Beginning with Blue Lock Episode 1, Eight Bit’s eagerly awaited new anime series finally gets underway. BLUELOCK is an upcoming sports anime focusing on soccer that is a translation of the same-named manga by Muneyuki Kaneshiro.
Sports aren’t really my thing, yet anime about sports still manages to captivate me completely. This is
particularly true of shows like Blue Lock that take something as simple as soccer and turn it into
something as dramatic, intense, and captivating as they can. Blue Lock is what you get when you pack
300 of Japan’s top soccer players into a remote location and challenge them to a match with higher stakes.
Even though the premise of Blue Lock seems a little absurd, Yoichi Isagi, the main character, faces real
risks and strain. If they fail at these soccer tasks, nobody will perish or sustain serious injuries, but their
ambition of playing for Japan would be permanently crushed. Each test and task is captivating because
in the universe introduced in this episode, having your competitive aspirations dashed is, in so
me respects, worse than death for these young players.
Quite a few characters who are instantly recognizable are introduced in this first episode. While there
isn’t enough time in one episode for all of these individuals to describe themselves, you can get a general
notion of who they are by the way they look and sound, giving you enough information to predict what
they’ll do in subsequent episodes. One way that Blue Lock is similar to “death game” series like Squid
Game or Danganronpa is that it has an unusual cast of colorful characters that frequently battle with
one another. It’s a cast full of interesting weirdos, so I’m interested to see how they interact in upcoming
episodes.
ADVERTISEMENT
I really like how Blue Lock didn’t make an effort to make its protagonist heroic or troubled. In order to
achieve his own goals and be the best, he is willing to sacrifice those of others. The “team” mindset,
which is stressed in this episode through statements from actual soccer players (some of whom I can
find information on, others I can’t discover anything about), bothers him since he believes it has held
him back. It comes as a shock to find a sports anime that (so far) has prioritized the self and the ego
because so many sports anime emphasize collaboration, enthusiasm, and camaraderie.
I’m not sure if it stays this way for the entire series, but even if it only does so at the beginning, the
strategy is original and a fantastic way to pique the interest of potential viewers.
Blue Lock also has magnificent action scenes that provide the game’s action with a healthy dose of
excitement. Even if the characters occasionally slow down to come up with crazy soliloquies, the
participants’ tight game of tag is hyper-dramatic and fast-paced. The anime adaptation of Blue Lock by
8bit appears to be doing a fantastic job of injecting life into the dynamic sequences while maintaining
the distinctive style of illustrator Yusuke Nomura.
The first episode of Blue Lock, a top-notch sports anime, is a great place to start. With stunning
animation and engaging characters that I can tell I’ll be sad to see expelled from the Blue Lock program, it immediately immerses viewers in the action. I am eager to follow Isagi’s progress as he aims to
dominate not only Japanese soccer but also the world’s finest striker.
read more; Hellraiser Ending, Explained: What Happened To Voight?
