill, or hawk eye view" can make up for all of my other deficiencies. NO! THEY CANNOT! If you are looking for a fantasy where you think I could have been a pro soccer player-despite being small, weak, slow, untalented- then yes, this is for you! But, if you like sports anime that shows real sports and players with talents and limitations... well... not gonna be found here.
CarlosAlberto
03/26/2023, 04:24 AM
Imagine yourself as one of the professional Japanese football players on the national team, and they just returned home after an exhausting World Cup game against Croatia, which ended in a 1-1 (3-1 on penalties) win for Croatia. They're frustrated that they couldn't make it any further and ended up being eliminated before the quarter's finals yet again. They turn on their TV, and the anime being exhibited is one about football; the very first line they hear is from a character named Jinpachi Ego; he's basically saying that Japanese football sucks because they lack a good striker, and that is due to the Japanesebeing too unenthusiastic, lacking ego, or greater desire to score goals, and this is what prevents Japan from progressing in football; he also trash-talks Japanese football and its players in general. It comes out that this anime/manga is extremely popular and well-received in Japan. After thinking about the amount of time spent on training and preparation just for that day and moment—an opportunity that comes only in a span of 4 years—how would you feel? That's the problem with Blue Lock: aside from being a complete disaster at everything it does, all it does is shit on and disrespect Japanese players, football, and footballers in general, especially the ones that are not strikers. Blue Lock just doesn't respect the concept of sport or competition at all. Things that make a good sports anime/manga is how inspiring it can be, how connected you feel to the characters, how genuine it feels, and being able to see different perspectives and takes on that sport. Take Haikyuu as an example, a really good manga that helped boost volleyball popularity in Japan, inspiring people all over the world and inspiring people who have now become professional main leads for the national sports team. Then on the other side, there is Blue Lock, doing everything it can to go against it, to be different, unique, fun, creative, and to reinvent the whole genre by deconstructing all the themes and narrative tropes of this genre. That is what Blue Lock imagines itself to be on paper, but reality is far worse than that. On top of having a gay subtext, something anyone can notice in this show is how it tries to appeal to popular things to make it sell. Like the bishounen, femboy-ish, ultra edgy looking characters in order to appeal to teenagers and fujoshis, the Battle-Royale concept, why not? is popular, right? I mean, Fortnite and all that shit, and of course the World Cup, like come on, the manga started its release right after the 2018 World Cup ended and the anime aired alongside the 2022 World Cup, so it's clear that Blue Lock is just a commercial attempt at success without any care for substance, fun, passion, creativity, or any form of artistic value, and on that they succeeded, so congrats, after all, this is what Blue Lock IS about. A facility that allows three hundred strikers to compete against each other to "create football from zero", whatever the fuck that means, and create the best striker in the world in order to win the World Cup. The concept that Blue Lock has of a great striker is that of a spoiled child who doesn't want to pass the ball and only wants himself to score the goals. By defining narcissistic and egocentric behavior as a good thing in a sport, all it does is a detriment to the sport itself, but that is the philosophy of Blue Lock. Going through a basic level progression while the matches are played to decide who is going to be eliminated as you just pray for this torment to end. The characters are constantly overreacting, delivering lines that don't match the tone of the situation or that are just blatantly stupid. The interactions are also lazy and poorly conceptualized; they constantly trash talk and give each other silly nicknames to show competitiveness. As the matches go on, the show develops their relationship, but that is also done in a very inorganic way. They all have some unique trait or ability that makes them useful in matches, and that is explored in the most superficial way possible. The show always feels the necessity to explain some plays through exposition; right after the play is made, a character will have a monologue where he explains exactly what you just saw, and the anime also makes use of visual explanation for that, so in case there is a toddler watching, they can also understand what just happened, thanks Blue Lock. There is no referee, no penalty, no offsides, and no throw-in. There are around 3 fouls, free kicks, and corner kicks in total. A really flabbergasting and exceptional use of the football rules. The author also shows us his incredible knowledge of football by using the most basic football junior tactics and hammering the same three names everytime he wants to use a real player as an exemple—it's always Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Neymar, with Pelé being mentioned only once—names that only the real football fans will get to recognise. The show presents us with terrible characters in order to have a pseudo-development later on; you can see that on a lot of MC, like Eren Yeager for example, it gives you a false impression of progress; a character who once was an absolute piece of shit and now it's tolerable feels like a good development, and that's the case with our great protagonist, Isagi Yoichi. The other characters are just as you would expect: caricatures and archetypes that you've seen a thousand times in other shows, just tools to help Isagi in his "journey" to become the best striker that plays alongside other strikers in a game with no rules inside a prison facility. The long, red-haired delicated character that relies on speed; the emotionless white-haired prodigy that learns to like the sport; a traitor who wants to win by exploitation of the rules because he sucks and he knows it but also regrets it and is forgiven later; a temperamental, loud blonde guy that is very egocentric but agrees on what others tell him to do; a femboy cringe lord that acts very silly and so on. No one really cares about who gets eliminated because none of the characters are interesting enough for anyone to give a fuck about them. The only one that has a little bit more emphasis than Isagi is Bachira, with his insanely cringe monster allegory. The production on this anime is trash; after around episode 5, things just went downhill. Lapses of decent animation, super exaggerated moves that don't convey the technique of the supposed move correctly, poor use of CGI—they even use CGI on still frames that lasted more than 5 seconds on the screen—how lazy is that? Sure, the character designs are detailed, but that is an exigence coming from a manga that has supposedly detailed art and character design, and that, on top of the lack of great animators on the staff, doesn't help the animation fluidity at all. It's super repetitive; everything plays out the same, and they don't even try to do something differently. The direction is super uncreative; you don't get anything unique or interesting; it's always the same perspectives and the same angles of the characters in CGI chasing after the ball and stand still animation. The OST is very forgettable. Also, what the fuck is that additional time garbage that shit is not funny it's just painful to watch. One may try to argue that Blue Lock is mindless fun and that it's not taking itself seriously, but that is not true given how edgy and over the top Blue Lock is. It's not a satire of sports manga, nor is it presented in an unpretentious way; it's the complete opposite. The only reason that Blue Lock may feel like that sometimes is because it is so unbelievably bad that you can't accept it for what it is without making up a reason for it. If you really want a football anime, the only one I can recommend to you is Ao Ashi. It's not exceptional, but it's WAY better than this shit
Qkydzaa
03/26/2023, 02:52 AM
Let’s jump straight into the point. Blue Lock is an anime which shows different ways of achieving our goals. Understanding Blue Lock, as simple as it is, is understanding the reasons of different characters to move forward. By no means do I think that the anime is complex or anything. So, what is going on? Characters: Every character is stereotypical. We got the “goofy” Bachira, main character Isagi, friendly straight-face Kunigami and some edgelords. We’ve all seen these characters before, but all of them have something to share in common. They show us their own way of getting better, moving forward, striving for success. Kuon, for example,will do whatever it takes to be the last man standing, whether it is morally good or not. Barou – a beast on the field, unstoppable rebellious force- also shares his way to victory. By realizing his mistakes, by finding someone better than him in the field where he should be the “king”, he shows us that, whatever stops him from going forward, he will devour. Haven’t we felt the same way? Whether it is at school or at work, we have always encountered someone better than us. And that really bothers the ego of most people. What do we do then? We get better, and better till we beat that specific person “Those who continue to fight in spite of their despair are bestowed with the power to achieve their dream”-Ego Jinpachi. Although, we have seen a little from Kunigami, he also has something to say: “If our heads drop down now, we’re done for!”(my favorite quote). Failure is merely temporary and if you accept defeat then you stay knocked down instead of getting back up. Sometimes things don’t always go our way, so press on! Try again and again and learn from failure. Some characters can get you really hyped up, getting goose bumps from what they are saying, and that is the whole point. That is why I admire most of Blue Lock characters. Here come the problems. As I said in the beginning most of them are stereotypical, so I can’t really find a favorite character from all of them. If it wasn’t for the plot twists, they would be really bland and would fall flat. On top of that, their dictionaries are pretty limited (mine too, but leave that for my profile’s comments), by repeating certain words and phrases over and over again every single episode. Annoying. 8.5/10 Plot: Fairly simple, easy to follow, interesting plot twists and pretty enjoyable to watch. In the middle of the anime, some characters just disappeared, but I guess that we will find out what happened to them at some point. Other than that the plot is smoothly running and most episodes are fairly interesting. 8/10 Sound: From the opening theme, to the ending theme every little bit of sound effect is pleasant for the ears. The commercial break sounds, the heavily distorted sounds of shooting, the sound of electricity when characters are on a spree, Barou’s awakening guitar/drums. The sound effects of this anime are clearly made to hype you up, to go outside and kick a football as hard as you can, to beat the person better than you, to finally finish your assignment, to do some actual hard work, or to go back to play some competitive games and give all your best. 10/10 Art: Here, is where the anime fails. Comparing the art style of the manga and the one of the anime is like comparing Berserk manga to the latest adaptations. Throughout this review I have praised the anime for hyping me up, but just by looking at the animation and art style the hype lasts a couple of seconds. The sparks and colorful mist around players is so poorly made. I understand the reason behind them, but just seeing the poor quality really ruins their whole existence. The 3D is just as horrible and noticeable as most of other 3D animations in anime. On top of that, the art is really just made to be commercially successful. 8bit really did not try to put the soul of the manga in the adaptation. After all we want hollow emotionless white eyes and impactful shots, which we do receive, but the budget version of it. 6/10 I have skipped some unnecessary parts, such as voice actors and illogical moments, the reason being that I find them not that impactful on the whole anime ( they don’t kill the vibe or make things better). Overall: 8 Don’t get me wrong here. The overall score is just the overall enjoyment and fulfillment after finishing the anime. For me a good anime is an anime, which can make a person change or understand new things, such as worldviews and mindsets. Blue lock made me play football again ( not for long, I guess), made me continue with my work and not just slack off. This is a temporarily feeling, but I love that it exists.
PixelB
03/26/2023, 01:03 AM
Blue Lock's a show about pitting the 300 best Japanese high school level strikers together in a Kodoku of sorts--forcing them to clash and compete against each other--to find out Japan's best forward player. "That just sounds like a survival/death game show with extra steps." This statement isn't wrong. Blue Lock is a show that combines the typical shounen sports/battle show and distills each genre by combining the best attributes of both aspects and shedding off the weaknesses that typically come packaged with the genres. First off is the death game aspect itself. It's not that edgy. It's within the bounds of shounen reasoning, and itsoftens the cringe and fast-paced nature of death game shows to begin with. The premise of the show doesn't revolve around survival: it's about becoming the best soccer player. When a player gets kicked out of Blue Lock, they're not going to die or anything, they just are out of the competition. There remains the threat of never being able to represent Japan as a soccer player, and that threat is very real, but it's not a literal battle to the death. There's no battle shock, guilt, or depression that comes with winning over your opponent while also still maintaining the high-stakes aspects that we all know and love from survival death games. Next is skill expression. A lot of these death game shows, like Kami-sama no Iu toori, Deatte Go-byō de Batoru, and Darwin's Game tend to rely heavily on luck. Each game that these shows go through is unrelated to the last, and there tends to be a lot more of a luck factor and also a psychological one. There are a lot of psychological mind games--which I love--but at the same time, the games are quite arbitrary. One game might suit one person's skillset but not the other. In Blue Lock, luck is mitigated to an extreme degree. It's a continuous competition in determining the best soccer player, so the only thing that gets tested is their soccer skills, whether it be dribbling, ball control, scoring, or stamina, your soccer skill is the only thing that matters. Even if your team sucks in Blue Lock, if you distinguish yourself as the best scorer, you will pass regardless. It's a lot more skill-based than the death game genre, where you're influenced highly by the type of game being played and your temporary teammates which can spell the end of you. Coming off the shounen sports side of the coin, this show has strong characters. This show has a great premise for setting up plays: everyone is a damn striker. Everyone is the main character. They're all OP. By nature, there's no supporting cast. If you cannot score, you will get "Locked off." As such, every character has a main character-type personality and is overbearing, and there are always going to be insane battles of these main-character-type strikers battling it out against each other for victory. You also get to see these characters naturally forming in teams, forging friendships, and having chemistry with each other. Each character will never always be with the same types of players due to the selection forcing everyone to pick different teammates, so you constantly see combinations and synergies. It's still a team game, so characters also interact with each other more, and you get to explore their personalities and playstyles as a result. With the premise being that each character is a striker also comes the fun premise of battling it out. Characters work together in different scenarios, and they all clash for supremacy. Every striker has their own "winning formula" and they all try to perfect it by honing it against other equally amazing strikers. In each match, you will see players evolving at a rapid pace because, well, everyone is a main character. It doesn't surprise me that everyone learns at a prodigious pace because that's the whole point: everyone selected is a genius, and these battles revolve around them. Players develop new strategies, find new ways to score more effectively, and find synergies to break through defenses. This comes to the detail-oriented and strategic part of the show. While you would expect a show about only strikers and no other positions to be brain-dead battle shounen like Kuroko no Basket, surprisingly, this show pays attention to tactics as much as it pays attention to the one on one ball skills. There's tremendous focus on the positioning of players and drilling down to the strategy of utilizing each player's weaknesses and strengths to each team's advantage. There's the use of triangle formations, targeting the weak link, and having a strategy to counter the enemy team's strengths. Of course, since this is still ultimately a show about strikers and one on ones, there's a lot of monologuing about each player's thought process and their subsequent evolutions in their play mid-match. There's going to be a lot of "going into the zone," mental breakdowns and recoveries, and intense showdowns between each player. The show keeps the exciting tempo of strikers learning new things and playing better while also keeping a sufficient amount of time on strategy. The production value of the show is also great compared to other sports shows. Yes, there is use of CGI, but it's only in far shots. All of the close up angles are hand animated, and they look great. The shading, the lines, and the details of the plays shine through. While there are still shots used, the art still looks good. It's one of the few shows in the 20th century that have a high production value soccer animation that actually shows the situation on the field while also showcasing choreographed movement. While this show is still shallow in many aspects, let me ask you this: do other shows fare better? Yes, the weakness in only having strikers and main characters with no mainstay team is obvious. There's a lack of characterization compared to a show like Big Windup. There are too many characters in Blue Lock, and lacking a static team means there's not enough time or reason to pursue digging too deep into player relations. At the same time though, Big Windup suffers the same mistakes. While yes, I can think of 6 or so characters in Nishiura High's baseball team, I can't remember all of them or how unmemorable some of the characters are sometimes. There's still a massive and unbalanced focus on the main characters: Abe, Mihashi, Tajima, and Hanai. The rest are supporting the cast and are much less relevant. And that's when Big Windup is all about the 9-player baseball team and their journey towards Koushien! The series is slow-paced, and you get to understand each player's personality, but it still suffers from the fact that the supporting cast still doesn't have much characterization. What about the strategy? Honestly, for something like Ao Ashi or Giant Killing, which are about becoming professional, playing with a balanced team of 11 soccer players in their respective positions, Blue Lock pays a lot more attention to detail. Ao Ashi spends much less time in player showdowns while also not drilling too deep into strategies. Same thing with Giant Killing, an anime that supposedly is about an actual Pro club with an amazing coach as a main character. There are a lot more games in Ao Ashi and Giant Killing, and as a result, there's a lot less detail in the matches. In Blue Lock, each player's position is accounted for and each match is laced with tension. Ao Ashi talks about the same strategies that Blue Lock focuses on triangular formations, and specific strategies to take down their opponent, yet Blue Lock not only shows the positioning much more clearly in many plays but also brings in the one on one elements and monologuing that Ao Ashi could never provide. Plus, Ao Ashi similarly has too many characters with a lack of characterization, especially in the romance. What about battle shounens like Kuroko no Basket? I love Kuroku no Basket, but the stuff in that show is supernatural. It's not grounded in reality. There are not a lot of strategies, and it truly is just a one-on-one showdown between two characters. This is fun, but Blue Lock, despite how unrealistically OP everyone is at learning and being so good, still utilizes realistic strategies and mechanics used in real-life soccer while also maintaining that fun one on one action. Overall, Blue Lock shores up on a lot of weaknesses, but despite all the praise I give it, there are still a lot of flaws. Still, the overwhelming amount of characters truly means that there's lacking characterization no matter how much monologuing or action you give them. The show tries to cover this up with a mandatory flashback arc for each main character, but it's just stale and repetitive at some point. It reminded me of Demon Slayer vibes, where each demon HAD to have a shitty sob story or something that I had to sit through. The difference in Blue Lock, however, is that the flashbacks are incredibly short, only a few minutes at most, with a lack of emphasis as well as intentionally leaving out details in the flashback. This way, it doesn't kill the pacing or the action that is currently happening. Plus, the main character is super generic still and doesn't make too much sense as a consistent character. First off is how his "famed ability" is a playmaking ability, just like Ashito in Ao Ashi. Not very original. He even possesses a mediocre physique, just like Ashito, They're almost mirrors in the skills they possess. What about personality? Well, Isagi is typically a polite Japanese protagonist, but in-game, he transforms into an unfeeling demon. It's like he has a split-personality disorder, or he's a psychopath. He's usually sympathetic, but when he plays soccer, he only feels the thrill of crushing other peoples' dreams. What the hell? This never even gets addressed. While I get that playing soccer will make a player aggressive and do what they need to do to win, Isagi just feels like he's a completely different character. Other characters similarly become much more aggressive, hot-headed, and passionate, but their personalities match their in-game ones. Barou acts like a king on the field, and that arrogance stays with him off the field. Nagi's an eccentric genius on the field, and also off as well. Bachira talks about his monster on the field, and also off as well. Each of the other characters has consistent states of mind and personalities, but not Isagi. To put it simply, he's a crappy main character with not much consistency. On one hand, he's constantly reminding himself that he's a supposed "mob character," yet his results beg to differ. He's as OP as any other character is. This show, however, still manages to deliver a fun, yet not completely edgy and mindless sports show that has survival-game elements.
Razor_Eagle11
03/25/2023, 10:03 PM
Blue Lock is a refreshing take on the anime sports genre. There's no 'all for one and one for all' kind of sportsmanship here, they're playing based on their egos and they are not afraid to talk shit to each other. watching the first episode will definitely make you hooked. However, there are a few things that I want to point out about Blue Lock starting with the Pros. The pros: The story starts of simple, the MC Isagi Yoichi got invited to join the Blue Lock project as a candidate to be the best striker in the world. The premise and how the story goes playssimilarly to a battle-shounen type of anime, with the power system being the Blue Lock rankings and the "weapons" that they use being a soccer skill. Every match feels intense as if you're watching a real soccer match. The characters are fairly interesting and have different motivations and backgrounds that made them stand out. The openings and endings are a banger, really makes you not want to skip it. The voice acting is great, and there's a lot of veteran voice actor in the anime and now let's talk about the cons. The cons: The first episode has really good animation but as the time goes the animation gets less detailed and less fluid. The use of CGI is more apparent especially on the 2nd cour, and there's a lot of still shots and weird use of effects that makes it more jarring to watch. I don't get why the change Isagi's blue aura in the earlier episodes to green, which is a weird color choice for me. Certain important moments became less impactful because of the less detailed animation. When you draw a comparison between the manga and the anime, the manga easily takes the cake. Overall Blue Lock is a good adaptation, although the animation may not be the best, I say they adapted the the manga pretty well. I just hope they adapt the Blue Lock vs U-20 Japan with better animation because it's one of the best arcs in the manga. Thanks for reading
Aragane
03/25/2023, 10:01 PM
"Blue Lock," a manga adaptation that's all about soccer. But not the kind of soccer you see in your backyard. No, no, no, this is soccer on steroids! It's a story about teenage boys who want to become the best soccer player in Japan. And they're not just happy with being good. Oh no, they want to be the BEST, better than anyone else. The story follows a guy named Isagi Yoichi. This dude got some serious talent when it comes to soccer. But he's not happy with being good. He wants to be the best. And he'll do whatever it takes to get there. That'swhere the Blue Lock program comes in. It's a special training camp designed to turn good soccer players into great ones, and Yoichi is one of the lucky few who get selected. But here's the catch, kids. The Blue Lock program is not your ordinary soccer camp. It's more like a battle royale, where the players are pitted against each other in intense matches to see who's "the best" of the best. And these guys are not playing nice, oh no, they're playing dirty. They're using every trick in the book to beat each other, and it's all for the sake of becoming the best soccer player in Japan. Now, I know what you're thinking, "this sounds like a violent show!" But don't worry, there's no blood or gore here. It's all the good old-fashioned soccer action. Only with some intense rivalry that is thrown in for good measure. And the best part? The story is frankly a good twist of the sports genre. Because it got a unique premise that's not been seen before in sports manga, and the characters are all well-developed and interesting. Speaking a bit about how 8bit studio decided to animate this adaptation, the usage of CGI during the matches in "Blue Lock" might put off many viewers, especially the traditional animation puritans. While the CGI of this show isn't the best in the industry, it does get the job done. It's understandable why the producers decided to use CGI, as it allows them to depict the fast-paced movements and actions of the sport more realistically. However, some viewers might find it jarring to switch from traditional animation to CGI during the match scenes. Although, when the time calls for it, the best scenes are animated well. When "Blue Lock" uses traditional animation, it can be stunning. The character designs are unique and memorable, perhaps too unique for sports. The action scenes are particularly well-animated, with dynamic camera angles and impressive use of color and lighting. The opening and ending songs in "Blue Lock" are good, but nothing more. While they do a decent job setting the show's tone, they aren't particularly memorable or catchy. However, some of the OSTs used throughout are nicely complementing the scenarios. They help to build tension during intense scenes and create a sense of nostalgia during quieter moments. The voice actors in "Blue Lock" are all respectably passionate about filling the shoes of those strikers. Each character has a distinct voice and personality, and the voice actors do an excellent job of bringing them to life. Whether it's the confident and ambitious protagonist Yoichi, or the passive-aggressive Ego Jinpachi, each character's voice is spot on and adds to the overall enjoyment of the series. Even if "Blue Lock" is not up to the palate of some viewers, it's staying power is there. If memes have proven anything, there are moments in this show that can even be taken out of context as a memorable gifs. Some scenes in the show are just so over-the-top and ridiculous that they become instantly meme-able. This staying power can keep this show in the public consciousness long after it has finished airing. Which is always a good thing for any series. So, in conclusion, "Blue Lock" is a great manga that's perfect for anyone who loves soccer or sports manga in general. It's got great action, interesting characters, and a unique story. That's sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.
SiriusStarlight
03/25/2023, 06:03 PM
I know people who are really into sports and I can confirm they are exactly like this. Blue Lock manages to be absolutely overflow with charm by sheer virtue of being as over-the-top and deranged as humanly possible. Every single episode you'll hear a teenager talk about their pride in their skills or resolve to be the best Soccer player they can be through saying it in the most unhinged ways imaginable, accompanied by an extreme visualization of that exact phrasing. Even if the amount of depth a character has can vary in how deep or shallow they are, everyone manages to be really memorable intheir own distinct brand of insanity that contributes to the constant high-energy feel of thhow. A big contributing factor to that is its stellar voice cast. Pretty much everyone here brings their absolute A-game into their roles with a powerful intensity that's unique to each and every one of them. My particular favorites were Kazuki Ura as Isagi and Tatsuku Kaito as Bachira, which is especially impressive given that they're pretty much entirely new faces in voice acting. I'm really happy that these leading roles were given to such promising newcomers, and I really hope that their phenomenal performances lead to really bright futures in their careers. Another one of the core pillars that makes Blue Lock what it is are its visuals. However, I should address the fact that its animation is an area where it stumbles a bit. It feels a bit apparent that it wasn't given as much of a large budget as it could have, or if it ran into issues in production, but it does have a noticeable impact on its animation. It often relies on stills or really rough-looking CG models in a lot of areas in a way that's pretty off-putting to see when those cracks show. That being said, its animation often being a tad inconsistent is more than made up for with its fantastic direction. Its use of incredibly intense expressions and shading that feels reminiscent of Attack on Titan at times, effective use of distinct imagery like the puzzle pieces connecting to and breaking off of Isagi or the "monster" that resides around Bachira, and incredibly strong storyboarding that makes its big headlining shots land with the same impact as a spread from a manga page give it a striking sense of style that feels very unique to it. And make no mistake with my earlier complaints about its animation, when they need to sell an impactful moment, it shines really brightly. I just hope these production issues get ironed out by the time season 2 comes around, so both the animation and direction get to work in harmony and shine ever brighter. The thing I found most compelling about Blue Lock story-wise is the nuance of Blue Lock's goals as a facility and the type of player it's trying to be. I've seen a good amount of criticism towards the series' supposed notion that a striker is the only player that matters in a soccer team. That's obviously entirely true, but I think that angle is looking into the whole "making the best striker" aspect of it a bit too literally. The way I see it, Ego sees the problem with the Japan team being that their focus solely on fighting as one made it so that the players' individual strengths suffered as a result, so the goal for Blue Lock is to refine the selected players as individuals and bring out their latent strengths. It's an approach that encourages the players to have somewhat selfish and egotistical mindsets in how they evolve, which doesn't sound like it'd work all too well. However, the show ironically makes it so that this drive ends up strengthening their teamwork. It invites a spirit of competition between its team members where they manage to work in harmony by spiritually devouring each other (the show's words, not mine) in order to make major bursts of improvement, and those clashes of wills end up letting the players work in harmony very well. It's a very unique angle to take a sports series in storytelling wise, one that I haven't really seen before at least. I imagine that it's definitely really unrealistic and over-the-top, but the series fully embraces that aspect of itself. Watching this show week to week was one of the most fun experiences I've had keeping up with a seasonal, and I'm glad I got to experience it so often through the phenomenal stretch of Fall 2022 and the admittedly less enticing stretch of Winter 2023. I'm fully hooked on checking out the utterly insane clash of wills through soccer that Blue Lock has in store for the future, and I'm looking forward to its eventual return with Season 2 and the Episode Nagi film.
otherdummy
03/25/2023, 04:25 PM
Winter 2023 is by no means a great season for anime, but from the very beginning I had my eyes dead-set on reviewing two anime. They were Oniichan wa Oshimai and Mahou Kakumei. But something called Real Life™ got in my way, and instead of writing shit, I spent my free time lying in bed, catching up on desperately-needed sleep time, half-awake and half-dreaming about some giant-ass pumpkin patch. It was pumpkins as far as the eye can see, with the hills and the valleys and the far-off mountains all textured with delicate orange stripes. Well, fuck pumpkins, fuck sleep, and fuck real life. Whocares about anything else when you can watch Blue Lock? It’s objectively the best football anime of Fall 2022 and Winter 2023 and it’s pointless to even consider a 2nd place. So now to answer the all-important question for the readers of this review: What is this anime about? Blue Lock starts when our power-of-teamwork guy Isagi passes the ball to his teammate instead of shooting for himself and his teammate misses. Isagi then starts pondering if teamwork is hella overrated, and before you know it he is whisked away to the wonderful world of Blue Lock, where the goal is not to work as a team, but by becoming the single best striker in the world. And how is our now-not-so-power-of-teamwork guy Isagi gonna do this? Well, first he has to win matches in teams of 11… and then win more matches in teams of 2-5, and if he succeeds he gets to play in a better team of 11… wait… something doesn’t seem quite right, let’s try something else. Blue Lock starts when our not-actually-power-of-teamwork guy Isagi passes the ball to his teammate instead of shooting for himself and his teammate misses. Isagi then starts pondering if teamwork is hella overrated, and before you know it he is whisked away to the wonderful world of Blue Lock, where Isagi’s current understanding of “teamwork” is immediately thrown in the trash. Our reformed-power-of-teamwork Isagi, throughout the trials and hardships of Blue Lock, comes to realize that teamwork is not about passing the ball to his teammate in any situation, but instead knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each player and working with that, to generate “chemical reactions” that play to the strengths of each player… wait, timeout, hold on a second. Isn’t this “chemical reaction” thing just the plain run-of-the-mill definition of teamwork? When you look at Blue Lock more closely, it turns out not to be the “revolutionary approach” to football that it boasts itself as. Instead, Blue Lock’s goal is to explain very basic concepts of football in the most overcomplicated way possible to make it sound like something really cool. Like, what is “smelling a goal”? It sounds really cool, but when we translate it from Isagian to English it turns out to just be “coming up with a winning strategy”. What about “turning zero into one”? It’s just learning how to play in a team instead of individually. And what does “awakening” mean? Easy; it means “shounen shenanigans”. Concepts such as consistency and luck are overexplained in the most overexplanatory way possible that when you realize this, this show starts to be painful to watch. The “character development” is nothing but a contrived sense of progression that is randomly bullshitted by the author with the idea that “if you throw enough bullshit, some of them might not be seen as bullshit”. There’s simply nothing to be found. Well, if the character development is nonexistent, then at least we can settle for just the characters themselves, right? Well, no, not really. Isagi is basically a reprinted shounen character who says things like “I have to get better” so often that he skips sleep to say it more. Bachira’s characterization is that he can dribble, he is cute, and he can be shipped with Isagi. Ego is a character who spouts off some random shit and also eats random shit. Chigiri has long legs and long hair. Raichi has spiky teeth and spiky hair. Nagi’s characterization is that he can do weird kicks, he is cute, and he can be shipped with Reo. They are pretty much just shounen characters, each with strange “superpowers” that no ordinary high-schooler could possibly have, constantly talking about winning and shit. So what’s the point of Blue Lock? It fails at plot, fails at characters, fails at OST (it’s generic as shit). But there’s one thing it doesn’t fail at, and that is making cute, shippable characters. Take Bachira. His VA is talented and adds a considerable amount of nuance to Bachira’s dialogue. But what is this nuance used for? Better character exposition? Reflecting Bachira’s emotional state in a non-obvious way? These are forlorn hopes. The nuance’s sole intention is to make Bachira cuter and more shippable. Nagi’s backstory makes no sense: he only practiced for 6 months and is already a living god at technique. But the story’s intention is not realism; Nagi hence seems more mysterious, so he can be contrasted with Reo better, so they can be shipped together better. The whole purpose of Blue Lock is to ship cute boys together. At the time of writing (just after last episode) there are 3067 Blue Lock fanfictions on AO3. 2643 of them are categorized as M/M fics, of which 473 just so happen to be rated explicit. There are 778 Reo/Nagi fics, 382 Bachira/Isagi fics, 375 Isagi/Rin fics, and many more consisting of all sorts (and forms) of ships. Comparatively, Okabe/Kurisu from the fan-favorite Steins;Gate has only 178 fics to its name; that is less than the 225 Putin/Medvedev fics that exist somewhere on this site. So we can say, with certainty, that Blue Lock was invented to ship cute boys together. Maybe we can go further: Men’s sports manga was invented to ship cute boys together. Fuck it, let’s go even further. Men’s sports was invented to ship cute boys together. Men were invented to ship cute boys together? At this point I don’t know anymore. Perhaps I’ve been ridden to insanity over writing this review, juggling real life, and watching this show. Who knows. So with all that said and done, let’s try this one last time. Blue Lock starts when our cute shounen boy Isagi passes the ball to an irrelevant character and loses the game. The plot don’t matter, the details doesn’t matter, but Isagi becomes tired of his surroundings, and before you know it he is whisked away to the wonderful world of Blue Lock where he can meet other cute shounen boys for the audience to ship and scream random shounen stuff about self-improvement and winning that sounds really, really cool. As Isagi powerlevels, he can meet more cute boys and scream about more bullshit stuff, and the cycle continues until Isagi has all the qualities essential of the world’s #1 striker: know every cute boy on the planet, and be able to scream out the most overcomplicated form of every concept that ever exists. And if a story like that isn’t worth watching, I don’t know what is.
Jhavibi
03/25/2023, 03:40 PM
It's not the best, it can't even be compared to the manga in many cases, but what this anime of kids kicking balls with abruptly high egos has achieved doesn't make any sense, the Blue Lock project is real. To begin with, the soccer that is narrated here can be taken in many ways; impress you, disgust you or love it, but one thing here is true, this is fiction. All of this coupled with a dark aura (technically edgy. and it's awesome) makes the anime something unique, making a sport seen as "simple" (without analyzing it too much, since all sports have a lot ofcontent) into something absurd. , but entertaining and fun. As the characters threaten each other with death for the simple fact of having lost the ball or because they are simply jerks, but each one is unique, thus having their own weapon, differentiating them from the rest (along with part of their attitude, aura and representative color and further). Now I would like to talk more in depth about the series, setting aside the context and the amazing (and edgy) characters. -FIRST, the animation... this causes a lot of commotion, it is true that it is not up to what it should have had, but some scenes are visually incredible, and the drawing almost never disappoints, to improve would be the use of cgi (for background characters or far shots) and still images with the ball moving or with sound effects or something that makes it appear that the image is moving. -The first and second arc, the first and second selection... are quite good. The material is entertaining (the second half seemed like a video game to me, and I love it) and it makes new characters or characters that hadn't been seen before shine and become very fond of them, each one having their moment of prominence. Although they are little compared to what will come in future seasons (hehehe). -And lastly... the amazing and mostly overlooked (by vast majority though it may not seem like it) amazing music and OST's. BLLK's OST's are incredible, they give a lot of emotion to the scenes and make you feel motivated, or scared, like many of Rin's OST's, causing a feeling of danger to the viewer. And then, that it is not important in the reviews, the Openings and Endings. To start with, the 2 Op and Ed have great animation and amazing music, even though the first Op is controversial because it doesn't reflect much of BLLK (the lyrics do it perfectly, but we're not Japanese and we understand almost nothing or nothing), and then there is the madness of the second Op, Judgment, with a quite innovative and new artistic section, as well as a very good song by the group ASH DA HERO. Beyond this there is not much more to say about Blue Lock, the truly good is yet to come and we are not prepared for it, luckily everything manages to live up to it. If you have come this far, I thank you and I hope you support my review, I wish you a great day. (I don't speak English very well, so much of this review has been done with a translator, I hope I didn't mess it up and that your eyes didn't hurt from reading some mistake, once again I say goodbye, thanks for reading).
Snapshot426
03/25/2023, 02:25 PM
Blue Lock pretty much came at the right time for me. Coming right after Ao Ashi which I really enjoyed and with the World Cup right around the corner, football fever was indeed very high. And yes, it’s called football, not soccer you goddamn Americans. Blue Lock though was prepared to offer something quite different from your standard sports anime. Something that would go against the typical, “power of teamwork” kind of show; where we test to see how one’s skill and ego can influence the people around you and change the course of any match. This is a show about a boy’s desire toimprove and evolve his game in order to take it to greater heights. This ain’t just your typical sports anime, this is Blue Lock and I’m going to tell you why this show in particular was my favourite show in fall 2022 and subsequently in Winter 2023 and why I believe you should watch it as well. Just a heads up though, if you are looking for a sports anime that’s more, “traditional”, then this show may not be the show for you. If anything, go watch Ao Ashi. More people need to watch that show anyway. So let’s hype our egos, put on our football kit and smash the football into the net as I present to my anime review for Blue Lock. Let’s begin. Story: 9/10 Isagi Yoichi had failed to win a crucial game that would have taken his team to nationals. While contemplating whether or not he should have taken the shot instead of passing it, he receives a letter from the Japan Football Union, telling him that he, among 299 other “Diamonds in the rough”, have been invited to take part in a program called “Blue Lock” with the promise that whoever completes the program would end up becoming the best striker in the world. Not missing that chance, Isagi joins the Blue Lock program as he aims to come out on top, even if it means crushing the hopes and dreams of the other Blue Lock candidates. Blue Lock is all focused on how much one’s ego can push them forward in order to achieve victory, to disregard the people around you so only you can focus on how you can do it. Right from the word go, the show makes it very clear that friendship is not something that can help you survive Blue Lock, you and only you can make a difference in order to proceed. That what makes this so interesting because it is the opposite of what is the underlying plot line of any sports anime. Sports anime start off with character being the individual before realising that he/she can rely on their teammates to win. Blue Lock breaks that down and tells you that you should not count on your teammates because if they screw up and you lose, it was out of your hands. It tells you that you must be the one to decide it, you must be the star that your teammates follow to victory. It is made very clear from the first episode when Isagi passed to a teammate instead of taking the shot for himself and they lost because it was out of his hands and it carries that mindset throughout the show. “Don’t be the follower, be the leader. You can use your teammates, but be the one that stands tall in the end.” It what makes the battle royale format this show has a great compliment to the egotistical individualism the characters will eventually end up being. I’ve always had a love, hate relationship with BR/death game anime because they always start out interesting but fall off quickly when the usual tropes kick in when the protagonist gets suddenly stronger and more edgy, the dreaded team-up that slows the pace down, etc. Blue Lock isn’t immune to these tropes but I would say it executes them better than other shows. It’s mainly the because of how well Blue Lock’s plot fits the BR style and the plot progresses smoothly along with it as the number of participants starts to get lower, the competition starts to get tougher. As such, the characters’ must adapt and evolve quickly in order to survive. It makes the transition of someone like Isagi’s character from thoughtful teammate to a “devourer” seem appropriate because of what he has to strive for in order to stand on top and use his teammates to stand on top. So it uses the tropes to it’s advantage because it is so ingrained in the plot as to what the show wants to be and what it wants to show. Characters: 9.5/10 Isagi’s character arc is one of the highlights of the show for me because, like I said earlier, it is the opposite of a typical sports protagonist. Isagi starts off by relying on his teammates and tries to play it as a team sport, but slowly realises that in order to survive Blue Lock, he has to try and think how he, himself, must be the one to bring victory. Instead of relying on his teammates, he must use them in order to succeed. That’s a crucial point, he doesn’t go hero ball and try to do it alone, but tries to figure out way to use his teammates skillsets to set himself up for victory. What I also like about him is his constant desire to evolve his game; seeing how he can bring victory by “devouring” his opponents. How he must take himself apart and then put back together, represented by puzzle pieces. It gives him something to achieve, something to strive for as he looks for stronger opposition to improve, otherwise he’s just going to stagnate. It’s also helped by the supporting cast around being just as fun to watch and Isagi and what helps is that the show isn’t always strictly focused on Isagi and we actually get to know more about some of these other characters as well and what drives them to play football. But what makes it interesting is that each of these characters have their own kind of Ego. Yes they all strive to be the main character but they go about it in different ways. For example, Barou, the king, the lad, the man that has the dog in him has an ego where he is the king of the field and everyone around him are just peons, regardless if they are his teammates or not. Give him the ball and you will win. Whereas you got someone like Nagi, who’s own ego strives from him to join people who will get the best out of him and gets him excited to play football. They all strive for self importance and to be the best on the field but it’s the way they go about it differently that makes them stand out individually, besides their individual skills. Animation: 5/10 Blue Lock’s animation is pretty much hard carried by its presentation. The show just nails the intensity of each football match with great angles and just capturing the look on our character’s faces to really sell that these characters are giving their all. The use of colour as well is well used; with it being distinct with each character and is mainly used to capture their fiery passion. That aspect of the animation works to its advantage to hide the fact that this isn’t a well animated show. It relies heavily on still images and sliding panels to capture each scene and while each panel looks good, it doesn’t capture motion well, only really saving it for the most important scenes, mainly when Barou is on screen to steal the budget. It is a shame because we see that this show can be animated well and it does, it just doesn’t do it often enough. That’s why the presentation makes it better than it is because you can capture the look of an intense football match and not worry about how fluid it is. It’s also really inconsistent with its use of CG. I’m fine with the football being CG as it works well and I really do like it when it’s used with Isagi putting himself together using puzzle pieces to represent how he is evolving his game. The use of CG there is done really well. Other times it’s used poorly, mainly when we are looking from a bird’s eye view and characters are CG to capture movement and it just sticks out like a sore thumb. Sound: 9.5/10 I usually don’t talk about sound design in reviews because anime tend to use to same sound effects so it just blends into one another. But my god does Blue Lock’s sound design kicks so much ass. The wind of someone running past you, the power of a shot kicking into the back of the net, capturing the moment before the strike, Blue Lock’s sound design really enhances whatever is on screen and it’s how it is used as well. Sometimes the music would stop just so we can hear it before kicking back in. That’s not to take away from the soundtrack itself as I really liked this soundtrack. It has a nice blend of dubstep, techno and electronic with some piano in there as well. They are not really genres (besides maybe electronic) that are high among my favourites but the show puts them to really good use and spreads them out well. What sells it I think are the beat drops. That sudden pause isn’t just to let the sound design do its work, it’s also used to drop that hard beat at the climax for that added effect. It also tends to focus on a specific genre when one character is the focus. For example, Barou is usually associated with an electric guitar that goes really hard with it being really heavy to signify that the king is on the prowl and you best not get in his way. Then there are the openings. The first OP “Chaos ga Kiwamaru” by Unison Square Garden is a very good opening. It is very nicely paced so that the visuals can match the pace of the song and how it times itself when switching scenes with the lyrics. The visuals themselves are well done, seeing the Blue Lock participants fall as Ego grins, knowing he’s got them in the palm of his hands, the puzzle pieces and showcases the more important characters’ weapons. It just gives you a taste to what’s to come and is accompanied by a song that is able to match what is going on what’s on screen. But while the show’s first opening is very good, it’s the second opening that absolutely steals the show here. “Judgement” by ASH DA HERO is without a doubt, my favourite OP from this season. First off, that guitar. Second, the colour pallet used here is so good. It makes the whole OP feel so vibrant; especially during the chorus where it looks so damn good. It’s to the point where almost every frame can make a damn good wallpaper. Third, the tone is appropriate for the second cour, as if Isagi is not prepared to lie down and submit. No he’s going in with everything he’s got and with a change of attitude. And Fourth, the song is so damn catchy with the way it uses those instruments to get you pumped. Again, that guitar, but the drums at the end were also very well used. All complimented by that last shot of Isagi grabbing that last puzzle piece with a grin on his face and with a fiery desire to win as it cuts to the title logo. This is such a fun opening to watch and listen to and I really can’t stop listening to it. Again, this is easily my favourite OP of the season, as well as easily being top 3 this season at least. Great, great OP. As for the EDs, they’re pretty good. "WINNER" by Shuugo Nakamura is a rather standard OP that has a very nice calming song to wind down after the tense action of the episode beforehand. Although, it is a nicely animated OP with some good visuals. Same goes for,"Numbness like a ginger" by UNISON SQUARE GARDEN. It is also nicely animated as well although I do like the song more in this one and it’s mainly the instrumentals that made me prefer this over Winner. Conclusion Blue Lock is an absolutely fantastic time that really offers something different than the usual standard. It’s emphasis on individual actions to improve and win games is different than your typical, win through teamwork, mentality that is the base of a lot of other sports anime. I guess that what makes me gravitate towards it more than other sports anime because I can watch any of these popular sports anime and see the base groundwork for the rest of the show to follow. Blue Lock flips that groundwork on its head to be more unique while still doing some things that feel similar. Through an intense and engaging storyline, well developed characters, very good presentation, excellent sound design and OST, as well as probably having the best OP of the Winter season, Blue Lock offers a very enjoyable experience that has made it my favourite show to watch for the past two seasons now. But again, this isn’t for someone who is looking for a traditional sports anime, this is for someone who is looking for something different than the norm although you can still like this if you are looking for something more traditional. It’s just so fun and gripping to watch to see a main character develop in the opposite route to become the main man, rather than just a cog in the machine. It is a show that I highly recommend as one of the best anime of the past few seasons and I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next. My Personal Enjoyment: 10/10 Overall Score: Recommendation: 8.6/10 Recommendation: Go F**king Watch It
SpRayquaza11
03/25/2023, 10:04 AM
“What is the missing piece to complete this puzzle ?” -Isagi Yoichi The fookin animation and budget for any scenes that do-not-lead-to-a-goal you dumb c*** I think the easiest way I can define the problem and make a TLDR is with this, it feels like that blue lock is more of a SCORE them GOALS anime than a Football anime. Make no mistake, Blue lock is truly the only anime that comes even close to the legendary status of Haikyuu season 3 but the real frustration and gripe that I have with this show are that it falls just short because of how many corners are cut fromthe animation on off the ball moments and any other moments unrelated to scoring, Can one forgive this bad animation as long as they have Good music, Well-drawn art, Amazing VA, Good plot, and real hype with good animation on high stakes moments? I know the answer for many is a resounding yes, but seriously the amount of time the hype was under shadowed by janky movements, speed lines-based animation, and just a little bit of VFX where the real sakuga must have gone will leave you cuckolded. Now I know that animating a football show is hard, and there are some great scenes in the blue lock but most of the animation and art hits only when someone is about to score a goal, ao ashi which was another football anime, we see the game for as it is, players, moving in the frame as a response to the ball, great passes, and pre positionings, actual bird's eye view at certain points. and the thing is, the animation overall was better in Blue lock than in Ao ashi, but, The distribution of the animation budget is completely fucked. The person who is about to score IS THE ONLY FOCUS almost 90% of the time, there are very few frames in the blue lock game that have more than 3 characters in them, so we only see a portion of the pie all the time. Every sprint, pass, or defense maneuver is animated with either terrible CGI or just uses still frames or default running animation for it. Cmon guys, the football I love is not just about scoring, It is the most important factor yes, but not the most important variable. Plot 9/10 As I said Blue lock from the get-go, had immense potential, but only as a sports-based anime. It Is NOT a real football anime. Though I will admit they took out (very arguably but sadly true) the best aspect of football which is the striker, dramatized it, by making the main character be actually good at his game but just lacking the final piece in most games. added real stakes to it by having a battle royale kind of formula where each loss has real and sometimes permanent consequences, and still manage to have many colorful side characters who arent just plot devices but real threats and competitors to our main Protag who nearly always steal the cake from him. Some of my most memorable moments and high-octane goosebumps have been thanks to blue lock and the final few episodes with isagi vs top 3 were probably the only time a sports anime made me actively grin from ear to ear. It is a flawless combination of tales of passion, talent, hard work, and the concept of winning and losing. Characters 9/10 Many memorable and passionate young players each have a talent in them that differentiate them from dreamers and makes them achievers who are ready to put their trust, experience and even friendship on the line to achieve what they want, each character is quirky in their own way and one would easily love their interaction during blue lock additional time. Some of the characters are quite animyfied and do break the realm of realism at times (the brothers in one match). It is nice to see the friendship blossom even in the midst of cutthroat competition and rivalry and I love most off-match moments as well which have additional character depth moments. The matches themselves are still able to add meaning to quirks rather than have them become irrelevant. Sound and VA 10/10 Amazing sound and OST some of which went instantly to my playlists, so many of the scenes are transformed so well due to the absolute banger of goosebumps and hype-inducing soundtrack accompanied by great voice acting, you would feel like rewatching just those scenes over and over, just like that potato chip scene from death note. Most monologues which are frankly for Animation budget saving are delivered so well that you can be forgiven to take those scenes as great ones even though not much might actually be going on in the screen, THe VA and sound team definitely deserve some awards for this, THe OP and ED are all bangers as well. Art and Animation 6/10 The art of Blue lock is great and unique and some scenes which depict the aura of the players are well drawn, the animation however the Achilles heel of this anime and I have already mentioned a lot about it above so lets just leave it at that. This is an absolute must-watch for everyone, Though it would be preferable that you treat it as a regular sport-inspired show rather than a football anime, that would let you enjoy it very thoroughly.
TheNinthRequiem
03/25/2023, 09:53 AM
Picture this, you’re in extra time and it’s the final play of the game. Everyone’s sweaty and knackered, rightfully so, the scoreline is 6-6, or at least that’s what you think cause you never really keep track of the score during games. You’re in the penalty box and your best bud passes a beautiful through ball to you. You take a clean touch, fake a shot to the left, and whip the ball into the top right bin. The goalkeeper doesn’t see it coming at all. How could he? The crowd goes wild. A little quieter than normal you note–probably cause you’re at an awaygame. The ref blows his whistle, “fweeeeeeet”. The game’s done, you’ve won. You run to the sidelines and your mom hands you your favorite drink, a scrumptious blackcurrant Ribena that was in the cooler only seconds ago. You take a comforting sip and look around. You pinpoint exactly why the crowd was quieter than usual. It’s because your dad was dozing off in the middle of the game. Your mom sees where you’re looking at and gets mad. “JORDAN, how many times do I have to tell you, don’t sleep during your son’s game.” You’re not mad, you understand. He had to drive your ass for an hour and a half at 6am to watch a little league football game on a Saturday morning. You take a look at the other teams bleachers, trying to find the goalkeeper you just styled on. Strange, you can’t quite pinpoint him from the coagulate of jerseys until one of them walks up to you with his mom. His mom says: “hey, that was a great goal, my Kev could have never saved that.” You look at the child in tow, weird, you don’t remember a kid with glasses on the pitch. His mom notices and explains how she doesn’t let her son wear glasses on the pitch in case a ball hits his face. So that’s why he couldn’t save it, he couldn’t damn well see the ball could he? This, this pseudo-thrilling shithousery is Blue Lock to me. The start of Blue Lock was actually bearable, dare I even say interesting. Seriously, it’s a good concept on paper. A bunch of ambitious teenagers vying for a chance to become Japan’s national team striker through a rigorous and ruthless training regime with one person remaining. Or that’s what it seemed at the start, until you realize that no characters introduced get eliminated. Or the absurdity of fielding a striker in goal could ever yield effective practice for anyone involved. But I understand there should be an expected level of plot armoring and suspension of disbelief afforded when it comes to these shows so I will give it some leeway. Instead, this review will focus more so on the myriad of reasons why this show doesn’t even work in an entertaining sense. First and foremost, it’s the animation. For some surreal reason, some people actually think the animation in this show is good. The characters are drawn decently and the food looks realistic enough. But most importantly, the actual animation of the football? Really? For the people complaining about the work of the CG in another popular series that aired the same season that I just so happen to adore–You should be up in arms here with knives and pitchforks screaming “Sic ‘em!”; it’s hideous. But the biggest and most heinous animation problem are the still frames filled with exposition that completely ruin the flow of each play. Matches are shown in these constant close ups of the characters slowly gliding across your screen as you hear the play happening in their head. But the play itself is never actually explicitly shown. It's reminiscent of those imovie projects you had to do for middle school where you couldn’t quite figure out how to get the images to stop moving with the ken burns effect as you try your best to match your squeaky dialogue with the 4 second image overlay. It’s an embarrassing production. Football is dynamic and exciting at heart, especially in attacking play. But this static imagery completely ruins the momentum of each play and makes it really hard to sit through some of these moments that I would like to imagine were exciting on paper. If you don’t get the animation right for a sports anime, it’s really hard to build from there. The ranking system is atrocious and representative of everything wrong with shonen anime. Why would the ranked 299 person realistically even have a shot at becoming one of the best players. It’s this unnecessary from the bottom to the top type writing that tries to maintain hype through introducing opponents of increasingly high rank. This might work for some, but to me, it’s tedious to sit through knowing that someone with more power but with even less personality will appear and none of this matters. Take Nagi for example. How on earth does he have the ego to say he’s the best player as he’s introduced when he’s ranked 250 something in this facility alone. It’s just meaningless fluff because it’s obvious they’re trying to drum up some kind of idiotic point where he realizes oh he’s not god’s gift and there are people that challenge him here. Then Rin comes along with a similar ego complex, but is just stronger and replaces what little Nagi’s purpose was. The part that really infuriates me is that after what seems like these development arcs for each of these characters. They’re reduced to these shells of their former selves and are added to Isagi’s collection of assets like they’re all tools in Mickey Mouse’s toolbox. “Oh toodles!!! Who will I pass to today?" As he bring up 4 options to the screen. I can just imagine the kids watching screaming at their screen: “Garou! Kunigami! Bachira! Chigiri!” or whoever else “fortunate” enough to be Isagi’s plaything at this current moment. Strikers aren't the king of the castle but Blue Lock certainly thinks so. Football is a teamsport; it’s an 11-aside game played on a 105 by 68 meter rectangular field with the objective of putting the ball in your opponents net. The game most importantly is driven by cohesive teamplay. Unlike something like basketball where there is abundant teamplay, but there are also plays that can be started and finished by a single player because the pitch is relatively small. But it’s different in football. There is so much buildup required for each goal. Blue Lock doesn’t have nearly enough of this. I think it’s because of this ignorant “ego” thing they try to drive into each player. The mortifying “chemistry reaction” and “devouring” they keep bringing up as what they believe to be “football”. To anyone who has not seen football, please do not look at this affront and think this is what football’s about. It’s so cringey and it hurts every fiber of my being. Similarly, players like Bachira and Chigiri are obviously more suited to be wingers. Yet they’re still pushed into this rigid idea that they’re number 9s. It does a huge disservice to your greats like Kagawa and that legendary Japanese midfielder that people get disappointed when they pack in Fifa. These midfield Maestros are some of your greats, why would you think to disrespect them by saying strikers are the most important position. Take some time to look back at the past few world cups, was Giroud the main reason France won the world cup in 2018? How about Spain’s 4-6-0 formation where they fielded 0 strikers and won the world cup in 2010? It’s just this cringey decadent idea that strikers are the most important part that I just know comes from a place to get impressionable children riled up for your show. Frankly, it’s dishonest and insulting. Another crucial problem with only having strikers is, you only have a limited amount of qualities and unique skills to give around where players can excel at: Pace, finishing, hold-up play, off the ball movement, spatial awareness to name the key ones. And evidently, they’re exhausted pretty quickly. What you’re then left with are pure power upgrades that I really dislike. Where it’s this childish one-upping of “I read his play”, “I read his reading of my play”, “I can jump higher than you”, “I can run faster than you”. It’s just not fun to watch from a tactical and footballing standpoint. And deep down, Blue Lock knows this, so what do they do? They decide to introduce imaginary monsters. Yes you heard me right. Just like Bachira and the monster inside of him, there are 2 wolves inside of me, one hates this show, the other also hates this show. The individual monsters of this show don’t work and don’t get expanded on. When you lean into that supernatural realm without actually doing anything meaningful with it–Or when they don’t iron out properties of these supernatural concepts like in the case of Blue Lock, it just becomes nonsensical mumbo jumbo. You have no limit defining, everything just ends up feeling so pulled out of the hat for convenience sake. It’s also those flaming eyes when the monsters come out or when they enter “serious mode” that are so badly animated for some of these scenes. They all start to look like Endeavor from MHA to me and it’s admittedly hysterical. But from a non-biased critiquing standpoint, it’s abhorrent. This menagerie known as the Blue Lock facility also feels so barren and boring. There needs to be an incentive to make this program feel rewarding where players should want to stay here because they’re becoming their best selves. Be it, superior practicing methods, state of the art training equipment, illustrious coaching instructors, you name it. But Blue Lock doesn't have any of this. It just feels like a death trap that unbeknownst to each of the players before they join, if they get knocked out they can never play for the Japanese national team. I feel like these sort of stipulations should have been included in the letter. If not, screw it, just go full squid game and say if you’re knocked out you’re executed. That would have spiced things up a little bit. I also think it’s laughably pathetic how this show is only situated in an air conditioned indoor football pitch as they prepare for a competitive outdoor sport. It’s almost as if these writers couldn’t have borne the thought of not being in an airconditioned room. The world cup and every club football competition is played outdoors. So why are we conditioning these kids to never see the light of day? I don’t understand why Blue Lock had to introduce made up characters in the series. I understand this point is more a pet-peeve as not everyone that watches Blue Lock is familiar with football and that’s totally fine. But as for me, I’m just wondering why we had to make up characters mixed in with real footballing greats? Noa Noel? Seriously? Noa-ne cares. I had to sit here as they tried to explain white-washed Thierry Henry to me. You should either choose to reference only real life players or make up all the players for your world. Because from where I stand, it just sounds like you’re undermining the two goats of our football generation, Messi and Ronaldo. The only thing that I can appreciate in this show are the subtle or not so subtle yaoi elements. It’s the only thing that’s keeping me engaged in this show and I’m not even lgbtq. The series really tries to reach a target demographic here and I for one am happy it succeeds on this front. When Bachira calls out to Isagi to free him from his captors. I shudder at the thought of these 2 loverboys not being together. My favorite line is when Nagi or as I know him as “NTR-gi” says: “Sorry Reo, now that I know how good this feels, I can’t go back to how I was before” (20:59, Ep 20). Gosh, That was a fun episode. They should just do this every episode, feign seriousness and drop these banging sus one liners in the middle of the game. Just start testing the homies, see if you can catch one of them lacking. Alas, these characters have to be serious, they’ve got indoor football matches to play! Look, if you like Blue Lock, that’s your prerogative and I could never take that away from you. Nor would I want to, everyone’s allowed to enjoy what they want. As a football fan myself, I was massively disappointed that a show I was sold to be this “excellent intense battle-royale football show" fell so flat on its face. Why can all the other sports get shows like Kuroku No Basuke or Haikyuu!!, and we get this. I’ve seen clips of these other shows and they look phenomenal. It’s just not fair. If you were starved of football content as an anime fan, I’d recommend watching the 2022 World Cup instead of watching this 24 episode choppy passion-devoid mess. That was a real treasure to behold.

Blue Lock ブルーロック

2022 fall | Episodes: 24 | Score: 8.2 (436993)

Updated every Sundays at 01:30 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Synopsis

Voice Actors

Kaito, Tasuku

Okasaki, Miho

Saitou, Souma

Ura, Kazuki

Yukimura, Eri

Ono, Yuuki

News

Reviews

farcillieftw
01/22/2025, 12:52 AM
I must let it be known: I have NO respect for this show AT ALL lmfao and my rating is solely for the absolutely delicious yaoi content. As a sports anime it’s absolutely ridiculous with a nonsensical plot that it’s impossible for a mature, developed brain to accept—that being said, pretty boys talking about devouring each other? Yeaaaahhhh baby that’s the stuff! Homoerotic tension has surpassed subtext and is very much literal in Blue Lock (BL for a reason LMFAO) and for that reason alone, I’d recommend this train wreck of an anime. My advice is to avoid bothering to understand whatever “lore” or logicthat goes into this (trust me, it’s not worth the headache or strain that comes from rolling your eyes so hard) and just appreciate the wonderful yaoi feast laid before you instead. Isagi harem, Reo Nagi break ups and make ups…absolutely beautiful. You seriously cannot get this anywhere else.
Gwynbleidd_Alan
09/18/2024, 11:55 AM
Honestly, Blue Lock surprised me. I haven't seen many sports anime, because it's very different from what I usually enjoy, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I ended up liking it. The plot has a good balance between being based in realism and including made up elements and players, which made it both fun and surprisingly believable. They even throw in real-life events, like Germany winning the World Cup, and casually mention stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. It gives the whole thing a cool sense of realism while still being its own story. The plot is solid for what it sets outto do. Japan is on the hunt for its next star striker to lead them to a World Cup victory. They gather 300 talented young strikers at a special facility, where they compete in different tournaments and matches to find the absolute best of the best. It has solid antagonists, protagonists and plot twist which keep the story interesting though it's obviously a bit limited on how far it can go (considering it's an anime about sports). I personally really dislike CGI in anime if it's badly done and Blue Lock suffers a lot from having way too much bad CGI. They use CGI in basically every episode and it looks comically bad. People run across around the field looking like an NPC from a PS2 game and their model looks lifeless which is a shame. I understand that animating some of the scenes was probably hard but opting for CGI was the wrong choice, in my humble opinion. It breaks immersion and negatively impacted my experience of watching. I really enjoyed watching it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys football. The way they weave in real events and players adds a nice touch of realism. It’s rare to see an anime balance real life and fiction so effectively, but this one does it surprisingly well. I suppose some people might not feel as annoyed or disturbed by the CGI, but I guess that varies from person to person. I can only speak from myself and say that I found it so bad at times that I couldn't help but laugh. A charming and entertaining story nevertheless all around, which was better than I thought it would be.
200px
05/28/2024, 10:10 PM
The anime managed to surprise me. I planned to watch it in the background while eating, but from the first episodes I was drawn in. This anime is not about characters or football, it is about healthy egoism, personal growth, the ability to say no to other people's desires in order to achieve your own. It helped me a lot, to cultivate egoism and the ability to be in a leading role, especially in online games, where I was transformed from a good support into a furious berserker in the core role! The art is good, the characters are written well enough so as not to seemempty, but also not to draw attention to themselves. The plot is good and there is a good amount of tension and intrigue throughout. In short, if you want to see how to break from Yuji Itadori to Ryomen Sukuna, you should watch this.
exvxa
10/06/2023, 01:01 AM
Story: Literally non-existent. Each episode resolves of pseudo-developing football skills. The characters get a pass from another player and than stand face o face for 30 seconds and talk toxic redudant bullshit to each other to make sure the one speaking is more alpha than the other. Characters: Nothing special here. Typical shounen character set, fancy hair styles. There is the already mentioned pseudo-developing of each character's individual skill set, which some people might find interesting. While this is a shounen anime i can understand this doesn't have to be near to realism, but it gets boring pretty soon. Its a typical schema: Isagi faces abetter oponent which is depicted as super overpowerd, then he get's an epiphany on his oponents individual skill and tactic set and becomes better in ca. 45min. And this repeats on each story stage. Boring. Only Bachira's stoy background is kind of interesting and supports his development but thats all. The other 40 characters are not very individual to each other, they are all a bunch of toxic, narcistic losers who should better go to college. Music: Typical shounen garbage. Design: Some chars look cool, most of them have guffy hairstyles. Another boring part about the anime is the surroundings. These wannabes are caged inside a isolated cage. There is nothing, really nothing, that makes this anime in any way beautiful and a piece of art. Animation: Literally non-existent. There is maybe 5min of total football animation in this anime, the rest are stand alone pictures. I didnt know time pauses when you play football. Overall: Bad, redundaant, meaningless shounen anime, A score of 8.25 is blasphemy but shows, how bad anime fans can judge art lmao
chips901
07/06/2023, 11:58 PM
Okay, Blue Lock. Even though nobody cares about default L opinions, I'm doing myself a favour by typing out my harsh rating here instead of filling out the comment section of the anilist entry. It'd look better anyways. Looking at Blue Lock holistically, it's a very well-done adaptation. It faithfully follows the beats of the manga, focusing the drawings on high-points and extensively using 3d during its low-points. It's definitely worth noting that this is the most impressive implementation of 3D I've seen thus far. But the quality of the production... still feels rather cheap and underwhelming. The drawings are well done but aren't dynamic and lack fluidity.The effects (in particular, some of the character glows) are even cheaper and you can even see the pixilation in them. And the extensive use of 3D to make up for the lack of moving 2D parts clearly expose the limitations of what the 2-slide-long-powerpoint team could achieve. So the limitations become the question then. Do you accept a faithful adaptation for a trade of explicit quality? My answer is no, because having read the manga... my mind will always flock to the manga and none of the moments from the anime. And ultimately, I don't settle for less. This isn't to disrespect the production team. This is the best lowly B-tier anime that I've seen and sets the bar quite high... in its own weight class. I can only imagine two scenarios that can explain the quality of this show. 1. The shareholders didn't believe that Blue Lock would take off. Hence, smaller team, lower budget, lower risk. 2. The small team with small budget really wanted to work on Blue Lock, so they went out of their way to secure the contract and le bags. The thing about this consoomerist era is that very, *very*, VERY high quality stuff is presented to you without any action from the consoomer. It's very cutthroat. Trends move extremely fast and things are so easily forgettable in favour of the next flavour of the month limited edition cute anime twink butt plug. Therefore, if scenario 1 was true, then the shareholders are to blame for gimping the overall quality of the anime. Case closed. If scenario 2 was true... I would congratulate the team on their success and hope they can expand in the future. Why would you settle for less in an era where you can always ask for more? There isn't anything wrong with asking for more. You are the target and you can always ask for more. Settling for less... That's a bit weird in an era where past anime can easily outrun the small game anytime, anywhere. In conclusion, My recommendation is simple. Completely ignore the anime and read the manga instead. If you can envision a better looking Blue Lock anime that's more dynamic and fluid than the show itself... the anime will feel completely underwhelming in every single regard. To me, Blue Lock feels like one of the best B-tier anime. Under the hood, it clearly showcases the importance of raw manpower as it defines the limitations of your work. So, if Blue Lock defines the upper limits of a B-tier anime... ... Then the upper limits themselves continue to be quite the disappointment. 3/10. Until next time.
smol_minnies
06/20/2023, 07:53 AM
The beginning was very promising. The whole idea behind Project Blue Lock seemed interesting, though from a realistic point of view quite foolish and childish. However my main gripe with this show was the pacing. During every match and without failure, every move and thought process is over-explained and over-analysed until all the momentum of the previous action gets lost. It's all build-up without peak, which in turn just leaves you frustrated and unfulfilled. To make things worse, they just just had to add melodrama on top of it all. Why are these teenagers dramatically breaking up with each other, or in some cases withthe monster inside of them? Why are they all having an existential crisis in the middle of the match? Even our main guy Isagi, cosigned with the one and only Ego as an Average Joe, dismantles and rebuilds himself every episode or so. This guy just took learn and adapt to a whole new level. Also the damn vocabulary used in this anime makes me want to bite my fingers off from the second hand embarrassment. How can these guys talk about being a hero or a king, about creating "chemical reactions" together, about "devouring" each other and not just die from cringe?? Well I guess they're teenagers after all and well that's as good of an excuse as any for such behaviour. Now, the animation was all over the place. Awkward still frames and rigid CGI on some parts, but fluid 2D and stunning visuals on others. The art definitely played a huge role in saving the day as it's quiet phenomenal. Character design is absolutely stunning and leaves nothing to complain about. Lastly, Ego. This guy single-handedly carrying the title of the biggest bitch on this show. Every time he opens his damn mouth, I wonder how come he made it alive so far when he's just begging for a beating. For a football anime, Blue Lock was more talking than ball kicking but well it had its fun moments which saved it from being an utter bore to watch.
AnnMochii
04/06/2023, 06:34 AM
First and foremost, I would like to delve into the key aspects that Blue Lock brings to the table. Following that matter, it can be argued that the anime has a rather questionable moral compass. Personally speaking, I couldn't help but draw comparisons between Blue Lock and Danganronpa. Although there are very obvious similarities in the plot, the show stands apart with its focus on the characters' perspectives. Unlike in Danganronpa, where Monokuma is almost always the common enemy of the group, in Blue Lock, Ego is portrayed as this wise mentor - almost like a deity and the real “enimies” of the playersare their own teammates. While the characters in Danganronpa question their own morality, those in Blue Lock seem to relish in dismantling it. The "Blue Lock experiment," rather than being a mere endeavor to create the strongest striker in the world, is a breeding ground for underage psychopaths. The characters, instead of progressing, spiral downwards, trapped in their own bubble. It is important to highlight that, although such a mentality may lead to success in football, became a problem when translated to other areas of life. One can see this phenomenon mirrored in the lives of real-life football players, who often lack moral grounding and are, therefore, not deserving of icon status. Now, onto the anime itself: Story: 4/10 Unfortunately, the story falls short and fails to leave a lasting impact. It's just another mediocre shounen that fails to stand out from the rest. Character Evolution: 1/10 There's not much to say here. The characters don't grow or evolve in any meaningful way. Instead, they become more and more childlike, which doesn't make for a compelling viewing experience. The main character is a classic edgelord who thinks he's better off without friends or a team. Character Design: 7/10 On the bright side, the character design is impressive. Each character is unique and stands out in their way. However, don't expect to predict what's going to happen based on their appearances. The show throws a few curveballs your way, which is always appreciated. Animation: 9/10 The animation is top-notch and elevates the super-long monologues. The show flows smoothly, except for some of the CGI elements during the matches. Overall Rating: 5/10 All in all, while Blue Lock may not be the worst anime out there, it doesn't offer anything groundbreaking. It's a show that can be enjoyed casually, but don't expect to be wowed.
math20082
04/05/2023, 02:53 AM
Blue Lock is quite an interesting anime, quite different from typical sports anime. I think that one thing which is important to understand in order not to be disappointed is that this anime isn't really about football. What I mean by that is that if you are here to see depictions of football matches in anime, whether it is realistic or not, you won't find it here. It's probably the main reason why some of the top reviews didn't like the anime, but it should have been obvious from the premise. The anime is about strikers. Obviously, the position of striker will be considered more important thanother positions in the anime, even if you think football in real life is different. I would even say the reasoning explained in the anime is pretty convincing: Japanese people tend to prioritize the team before themselves and don't deal well with unexpected situations because everything is well organized. I have no idea if this is true for the actual Japanese team and I don't know much about football, but the situation in the anime is clear: Japan is missing a striker and this Blue Lock Project is here to create one. Another interesting part in this anime is that it doesn't follow the usual setting where the main characters are a school club trying to win the national tournament. Now the negatives, because the anime isn't perfect. The characters are rather shallow, and you'll only learn more about a handful so if you're here for character development it's probably not for you. The anime also often focuses on a single character so the field view is often narrow even during the plays. There are also a lot of monologues during the actions which can be annoying. The animation is pretty good, although the few bird's-eye views that are used are pretty bad. Overall I really recommend the anime whether you're a football fan or not, 9/10.
tmunee
03/27/2023, 07:31 AM
The entire premise of this show just bugs me to no end... First and foremost, the idea that a "striker" is the most important player on the field is a HUGE assumption that could be discussed in numerous ways, but I'll just mention the fact that goalkeeper seems to be ignored as a prime reason this show is already junk. Want to check basically any league? You'll find the teams with best keepers are the most winning. But, ok let's ignore that. WTF is a striker in modern soccer? Traditionally its a mid-foreward when you run an archaic offense that wouldn't win anything in modernsoccer (the premise of bluelock from the getgo). Soccer is a TEAM sport! Messi plays center mid, center forward, wing forward. Ronaldo plays mostly wing forward, center forward, and even center full-back in counterstrike. The entire concept of running an offense through a "striker" as opposed to "a system based on the talent of the players you have" is so far from modernization that it makes the concept of the show embarrassing. Also, let's get real, real. No amount of fancy anime magic is going to make you 4 inches taller, 20 lbs heavier, 1 second quicker, 3mph faster, or 2x stronger. Good sports animes address these realities. Terrible ones make up BS to act like "my special absorb skill, or hawk eye view" can make up for all of my other deficiencies. NO! THEY CANNOT! If you are looking for a fantasy where you think I could have been a pro soccer player-despite being small, weak, slow, untalented- then yes, this is for you! But, if you like sports anime that shows real sports and players with talents and limitations... well... not gonna be found here.
CarlosAlberto
03/26/2023, 04:24 AM
Imagine yourself as one of the professional Japanese football players on the national team, and they just returned home after an exhausting World Cup game against Croatia, which ended in a 1-1 (3-1 on penalties) win for Croatia. They're frustrated that they couldn't make it any further and ended up being eliminated before the quarter's finals yet again. They turn on their TV, and the anime being exhibited is one about football; the very first line they hear is from a character named Jinpachi Ego; he's basically saying that Japanese football sucks because they lack a good striker, and that is due to the Japanesebeing too unenthusiastic, lacking ego, or greater desire to score goals, and this is what prevents Japan from progressing in football; he also trash-talks Japanese football and its players in general. It comes out that this anime/manga is extremely popular and well-received in Japan. After thinking about the amount of time spent on training and preparation just for that day and moment—an opportunity that comes only in a span of 4 years—how would you feel? That's the problem with Blue Lock: aside from being a complete disaster at everything it does, all it does is shit on and disrespect Japanese players, football, and footballers in general, especially the ones that are not strikers. Blue Lock just doesn't respect the concept of sport or competition at all. Things that make a good sports anime/manga is how inspiring it can be, how connected you feel to the characters, how genuine it feels, and being able to see different perspectives and takes on that sport. Take Haikyuu as an example, a really good manga that helped boost volleyball popularity in Japan, inspiring people all over the world and inspiring people who have now become professional main leads for the national sports team. Then on the other side, there is Blue Lock, doing everything it can to go against it, to be different, unique, fun, creative, and to reinvent the whole genre by deconstructing all the themes and narrative tropes of this genre. That is what Blue Lock imagines itself to be on paper, but reality is far worse than that. On top of having a gay subtext, something anyone can notice in this show is how it tries to appeal to popular things to make it sell. Like the bishounen, femboy-ish, ultra edgy looking characters in order to appeal to teenagers and fujoshis, the Battle-Royale concept, why not? is popular, right? I mean, Fortnite and all that shit, and of course the World Cup, like come on, the manga started its release right after the 2018 World Cup ended and the anime aired alongside the 2022 World Cup, so it's clear that Blue Lock is just a commercial attempt at success without any care for substance, fun, passion, creativity, or any form of artistic value, and on that they succeeded, so congrats, after all, this is what Blue Lock IS about. A facility that allows three hundred strikers to compete against each other to "create football from zero", whatever the fuck that means, and create the best striker in the world in order to win the World Cup. The concept that Blue Lock has of a great striker is that of a spoiled child who doesn't want to pass the ball and only wants himself to score the goals. By defining narcissistic and egocentric behavior as a good thing in a sport, all it does is a detriment to the sport itself, but that is the philosophy of Blue Lock. Going through a basic level progression while the matches are played to decide who is going to be eliminated as you just pray for this torment to end. The characters are constantly overreacting, delivering lines that don't match the tone of the situation or that are just blatantly stupid. The interactions are also lazy and poorly conceptualized; they constantly trash talk and give each other silly nicknames to show competitiveness. As the matches go on, the show develops their relationship, but that is also done in a very inorganic way. They all have some unique trait or ability that makes them useful in matches, and that is explored in the most superficial way possible. The show always feels the necessity to explain some plays through exposition; right after the play is made, a character will have a monologue where he explains exactly what you just saw, and the anime also makes use of visual explanation for that, so in case there is a toddler watching, they can also understand what just happened, thanks Blue Lock. There is no referee, no penalty, no offsides, and no throw-in. There are around 3 fouls, free kicks, and corner kicks in total. A really flabbergasting and exceptional use of the football rules. The author also shows us his incredible knowledge of football by using the most basic football junior tactics and hammering the same three names everytime he wants to use a real player as an exemple—it's always Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Neymar, with Pelé being mentioned only once—names that only the real football fans will get to recognise. The show presents us with terrible characters in order to have a pseudo-development later on; you can see that on a lot of MC, like Eren Yeager for example, it gives you a false impression of progress; a character who once was an absolute piece of shit and now it's tolerable feels like a good development, and that's the case with our great protagonist, Isagi Yoichi. The other characters are just as you would expect: caricatures and archetypes that you've seen a thousand times in other shows, just tools to help Isagi in his "journey" to become the best striker that plays alongside other strikers in a game with no rules inside a prison facility. The long, red-haired delicated character that relies on speed; the emotionless white-haired prodigy that learns to like the sport; a traitor who wants to win by exploitation of the rules because he sucks and he knows it but also regrets it and is forgiven later; a temperamental, loud blonde guy that is very egocentric but agrees on what others tell him to do; a femboy cringe lord that acts very silly and so on. No one really cares about who gets eliminated because none of the characters are interesting enough for anyone to give a fuck about them. The only one that has a little bit more emphasis than Isagi is Bachira, with his insanely cringe monster allegory. The production on this anime is trash; after around episode 5, things just went downhill. Lapses of decent animation, super exaggerated moves that don't convey the technique of the supposed move correctly, poor use of CGI—they even use CGI on still frames that lasted more than 5 seconds on the screen—how lazy is that? Sure, the character designs are detailed, but that is an exigence coming from a manga that has supposedly detailed art and character design, and that, on top of the lack of great animators on the staff, doesn't help the animation fluidity at all. It's super repetitive; everything plays out the same, and they don't even try to do something differently. The direction is super uncreative; you don't get anything unique or interesting; it's always the same perspectives and the same angles of the characters in CGI chasing after the ball and stand still animation. The OST is very forgettable. Also, what the fuck is that additional time garbage that shit is not funny it's just painful to watch. One may try to argue that Blue Lock is mindless fun and that it's not taking itself seriously, but that is not true given how edgy and over the top Blue Lock is. It's not a satire of sports manga, nor is it presented in an unpretentious way; it's the complete opposite. The only reason that Blue Lock may feel like that sometimes is because it is so unbelievably bad that you can't accept it for what it is without making up a reason for it. If you really want a football anime, the only one I can recommend to you is Ao Ashi. It's not exceptional, but it's WAY better than this shit
Qkydzaa
03/26/2023, 02:52 AM
Let’s jump straight into the point. Blue Lock is an anime which shows different ways of achieving our goals. Understanding Blue Lock, as simple as it is, is understanding the reasons of different characters to move forward. By no means do I think that the anime is complex or anything. So, what is going on? Characters: Every character is stereotypical. We got the “goofy” Bachira, main character Isagi, friendly straight-face Kunigami and some edgelords. We’ve all seen these characters before, but all of them have something to share in common. They show us their own way of getting better, moving forward, striving for success. Kuon, for example,will do whatever it takes to be the last man standing, whether it is morally good or not. Barou – a beast on the field, unstoppable rebellious force- also shares his way to victory. By realizing his mistakes, by finding someone better than him in the field where he should be the “king”, he shows us that, whatever stops him from going forward, he will devour. Haven’t we felt the same way? Whether it is at school or at work, we have always encountered someone better than us. And that really bothers the ego of most people. What do we do then? We get better, and better till we beat that specific person “Those who continue to fight in spite of their despair are bestowed with the power to achieve their dream”-Ego Jinpachi. Although, we have seen a little from Kunigami, he also has something to say: “If our heads drop down now, we’re done for!”(my favorite quote). Failure is merely temporary and if you accept defeat then you stay knocked down instead of getting back up. Sometimes things don’t always go our way, so press on! Try again and again and learn from failure. Some characters can get you really hyped up, getting goose bumps from what they are saying, and that is the whole point. That is why I admire most of Blue Lock characters. Here come the problems. As I said in the beginning most of them are stereotypical, so I can’t really find a favorite character from all of them. If it wasn’t for the plot twists, they would be really bland and would fall flat. On top of that, their dictionaries are pretty limited (mine too, but leave that for my profile’s comments), by repeating certain words and phrases over and over again every single episode. Annoying. 8.5/10 Plot: Fairly simple, easy to follow, interesting plot twists and pretty enjoyable to watch. In the middle of the anime, some characters just disappeared, but I guess that we will find out what happened to them at some point. Other than that the plot is smoothly running and most episodes are fairly interesting. 8/10 Sound: From the opening theme, to the ending theme every little bit of sound effect is pleasant for the ears. The commercial break sounds, the heavily distorted sounds of shooting, the sound of electricity when characters are on a spree, Barou’s awakening guitar/drums. The sound effects of this anime are clearly made to hype you up, to go outside and kick a football as hard as you can, to beat the person better than you, to finally finish your assignment, to do some actual hard work, or to go back to play some competitive games and give all your best. 10/10 Art: Here, is where the anime fails. Comparing the art style of the manga and the one of the anime is like comparing Berserk manga to the latest adaptations. Throughout this review I have praised the anime for hyping me up, but just by looking at the animation and art style the hype lasts a couple of seconds. The sparks and colorful mist around players is so poorly made. I understand the reason behind them, but just seeing the poor quality really ruins their whole existence. The 3D is just as horrible and noticeable as most of other 3D animations in anime. On top of that, the art is really just made to be commercially successful. 8bit really did not try to put the soul of the manga in the adaptation. After all we want hollow emotionless white eyes and impactful shots, which we do receive, but the budget version of it. 6/10 I have skipped some unnecessary parts, such as voice actors and illogical moments, the reason being that I find them not that impactful on the whole anime ( they don’t kill the vibe or make things better). Overall: 8 Don’t get me wrong here. The overall score is just the overall enjoyment and fulfillment after finishing the anime. For me a good anime is an anime, which can make a person change or understand new things, such as worldviews and mindsets. Blue lock made me play football again ( not for long, I guess), made me continue with my work and not just slack off. This is a temporarily feeling, but I love that it exists.
PixelB
03/26/2023, 01:03 AM
Blue Lock's a show about pitting the 300 best Japanese high school level strikers together in a Kodoku of sorts--forcing them to clash and compete against each other--to find out Japan's best forward player. "That just sounds like a survival/death game show with extra steps." This statement isn't wrong. Blue Lock is a show that combines the typical shounen sports/battle show and distills each genre by combining the best attributes of both aspects and shedding off the weaknesses that typically come packaged with the genres. First off is the death game aspect itself. It's not that edgy. It's within the bounds of shounen reasoning, and itsoftens the cringe and fast-paced nature of death game shows to begin with. The premise of the show doesn't revolve around survival: it's about becoming the best soccer player. When a player gets kicked out of Blue Lock, they're not going to die or anything, they just are out of the competition. There remains the threat of never being able to represent Japan as a soccer player, and that threat is very real, but it's not a literal battle to the death. There's no battle shock, guilt, or depression that comes with winning over your opponent while also still maintaining the high-stakes aspects that we all know and love from survival death games. Next is skill expression. A lot of these death game shows, like Kami-sama no Iu toori, Deatte Go-byō de Batoru, and Darwin's Game tend to rely heavily on luck. Each game that these shows go through is unrelated to the last, and there tends to be a lot more of a luck factor and also a psychological one. There are a lot of psychological mind games--which I love--but at the same time, the games are quite arbitrary. One game might suit one person's skillset but not the other. In Blue Lock, luck is mitigated to an extreme degree. It's a continuous competition in determining the best soccer player, so the only thing that gets tested is their soccer skills, whether it be dribbling, ball control, scoring, or stamina, your soccer skill is the only thing that matters. Even if your team sucks in Blue Lock, if you distinguish yourself as the best scorer, you will pass regardless. It's a lot more skill-based than the death game genre, where you're influenced highly by the type of game being played and your temporary teammates which can spell the end of you. Coming off the shounen sports side of the coin, this show has strong characters. This show has a great premise for setting up plays: everyone is a damn striker. Everyone is the main character. They're all OP. By nature, there's no supporting cast. If you cannot score, you will get "Locked off." As such, every character has a main character-type personality and is overbearing, and there are always going to be insane battles of these main-character-type strikers battling it out against each other for victory. You also get to see these characters naturally forming in teams, forging friendships, and having chemistry with each other. Each character will never always be with the same types of players due to the selection forcing everyone to pick different teammates, so you constantly see combinations and synergies. It's still a team game, so characters also interact with each other more, and you get to explore their personalities and playstyles as a result. With the premise being that each character is a striker also comes the fun premise of battling it out. Characters work together in different scenarios, and they all clash for supremacy. Every striker has their own "winning formula" and they all try to perfect it by honing it against other equally amazing strikers. In each match, you will see players evolving at a rapid pace because, well, everyone is a main character. It doesn't surprise me that everyone learns at a prodigious pace because that's the whole point: everyone selected is a genius, and these battles revolve around them. Players develop new strategies, find new ways to score more effectively, and find synergies to break through defenses. This comes to the detail-oriented and strategic part of the show. While you would expect a show about only strikers and no other positions to be brain-dead battle shounen like Kuroko no Basket, surprisingly, this show pays attention to tactics as much as it pays attention to the one on one ball skills. There's tremendous focus on the positioning of players and drilling down to the strategy of utilizing each player's weaknesses and strengths to each team's advantage. There's the use of triangle formations, targeting the weak link, and having a strategy to counter the enemy team's strengths. Of course, since this is still ultimately a show about strikers and one on ones, there's a lot of monologuing about each player's thought process and their subsequent evolutions in their play mid-match. There's going to be a lot of "going into the zone," mental breakdowns and recoveries, and intense showdowns between each player. The show keeps the exciting tempo of strikers learning new things and playing better while also keeping a sufficient amount of time on strategy. The production value of the show is also great compared to other sports shows. Yes, there is use of CGI, but it's only in far shots. All of the close up angles are hand animated, and they look great. The shading, the lines, and the details of the plays shine through. While there are still shots used, the art still looks good. It's one of the few shows in the 20th century that have a high production value soccer animation that actually shows the situation on the field while also showcasing choreographed movement. While this show is still shallow in many aspects, let me ask you this: do other shows fare better? Yes, the weakness in only having strikers and main characters with no mainstay team is obvious. There's a lack of characterization compared to a show like Big Windup. There are too many characters in Blue Lock, and lacking a static team means there's not enough time or reason to pursue digging too deep into player relations. At the same time though, Big Windup suffers the same mistakes. While yes, I can think of 6 or so characters in Nishiura High's baseball team, I can't remember all of them or how unmemorable some of the characters are sometimes. There's still a massive and unbalanced focus on the main characters: Abe, Mihashi, Tajima, and Hanai. The rest are supporting the cast and are much less relevant. And that's when Big Windup is all about the 9-player baseball team and their journey towards Koushien! The series is slow-paced, and you get to understand each player's personality, but it still suffers from the fact that the supporting cast still doesn't have much characterization. What about the strategy? Honestly, for something like Ao Ashi or Giant Killing, which are about becoming professional, playing with a balanced team of 11 soccer players in their respective positions, Blue Lock pays a lot more attention to detail. Ao Ashi spends much less time in player showdowns while also not drilling too deep into strategies. Same thing with Giant Killing, an anime that supposedly is about an actual Pro club with an amazing coach as a main character. There are a lot more games in Ao Ashi and Giant Killing, and as a result, there's a lot less detail in the matches. In Blue Lock, each player's position is accounted for and each match is laced with tension. Ao Ashi talks about the same strategies that Blue Lock focuses on triangular formations, and specific strategies to take down their opponent, yet Blue Lock not only shows the positioning much more clearly in many plays but also brings in the one on one elements and monologuing that Ao Ashi could never provide. Plus, Ao Ashi similarly has too many characters with a lack of characterization, especially in the romance. What about battle shounens like Kuroko no Basket? I love Kuroku no Basket, but the stuff in that show is supernatural. It's not grounded in reality. There are not a lot of strategies, and it truly is just a one-on-one showdown between two characters. This is fun, but Blue Lock, despite how unrealistically OP everyone is at learning and being so good, still utilizes realistic strategies and mechanics used in real-life soccer while also maintaining that fun one on one action. Overall, Blue Lock shores up on a lot of weaknesses, but despite all the praise I give it, there are still a lot of flaws. Still, the overwhelming amount of characters truly means that there's lacking characterization no matter how much monologuing or action you give them. The show tries to cover this up with a mandatory flashback arc for each main character, but it's just stale and repetitive at some point. It reminded me of Demon Slayer vibes, where each demon HAD to have a shitty sob story or something that I had to sit through. The difference in Blue Lock, however, is that the flashbacks are incredibly short, only a few minutes at most, with a lack of emphasis as well as intentionally leaving out details in the flashback. This way, it doesn't kill the pacing or the action that is currently happening. Plus, the main character is super generic still and doesn't make too much sense as a consistent character. First off is how his "famed ability" is a playmaking ability, just like Ashito in Ao Ashi. Not very original. He even possesses a mediocre physique, just like Ashito, They're almost mirrors in the skills they possess. What about personality? Well, Isagi is typically a polite Japanese protagonist, but in-game, he transforms into an unfeeling demon. It's like he has a split-personality disorder, or he's a psychopath. He's usually sympathetic, but when he plays soccer, he only feels the thrill of crushing other peoples' dreams. What the hell? This never even gets addressed. While I get that playing soccer will make a player aggressive and do what they need to do to win, Isagi just feels like he's a completely different character. Other characters similarly become much more aggressive, hot-headed, and passionate, but their personalities match their in-game ones. Barou acts like a king on the field, and that arrogance stays with him off the field. Nagi's an eccentric genius on the field, and also off as well. Bachira talks about his monster on the field, and also off as well. Each of the other characters has consistent states of mind and personalities, but not Isagi. To put it simply, he's a crappy main character with not much consistency. On one hand, he's constantly reminding himself that he's a supposed "mob character," yet his results beg to differ. He's as OP as any other character is. This show, however, still manages to deliver a fun, yet not completely edgy and mindless sports show that has survival-game elements.
Razor_Eagle11
03/25/2023, 10:03 PM
Blue Lock is a refreshing take on the anime sports genre. There's no 'all for one and one for all' kind of sportsmanship here, they're playing based on their egos and they are not afraid to talk shit to each other. watching the first episode will definitely make you hooked. However, there are a few things that I want to point out about Blue Lock starting with the Pros. The pros: The story starts of simple, the MC Isagi Yoichi got invited to join the Blue Lock project as a candidate to be the best striker in the world. The premise and how the story goes playssimilarly to a battle-shounen type of anime, with the power system being the Blue Lock rankings and the "weapons" that they use being a soccer skill. Every match feels intense as if you're watching a real soccer match. The characters are fairly interesting and have different motivations and backgrounds that made them stand out. The openings and endings are a banger, really makes you not want to skip it. The voice acting is great, and there's a lot of veteran voice actor in the anime and now let's talk about the cons. The cons: The first episode has really good animation but as the time goes the animation gets less detailed and less fluid. The use of CGI is more apparent especially on the 2nd cour, and there's a lot of still shots and weird use of effects that makes it more jarring to watch. I don't get why the change Isagi's blue aura in the earlier episodes to green, which is a weird color choice for me. Certain important moments became less impactful because of the less detailed animation. When you draw a comparison between the manga and the anime, the manga easily takes the cake. Overall Blue Lock is a good adaptation, although the animation may not be the best, I say they adapted the the manga pretty well. I just hope they adapt the Blue Lock vs U-20 Japan with better animation because it's one of the best arcs in the manga. Thanks for reading
Aragane
03/25/2023, 10:01 PM
"Blue Lock," a manga adaptation that's all about soccer. But not the kind of soccer you see in your backyard. No, no, no, this is soccer on steroids! It's a story about teenage boys who want to become the best soccer player in Japan. And they're not just happy with being good. Oh no, they want to be the BEST, better than anyone else. The story follows a guy named Isagi Yoichi. This dude got some serious talent when it comes to soccer. But he's not happy with being good. He wants to be the best. And he'll do whatever it takes to get there. That'swhere the Blue Lock program comes in. It's a special training camp designed to turn good soccer players into great ones, and Yoichi is one of the lucky few who get selected. But here's the catch, kids. The Blue Lock program is not your ordinary soccer camp. It's more like a battle royale, where the players are pitted against each other in intense matches to see who's "the best" of the best. And these guys are not playing nice, oh no, they're playing dirty. They're using every trick in the book to beat each other, and it's all for the sake of becoming the best soccer player in Japan. Now, I know what you're thinking, "this sounds like a violent show!" But don't worry, there's no blood or gore here. It's all the good old-fashioned soccer action. Only with some intense rivalry that is thrown in for good measure. And the best part? The story is frankly a good twist of the sports genre. Because it got a unique premise that's not been seen before in sports manga, and the characters are all well-developed and interesting. Speaking a bit about how 8bit studio decided to animate this adaptation, the usage of CGI during the matches in "Blue Lock" might put off many viewers, especially the traditional animation puritans. While the CGI of this show isn't the best in the industry, it does get the job done. It's understandable why the producers decided to use CGI, as it allows them to depict the fast-paced movements and actions of the sport more realistically. However, some viewers might find it jarring to switch from traditional animation to CGI during the match scenes. Although, when the time calls for it, the best scenes are animated well. When "Blue Lock" uses traditional animation, it can be stunning. The character designs are unique and memorable, perhaps too unique for sports. The action scenes are particularly well-animated, with dynamic camera angles and impressive use of color and lighting. The opening and ending songs in "Blue Lock" are good, but nothing more. While they do a decent job setting the show's tone, they aren't particularly memorable or catchy. However, some of the OSTs used throughout are nicely complementing the scenarios. They help to build tension during intense scenes and create a sense of nostalgia during quieter moments. The voice actors in "Blue Lock" are all respectably passionate about filling the shoes of those strikers. Each character has a distinct voice and personality, and the voice actors do an excellent job of bringing them to life. Whether it's the confident and ambitious protagonist Yoichi, or the passive-aggressive Ego Jinpachi, each character's voice is spot on and adds to the overall enjoyment of the series. Even if "Blue Lock" is not up to the palate of some viewers, it's staying power is there. If memes have proven anything, there are moments in this show that can even be taken out of context as a memorable gifs. Some scenes in the show are just so over-the-top and ridiculous that they become instantly meme-able. This staying power can keep this show in the public consciousness long after it has finished airing. Which is always a good thing for any series. So, in conclusion, "Blue Lock" is a great manga that's perfect for anyone who loves soccer or sports manga in general. It's got great action, interesting characters, and a unique story. That's sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.
SiriusStarlight
03/25/2023, 06:03 PM
I know people who are really into sports and I can confirm they are exactly like this. Blue Lock manages to be absolutely overflow with charm by sheer virtue of being as over-the-top and deranged as humanly possible. Every single episode you'll hear a teenager talk about their pride in their skills or resolve to be the best Soccer player they can be through saying it in the most unhinged ways imaginable, accompanied by an extreme visualization of that exact phrasing. Even if the amount of depth a character has can vary in how deep or shallow they are, everyone manages to be really memorable intheir own distinct brand of insanity that contributes to the constant high-energy feel of thhow. A big contributing factor to that is its stellar voice cast. Pretty much everyone here brings their absolute A-game into their roles with a powerful intensity that's unique to each and every one of them. My particular favorites were Kazuki Ura as Isagi and Tatsuku Kaito as Bachira, which is especially impressive given that they're pretty much entirely new faces in voice acting. I'm really happy that these leading roles were given to such promising newcomers, and I really hope that their phenomenal performances lead to really bright futures in their careers. Another one of the core pillars that makes Blue Lock what it is are its visuals. However, I should address the fact that its animation is an area where it stumbles a bit. It feels a bit apparent that it wasn't given as much of a large budget as it could have, or if it ran into issues in production, but it does have a noticeable impact on its animation. It often relies on stills or really rough-looking CG models in a lot of areas in a way that's pretty off-putting to see when those cracks show. That being said, its animation often being a tad inconsistent is more than made up for with its fantastic direction. Its use of incredibly intense expressions and shading that feels reminiscent of Attack on Titan at times, effective use of distinct imagery like the puzzle pieces connecting to and breaking off of Isagi or the "monster" that resides around Bachira, and incredibly strong storyboarding that makes its big headlining shots land with the same impact as a spread from a manga page give it a striking sense of style that feels very unique to it. And make no mistake with my earlier complaints about its animation, when they need to sell an impactful moment, it shines really brightly. I just hope these production issues get ironed out by the time season 2 comes around, so both the animation and direction get to work in harmony and shine ever brighter. The thing I found most compelling about Blue Lock story-wise is the nuance of Blue Lock's goals as a facility and the type of player it's trying to be. I've seen a good amount of criticism towards the series' supposed notion that a striker is the only player that matters in a soccer team. That's obviously entirely true, but I think that angle is looking into the whole "making the best striker" aspect of it a bit too literally. The way I see it, Ego sees the problem with the Japan team being that their focus solely on fighting as one made it so that the players' individual strengths suffered as a result, so the goal for Blue Lock is to refine the selected players as individuals and bring out their latent strengths. It's an approach that encourages the players to have somewhat selfish and egotistical mindsets in how they evolve, which doesn't sound like it'd work all too well. However, the show ironically makes it so that this drive ends up strengthening their teamwork. It invites a spirit of competition between its team members where they manage to work in harmony by spiritually devouring each other (the show's words, not mine) in order to make major bursts of improvement, and those clashes of wills end up letting the players work in harmony very well. It's a very unique angle to take a sports series in storytelling wise, one that I haven't really seen before at least. I imagine that it's definitely really unrealistic and over-the-top, but the series fully embraces that aspect of itself. Watching this show week to week was one of the most fun experiences I've had keeping up with a seasonal, and I'm glad I got to experience it so often through the phenomenal stretch of Fall 2022 and the admittedly less enticing stretch of Winter 2023. I'm fully hooked on checking out the utterly insane clash of wills through soccer that Blue Lock has in store for the future, and I'm looking forward to its eventual return with Season 2 and the Episode Nagi film.
otherdummy
03/25/2023, 04:25 PM
Winter 2023 is by no means a great season for anime, but from the very beginning I had my eyes dead-set on reviewing two anime. They were Oniichan wa Oshimai and Mahou Kakumei. But something called Real Life™ got in my way, and instead of writing shit, I spent my free time lying in bed, catching up on desperately-needed sleep time, half-awake and half-dreaming about some giant-ass pumpkin patch. It was pumpkins as far as the eye can see, with the hills and the valleys and the far-off mountains all textured with delicate orange stripes. Well, fuck pumpkins, fuck sleep, and fuck real life. Whocares about anything else when you can watch Blue Lock? It’s objectively the best football anime of Fall 2022 and Winter 2023 and it’s pointless to even consider a 2nd place. So now to answer the all-important question for the readers of this review: What is this anime about? Blue Lock starts when our power-of-teamwork guy Isagi passes the ball to his teammate instead of shooting for himself and his teammate misses. Isagi then starts pondering if teamwork is hella overrated, and before you know it he is whisked away to the wonderful world of Blue Lock, where the goal is not to work as a team, but by becoming the single best striker in the world. And how is our now-not-so-power-of-teamwork guy Isagi gonna do this? Well, first he has to win matches in teams of 11… and then win more matches in teams of 2-5, and if he succeeds he gets to play in a better team of 11… wait… something doesn’t seem quite right, let’s try something else. Blue Lock starts when our not-actually-power-of-teamwork guy Isagi passes the ball to his teammate instead of shooting for himself and his teammate misses. Isagi then starts pondering if teamwork is hella overrated, and before you know it he is whisked away to the wonderful world of Blue Lock, where Isagi’s current understanding of “teamwork” is immediately thrown in the trash. Our reformed-power-of-teamwork Isagi, throughout the trials and hardships of Blue Lock, comes to realize that teamwork is not about passing the ball to his teammate in any situation, but instead knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each player and working with that, to generate “chemical reactions” that play to the strengths of each player… wait, timeout, hold on a second. Isn’t this “chemical reaction” thing just the plain run-of-the-mill definition of teamwork? When you look at Blue Lock more closely, it turns out not to be the “revolutionary approach” to football that it boasts itself as. Instead, Blue Lock’s goal is to explain very basic concepts of football in the most overcomplicated way possible to make it sound like something really cool. Like, what is “smelling a goal”? It sounds really cool, but when we translate it from Isagian to English it turns out to just be “coming up with a winning strategy”. What about “turning zero into one”? It’s just learning how to play in a team instead of individually. And what does “awakening” mean? Easy; it means “shounen shenanigans”. Concepts such as consistency and luck are overexplained in the most overexplanatory way possible that when you realize this, this show starts to be painful to watch. The “character development” is nothing but a contrived sense of progression that is randomly bullshitted by the author with the idea that “if you throw enough bullshit, some of them might not be seen as bullshit”. There’s simply nothing to be found. Well, if the character development is nonexistent, then at least we can settle for just the characters themselves, right? Well, no, not really. Isagi is basically a reprinted shounen character who says things like “I have to get better” so often that he skips sleep to say it more. Bachira’s characterization is that he can dribble, he is cute, and he can be shipped with Isagi. Ego is a character who spouts off some random shit and also eats random shit. Chigiri has long legs and long hair. Raichi has spiky teeth and spiky hair. Nagi’s characterization is that he can do weird kicks, he is cute, and he can be shipped with Reo. They are pretty much just shounen characters, each with strange “superpowers” that no ordinary high-schooler could possibly have, constantly talking about winning and shit. So what’s the point of Blue Lock? It fails at plot, fails at characters, fails at OST (it’s generic as shit). But there’s one thing it doesn’t fail at, and that is making cute, shippable characters. Take Bachira. His VA is talented and adds a considerable amount of nuance to Bachira’s dialogue. But what is this nuance used for? Better character exposition? Reflecting Bachira’s emotional state in a non-obvious way? These are forlorn hopes. The nuance’s sole intention is to make Bachira cuter and more shippable. Nagi’s backstory makes no sense: he only practiced for 6 months and is already a living god at technique. But the story’s intention is not realism; Nagi hence seems more mysterious, so he can be contrasted with Reo better, so they can be shipped together better. The whole purpose of Blue Lock is to ship cute boys together. At the time of writing (just after last episode) there are 3067 Blue Lock fanfictions on AO3. 2643 of them are categorized as M/M fics, of which 473 just so happen to be rated explicit. There are 778 Reo/Nagi fics, 382 Bachira/Isagi fics, 375 Isagi/Rin fics, and many more consisting of all sorts (and forms) of ships. Comparatively, Okabe/Kurisu from the fan-favorite Steins;Gate has only 178 fics to its name; that is less than the 225 Putin/Medvedev fics that exist somewhere on this site. So we can say, with certainty, that Blue Lock was invented to ship cute boys together. Maybe we can go further: Men’s sports manga was invented to ship cute boys together. Fuck it, let’s go even further. Men’s sports was invented to ship cute boys together. Men were invented to ship cute boys together? At this point I don’t know anymore. Perhaps I’ve been ridden to insanity over writing this review, juggling real life, and watching this show. Who knows. So with all that said and done, let’s try this one last time. Blue Lock starts when our cute shounen boy Isagi passes the ball to an irrelevant character and loses the game. The plot don’t matter, the details doesn’t matter, but Isagi becomes tired of his surroundings, and before you know it he is whisked away to the wonderful world of Blue Lock where he can meet other cute shounen boys for the audience to ship and scream random shounen stuff about self-improvement and winning that sounds really, really cool. As Isagi powerlevels, he can meet more cute boys and scream about more bullshit stuff, and the cycle continues until Isagi has all the qualities essential of the world’s #1 striker: know every cute boy on the planet, and be able to scream out the most overcomplicated form of every concept that ever exists. And if a story like that isn’t worth watching, I don’t know what is.
Jhavibi
03/25/2023, 03:40 PM
It's not the best, it can't even be compared to the manga in many cases, but what this anime of kids kicking balls with abruptly high egos has achieved doesn't make any sense, the Blue Lock project is real. To begin with, the soccer that is narrated here can be taken in many ways; impress you, disgust you or love it, but one thing here is true, this is fiction. All of this coupled with a dark aura (technically edgy. and it's awesome) makes the anime something unique, making a sport seen as "simple" (without analyzing it too much, since all sports have a lot ofcontent) into something absurd. , but entertaining and fun. As the characters threaten each other with death for the simple fact of having lost the ball or because they are simply jerks, but each one is unique, thus having their own weapon, differentiating them from the rest (along with part of their attitude, aura and representative color and further). Now I would like to talk more in depth about the series, setting aside the context and the amazing (and edgy) characters. -FIRST, the animation... this causes a lot of commotion, it is true that it is not up to what it should have had, but some scenes are visually incredible, and the drawing almost never disappoints, to improve would be the use of cgi (for background characters or far shots) and still images with the ball moving or with sound effects or something that makes it appear that the image is moving. -The first and second arc, the first and second selection... are quite good. The material is entertaining (the second half seemed like a video game to me, and I love it) and it makes new characters or characters that hadn't been seen before shine and become very fond of them, each one having their moment of prominence. Although they are little compared to what will come in future seasons (hehehe). -And lastly... the amazing and mostly overlooked (by vast majority though it may not seem like it) amazing music and OST's. BLLK's OST's are incredible, they give a lot of emotion to the scenes and make you feel motivated, or scared, like many of Rin's OST's, causing a feeling of danger to the viewer. And then, that it is not important in the reviews, the Openings and Endings. To start with, the 2 Op and Ed have great animation and amazing music, even though the first Op is controversial because it doesn't reflect much of BLLK (the lyrics do it perfectly, but we're not Japanese and we understand almost nothing or nothing), and then there is the madness of the second Op, Judgment, with a quite innovative and new artistic section, as well as a very good song by the group ASH DA HERO. Beyond this there is not much more to say about Blue Lock, the truly good is yet to come and we are not prepared for it, luckily everything manages to live up to it. If you have come this far, I thank you and I hope you support my review, I wish you a great day. (I don't speak English very well, so much of this review has been done with a translator, I hope I didn't mess it up and that your eyes didn't hurt from reading some mistake, once again I say goodbye, thanks for reading).
Snapshot426
03/25/2023, 02:25 PM
Blue Lock pretty much came at the right time for me. Coming right after Ao Ashi which I really enjoyed and with the World Cup right around the corner, football fever was indeed very high. And yes, it’s called football, not soccer you goddamn Americans. Blue Lock though was prepared to offer something quite different from your standard sports anime. Something that would go against the typical, “power of teamwork” kind of show; where we test to see how one’s skill and ego can influence the people around you and change the course of any match. This is a show about a boy’s desire toimprove and evolve his game in order to take it to greater heights. This ain’t just your typical sports anime, this is Blue Lock and I’m going to tell you why this show in particular was my favourite show in fall 2022 and subsequently in Winter 2023 and why I believe you should watch it as well. Just a heads up though, if you are looking for a sports anime that’s more, “traditional”, then this show may not be the show for you. If anything, go watch Ao Ashi. More people need to watch that show anyway. So let’s hype our egos, put on our football kit and smash the football into the net as I present to my anime review for Blue Lock. Let’s begin. Story: 9/10 Isagi Yoichi had failed to win a crucial game that would have taken his team to nationals. While contemplating whether or not he should have taken the shot instead of passing it, he receives a letter from the Japan Football Union, telling him that he, among 299 other “Diamonds in the rough”, have been invited to take part in a program called “Blue Lock” with the promise that whoever completes the program would end up becoming the best striker in the world. Not missing that chance, Isagi joins the Blue Lock program as he aims to come out on top, even if it means crushing the hopes and dreams of the other Blue Lock candidates. Blue Lock is all focused on how much one’s ego can push them forward in order to achieve victory, to disregard the people around you so only you can focus on how you can do it. Right from the word go, the show makes it very clear that friendship is not something that can help you survive Blue Lock, you and only you can make a difference in order to proceed. That what makes this so interesting because it is the opposite of what is the underlying plot line of any sports anime. Sports anime start off with character being the individual before realising that he/she can rely on their teammates to win. Blue Lock breaks that down and tells you that you should not count on your teammates because if they screw up and you lose, it was out of your hands. It tells you that you must be the one to decide it, you must be the star that your teammates follow to victory. It is made very clear from the first episode when Isagi passed to a teammate instead of taking the shot for himself and they lost because it was out of his hands and it carries that mindset throughout the show. “Don’t be the follower, be the leader. You can use your teammates, but be the one that stands tall in the end.” It what makes the battle royale format this show has a great compliment to the egotistical individualism the characters will eventually end up being. I’ve always had a love, hate relationship with BR/death game anime because they always start out interesting but fall off quickly when the usual tropes kick in when the protagonist gets suddenly stronger and more edgy, the dreaded team-up that slows the pace down, etc. Blue Lock isn’t immune to these tropes but I would say it executes them better than other shows. It’s mainly the because of how well Blue Lock’s plot fits the BR style and the plot progresses smoothly along with it as the number of participants starts to get lower, the competition starts to get tougher. As such, the characters’ must adapt and evolve quickly in order to survive. It makes the transition of someone like Isagi’s character from thoughtful teammate to a “devourer” seem appropriate because of what he has to strive for in order to stand on top and use his teammates to stand on top. So it uses the tropes to it’s advantage because it is so ingrained in the plot as to what the show wants to be and what it wants to show. Characters: 9.5/10 Isagi’s character arc is one of the highlights of the show for me because, like I said earlier, it is the opposite of a typical sports protagonist. Isagi starts off by relying on his teammates and tries to play it as a team sport, but slowly realises that in order to survive Blue Lock, he has to try and think how he, himself, must be the one to bring victory. Instead of relying on his teammates, he must use them in order to succeed. That’s a crucial point, he doesn’t go hero ball and try to do it alone, but tries to figure out way to use his teammates skillsets to set himself up for victory. What I also like about him is his constant desire to evolve his game; seeing how he can bring victory by “devouring” his opponents. How he must take himself apart and then put back together, represented by puzzle pieces. It gives him something to achieve, something to strive for as he looks for stronger opposition to improve, otherwise he’s just going to stagnate. It’s also helped by the supporting cast around being just as fun to watch and Isagi and what helps is that the show isn’t always strictly focused on Isagi and we actually get to know more about some of these other characters as well and what drives them to play football. But what makes it interesting is that each of these characters have their own kind of Ego. Yes they all strive to be the main character but they go about it in different ways. For example, Barou, the king, the lad, the man that has the dog in him has an ego where he is the king of the field and everyone around him are just peons, regardless if they are his teammates or not. Give him the ball and you will win. Whereas you got someone like Nagi, who’s own ego strives from him to join people who will get the best out of him and gets him excited to play football. They all strive for self importance and to be the best on the field but it’s the way they go about it differently that makes them stand out individually, besides their individual skills. Animation: 5/10 Blue Lock’s animation is pretty much hard carried by its presentation. The show just nails the intensity of each football match with great angles and just capturing the look on our character’s faces to really sell that these characters are giving their all. The use of colour as well is well used; with it being distinct with each character and is mainly used to capture their fiery passion. That aspect of the animation works to its advantage to hide the fact that this isn’t a well animated show. It relies heavily on still images and sliding panels to capture each scene and while each panel looks good, it doesn’t capture motion well, only really saving it for the most important scenes, mainly when Barou is on screen to steal the budget. It is a shame because we see that this show can be animated well and it does, it just doesn’t do it often enough. That’s why the presentation makes it better than it is because you can capture the look of an intense football match and not worry about how fluid it is. It’s also really inconsistent with its use of CG. I’m fine with the football being CG as it works well and I really do like it when it’s used with Isagi putting himself together using puzzle pieces to represent how he is evolving his game. The use of CG there is done really well. Other times it’s used poorly, mainly when we are looking from a bird’s eye view and characters are CG to capture movement and it just sticks out like a sore thumb. Sound: 9.5/10 I usually don’t talk about sound design in reviews because anime tend to use to same sound effects so it just blends into one another. But my god does Blue Lock’s sound design kicks so much ass. The wind of someone running past you, the power of a shot kicking into the back of the net, capturing the moment before the strike, Blue Lock’s sound design really enhances whatever is on screen and it’s how it is used as well. Sometimes the music would stop just so we can hear it before kicking back in. That’s not to take away from the soundtrack itself as I really liked this soundtrack. It has a nice blend of dubstep, techno and electronic with some piano in there as well. They are not really genres (besides maybe electronic) that are high among my favourites but the show puts them to really good use and spreads them out well. What sells it I think are the beat drops. That sudden pause isn’t just to let the sound design do its work, it’s also used to drop that hard beat at the climax for that added effect. It also tends to focus on a specific genre when one character is the focus. For example, Barou is usually associated with an electric guitar that goes really hard with it being really heavy to signify that the king is on the prowl and you best not get in his way. Then there are the openings. The first OP “Chaos ga Kiwamaru” by Unison Square Garden is a very good opening. It is very nicely paced so that the visuals can match the pace of the song and how it times itself when switching scenes with the lyrics. The visuals themselves are well done, seeing the Blue Lock participants fall as Ego grins, knowing he’s got them in the palm of his hands, the puzzle pieces and showcases the more important characters’ weapons. It just gives you a taste to what’s to come and is accompanied by a song that is able to match what is going on what’s on screen. But while the show’s first opening is very good, it’s the second opening that absolutely steals the show here. “Judgement” by ASH DA HERO is without a doubt, my favourite OP from this season. First off, that guitar. Second, the colour pallet used here is so good. It makes the whole OP feel so vibrant; especially during the chorus where it looks so damn good. It’s to the point where almost every frame can make a damn good wallpaper. Third, the tone is appropriate for the second cour, as if Isagi is not prepared to lie down and submit. No he’s going in with everything he’s got and with a change of attitude. And Fourth, the song is so damn catchy with the way it uses those instruments to get you pumped. Again, that guitar, but the drums at the end were also very well used. All complimented by that last shot of Isagi grabbing that last puzzle piece with a grin on his face and with a fiery desire to win as it cuts to the title logo. This is such a fun opening to watch and listen to and I really can’t stop listening to it. Again, this is easily my favourite OP of the season, as well as easily being top 3 this season at least. Great, great OP. As for the EDs, they’re pretty good. "WINNER" by Shuugo Nakamura is a rather standard OP that has a very nice calming song to wind down after the tense action of the episode beforehand. Although, it is a nicely animated OP with some good visuals. Same goes for,"Numbness like a ginger" by UNISON SQUARE GARDEN. It is also nicely animated as well although I do like the song more in this one and it’s mainly the instrumentals that made me prefer this over Winner. Conclusion Blue Lock is an absolutely fantastic time that really offers something different than the usual standard. It’s emphasis on individual actions to improve and win games is different than your typical, win through teamwork, mentality that is the base of a lot of other sports anime. I guess that what makes me gravitate towards it more than other sports anime because I can watch any of these popular sports anime and see the base groundwork for the rest of the show to follow. Blue Lock flips that groundwork on its head to be more unique while still doing some things that feel similar. Through an intense and engaging storyline, well developed characters, very good presentation, excellent sound design and OST, as well as probably having the best OP of the Winter season, Blue Lock offers a very enjoyable experience that has made it my favourite show to watch for the past two seasons now. But again, this isn’t for someone who is looking for a traditional sports anime, this is for someone who is looking for something different than the norm although you can still like this if you are looking for something more traditional. It’s just so fun and gripping to watch to see a main character develop in the opposite route to become the main man, rather than just a cog in the machine. It is a show that I highly recommend as one of the best anime of the past few seasons and I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next. My Personal Enjoyment: 10/10 Overall Score: Recommendation: 8.6/10 Recommendation: Go F**king Watch It
SpRayquaza11
03/25/2023, 10:04 AM
“What is the missing piece to complete this puzzle ?” -Isagi Yoichi The fookin animation and budget for any scenes that do-not-lead-to-a-goal you dumb c*** I think the easiest way I can define the problem and make a TLDR is with this, it feels like that blue lock is more of a SCORE them GOALS anime than a Football anime. Make no mistake, Blue lock is truly the only anime that comes even close to the legendary status of Haikyuu season 3 but the real frustration and gripe that I have with this show are that it falls just short because of how many corners are cut fromthe animation on off the ball moments and any other moments unrelated to scoring, Can one forgive this bad animation as long as they have Good music, Well-drawn art, Amazing VA, Good plot, and real hype with good animation on high stakes moments? I know the answer for many is a resounding yes, but seriously the amount of time the hype was under shadowed by janky movements, speed lines-based animation, and just a little bit of VFX where the real sakuga must have gone will leave you cuckolded. Now I know that animating a football show is hard, and there are some great scenes in the blue lock but most of the animation and art hits only when someone is about to score a goal, ao ashi which was another football anime, we see the game for as it is, players, moving in the frame as a response to the ball, great passes, and pre positionings, actual bird's eye view at certain points. and the thing is, the animation overall was better in Blue lock than in Ao ashi, but, The distribution of the animation budget is completely fucked. The person who is about to score IS THE ONLY FOCUS almost 90% of the time, there are very few frames in the blue lock game that have more than 3 characters in them, so we only see a portion of the pie all the time. Every sprint, pass, or defense maneuver is animated with either terrible CGI or just uses still frames or default running animation for it. Cmon guys, the football I love is not just about scoring, It is the most important factor yes, but not the most important variable. Plot 9/10 As I said Blue lock from the get-go, had immense potential, but only as a sports-based anime. It Is NOT a real football anime. Though I will admit they took out (very arguably but sadly true) the best aspect of football which is the striker, dramatized it, by making the main character be actually good at his game but just lacking the final piece in most games. added real stakes to it by having a battle royale kind of formula where each loss has real and sometimes permanent consequences, and still manage to have many colorful side characters who arent just plot devices but real threats and competitors to our main Protag who nearly always steal the cake from him. Some of my most memorable moments and high-octane goosebumps have been thanks to blue lock and the final few episodes with isagi vs top 3 were probably the only time a sports anime made me actively grin from ear to ear. It is a flawless combination of tales of passion, talent, hard work, and the concept of winning and losing. Characters 9/10 Many memorable and passionate young players each have a talent in them that differentiate them from dreamers and makes them achievers who are ready to put their trust, experience and even friendship on the line to achieve what they want, each character is quirky in their own way and one would easily love their interaction during blue lock additional time. Some of the characters are quite animyfied and do break the realm of realism at times (the brothers in one match). It is nice to see the friendship blossom even in the midst of cutthroat competition and rivalry and I love most off-match moments as well which have additional character depth moments. The matches themselves are still able to add meaning to quirks rather than have them become irrelevant. Sound and VA 10/10 Amazing sound and OST some of which went instantly to my playlists, so many of the scenes are transformed so well due to the absolute banger of goosebumps and hype-inducing soundtrack accompanied by great voice acting, you would feel like rewatching just those scenes over and over, just like that potato chip scene from death note. Most monologues which are frankly for Animation budget saving are delivered so well that you can be forgiven to take those scenes as great ones even though not much might actually be going on in the screen, THe VA and sound team definitely deserve some awards for this, THe OP and ED are all bangers as well. Art and Animation 6/10 The art of Blue lock is great and unique and some scenes which depict the aura of the players are well drawn, the animation however the Achilles heel of this anime and I have already mentioned a lot about it above so lets just leave it at that. This is an absolute must-watch for everyone, Though it would be preferable that you treat it as a regular sport-inspired show rather than a football anime, that would let you enjoy it very thoroughly.
TheNinthRequiem
03/25/2023, 09:53 AM
Picture this, you’re in extra time and it’s the final play of the game. Everyone’s sweaty and knackered, rightfully so, the scoreline is 6-6, or at least that’s what you think cause you never really keep track of the score during games. You’re in the penalty box and your best bud passes a beautiful through ball to you. You take a clean touch, fake a shot to the left, and whip the ball into the top right bin. The goalkeeper doesn’t see it coming at all. How could he? The crowd goes wild. A little quieter than normal you note–probably cause you’re at an awaygame. The ref blows his whistle, “fweeeeeeet”. The game’s done, you’ve won. You run to the sidelines and your mom hands you your favorite drink, a scrumptious blackcurrant Ribena that was in the cooler only seconds ago. You take a comforting sip and look around. You pinpoint exactly why the crowd was quieter than usual. It’s because your dad was dozing off in the middle of the game. Your mom sees where you’re looking at and gets mad. “JORDAN, how many times do I have to tell you, don’t sleep during your son’s game.” You’re not mad, you understand. He had to drive your ass for an hour and a half at 6am to watch a little league football game on a Saturday morning. You take a look at the other teams bleachers, trying to find the goalkeeper you just styled on. Strange, you can’t quite pinpoint him from the coagulate of jerseys until one of them walks up to you with his mom. His mom says: “hey, that was a great goal, my Kev could have never saved that.” You look at the child in tow, weird, you don’t remember a kid with glasses on the pitch. His mom notices and explains how she doesn’t let her son wear glasses on the pitch in case a ball hits his face. So that’s why he couldn’t save it, he couldn’t damn well see the ball could he? This, this pseudo-thrilling shithousery is Blue Lock to me. The start of Blue Lock was actually bearable, dare I even say interesting. Seriously, it’s a good concept on paper. A bunch of ambitious teenagers vying for a chance to become Japan’s national team striker through a rigorous and ruthless training regime with one person remaining. Or that’s what it seemed at the start, until you realize that no characters introduced get eliminated. Or the absurdity of fielding a striker in goal could ever yield effective practice for anyone involved. But I understand there should be an expected level of plot armoring and suspension of disbelief afforded when it comes to these shows so I will give it some leeway. Instead, this review will focus more so on the myriad of reasons why this show doesn’t even work in an entertaining sense. First and foremost, it’s the animation. For some surreal reason, some people actually think the animation in this show is good. The characters are drawn decently and the food looks realistic enough. But most importantly, the actual animation of the football? Really? For the people complaining about the work of the CG in another popular series that aired the same season that I just so happen to adore–You should be up in arms here with knives and pitchforks screaming “Sic ‘em!”; it’s hideous. But the biggest and most heinous animation problem are the still frames filled with exposition that completely ruin the flow of each play. Matches are shown in these constant close ups of the characters slowly gliding across your screen as you hear the play happening in their head. But the play itself is never actually explicitly shown. It's reminiscent of those imovie projects you had to do for middle school where you couldn’t quite figure out how to get the images to stop moving with the ken burns effect as you try your best to match your squeaky dialogue with the 4 second image overlay. It’s an embarrassing production. Football is dynamic and exciting at heart, especially in attacking play. But this static imagery completely ruins the momentum of each play and makes it really hard to sit through some of these moments that I would like to imagine were exciting on paper. If you don’t get the animation right for a sports anime, it’s really hard to build from there. The ranking system is atrocious and representative of everything wrong with shonen anime. Why would the ranked 299 person realistically even have a shot at becoming one of the best players. It’s this unnecessary from the bottom to the top type writing that tries to maintain hype through introducing opponents of increasingly high rank. This might work for some, but to me, it’s tedious to sit through knowing that someone with more power but with even less personality will appear and none of this matters. Take Nagi for example. How on earth does he have the ego to say he’s the best player as he’s introduced when he’s ranked 250 something in this facility alone. It’s just meaningless fluff because it’s obvious they’re trying to drum up some kind of idiotic point where he realizes oh he’s not god’s gift and there are people that challenge him here. Then Rin comes along with a similar ego complex, but is just stronger and replaces what little Nagi’s purpose was. The part that really infuriates me is that after what seems like these development arcs for each of these characters. They’re reduced to these shells of their former selves and are added to Isagi’s collection of assets like they’re all tools in Mickey Mouse’s toolbox. “Oh toodles!!! Who will I pass to today?" As he bring up 4 options to the screen. I can just imagine the kids watching screaming at their screen: “Garou! Kunigami! Bachira! Chigiri!” or whoever else “fortunate” enough to be Isagi’s plaything at this current moment. Strikers aren't the king of the castle but Blue Lock certainly thinks so. Football is a teamsport; it’s an 11-aside game played on a 105 by 68 meter rectangular field with the objective of putting the ball in your opponents net. The game most importantly is driven by cohesive teamplay. Unlike something like basketball where there is abundant teamplay, but there are also plays that can be started and finished by a single player because the pitch is relatively small. But it’s different in football. There is so much buildup required for each goal. Blue Lock doesn’t have nearly enough of this. I think it’s because of this ignorant “ego” thing they try to drive into each player. The mortifying “chemistry reaction” and “devouring” they keep bringing up as what they believe to be “football”. To anyone who has not seen football, please do not look at this affront and think this is what football’s about. It’s so cringey and it hurts every fiber of my being. Similarly, players like Bachira and Chigiri are obviously more suited to be wingers. Yet they’re still pushed into this rigid idea that they’re number 9s. It does a huge disservice to your greats like Kagawa and that legendary Japanese midfielder that people get disappointed when they pack in Fifa. These midfield Maestros are some of your greats, why would you think to disrespect them by saying strikers are the most important position. Take some time to look back at the past few world cups, was Giroud the main reason France won the world cup in 2018? How about Spain’s 4-6-0 formation where they fielded 0 strikers and won the world cup in 2010? It’s just this cringey decadent idea that strikers are the most important part that I just know comes from a place to get impressionable children riled up for your show. Frankly, it’s dishonest and insulting. Another crucial problem with only having strikers is, you only have a limited amount of qualities and unique skills to give around where players can excel at: Pace, finishing, hold-up play, off the ball movement, spatial awareness to name the key ones. And evidently, they’re exhausted pretty quickly. What you’re then left with are pure power upgrades that I really dislike. Where it’s this childish one-upping of “I read his play”, “I read his reading of my play”, “I can jump higher than you”, “I can run faster than you”. It’s just not fun to watch from a tactical and footballing standpoint. And deep down, Blue Lock knows this, so what do they do? They decide to introduce imaginary monsters. Yes you heard me right. Just like Bachira and the monster inside of him, there are 2 wolves inside of me, one hates this show, the other also hates this show. The individual monsters of this show don’t work and don’t get expanded on. When you lean into that supernatural realm without actually doing anything meaningful with it–Or when they don’t iron out properties of these supernatural concepts like in the case of Blue Lock, it just becomes nonsensical mumbo jumbo. You have no limit defining, everything just ends up feeling so pulled out of the hat for convenience sake. It’s also those flaming eyes when the monsters come out or when they enter “serious mode” that are so badly animated for some of these scenes. They all start to look like Endeavor from MHA to me and it’s admittedly hysterical. But from a non-biased critiquing standpoint, it’s abhorrent. This menagerie known as the Blue Lock facility also feels so barren and boring. There needs to be an incentive to make this program feel rewarding where players should want to stay here because they’re becoming their best selves. Be it, superior practicing methods, state of the art training equipment, illustrious coaching instructors, you name it. But Blue Lock doesn't have any of this. It just feels like a death trap that unbeknownst to each of the players before they join, if they get knocked out they can never play for the Japanese national team. I feel like these sort of stipulations should have been included in the letter. If not, screw it, just go full squid game and say if you’re knocked out you’re executed. That would have spiced things up a little bit. I also think it’s laughably pathetic how this show is only situated in an air conditioned indoor football pitch as they prepare for a competitive outdoor sport. It’s almost as if these writers couldn’t have borne the thought of not being in an airconditioned room. The world cup and every club football competition is played outdoors. So why are we conditioning these kids to never see the light of day? I don’t understand why Blue Lock had to introduce made up characters in the series. I understand this point is more a pet-peeve as not everyone that watches Blue Lock is familiar with football and that’s totally fine. But as for me, I’m just wondering why we had to make up characters mixed in with real footballing greats? Noa Noel? Seriously? Noa-ne cares. I had to sit here as they tried to explain white-washed Thierry Henry to me. You should either choose to reference only real life players or make up all the players for your world. Because from where I stand, it just sounds like you’re undermining the two goats of our football generation, Messi and Ronaldo. The only thing that I can appreciate in this show are the subtle or not so subtle yaoi elements. It’s the only thing that’s keeping me engaged in this show and I’m not even lgbtq. The series really tries to reach a target demographic here and I for one am happy it succeeds on this front. When Bachira calls out to Isagi to free him from his captors. I shudder at the thought of these 2 loverboys not being together. My favorite line is when Nagi or as I know him as “NTR-gi” says: “Sorry Reo, now that I know how good this feels, I can’t go back to how I was before” (20:59, Ep 20). Gosh, That was a fun episode. They should just do this every episode, feign seriousness and drop these banging sus one liners in the middle of the game. Just start testing the homies, see if you can catch one of them lacking. Alas, these characters have to be serious, they’ve got indoor football matches to play! Look, if you like Blue Lock, that’s your prerogative and I could never take that away from you. Nor would I want to, everyone’s allowed to enjoy what they want. As a football fan myself, I was massively disappointed that a show I was sold to be this “excellent intense battle-royale football show" fell so flat on its face. Why can all the other sports get shows like Kuroku No Basuke or Haikyuu!!, and we get this. I’ve seen clips of these other shows and they look phenomenal. It’s just not fair. If you were starved of football content as an anime fan, I’d recommend watching the 2022 World Cup instead of watching this 24 episode choppy passion-devoid mess. That was a real treasure to behold.

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Blue Lock ブルーロック

In Pursuit of Egoism: The Essence of 'Blue Lock'

North American Anime & Manga Releases for May

North American Anime & Manga Releases for November

'Blue Lock' Gets Second Season, 'Episode Nagi' Spin-off Gets Movie Adaptation

Fall 2022 Simulcast List [Update 10/30]

PV Collection for Sep 19 - 25

Fall 2022 Preview

'Blue Lock' Announces Supporting Cast

'Blue Lock' Unveils Additional Cast, Second Promo, Theme Song Performers

PV Collection for Jun 6 - 12

'Blue Lock' TV Anime Reveals Supporting Cast, First Promo, Fall 2022 Premiere

PV Collection for Apr 11 - 17

PV Collection for Mar 14 - 20

PV Collection for Feb 14 - 20

PV Collection for Jan 17 - 23

Manga 'Blue Lock' Gets TV Anime Adaptation for 2022