BLUE LOCK VS. U-20 JAPAN

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionBlue Lock
ANIME ActionBlue Lock

REVIEWS

• 

  JkunAL

  74/100
  Let's talk about "PNG Lock"

  __Intro__

  This quick review aims to focus primarily on the aspect that has sparked the most discussion since the very first frames of this second season: it’s unacceptable for a manga like Blue Lock to receive such a superficial adaptation.

  __Plot 8/10__

  As a manga reader, I really appreciated the idea of dedicating an entire season to the U-20 arc. Even the "14-episode format" felt somewhat acceptable, considering the actual length of the events. However, the overall quality made it difficult to enjoy the less significant parts — essentially the entire first half of the season, which only shines in two or three moments.

  The real Blue Lock Season 2 only begins with the U-20 match, a well-written arc that seemed almost impossible to ruin... and yet, they almost managed to do so.

  __Characters 8/10__

  Though I'm not particularly drawn to Shidou's character, his presence becomes fundamental throughout practically the entire season. In the first episodes, he almost feels like a protagonist, capable of scoring innovative goals and, most importantly, saving the otherwise dull Third Selection. Without him, it would have focused solely on Reo’s new abilities, which would have been underwhelming.

  On the downside, Yukimiya and Otoya serve as perfect examples of "how not to introduce new characters." Initially presented as the “fresh meat” for this new arc, they ended up being practically irrelevant once their primary playstyles were showcased. The fact that they were ranked in the top six still feels completely unjustified. Karasu, on the other hand, fared a bit better. He was consistently involved in the critical plays against Japan and proved to have a key role in the midfield.

  The 8 out of 10 rating is largely thanks to Sae, who remains one of the coolest anime characters in the football genre. However, it’s a shame his plays weren’t properly represented.

  __Graphics 6/10__

  We’ve now reached the critical point. I won’t beat around the bush: the animations aren’t always terrible, but they only exist during the key moments of the match against the U-20 national team. At the end of the day, you could say the season was carried entirely by Nagi’s goal, Shidou’s double, and the final goal. These goals were, of course, peak in the manga as well, so it’s pretty clear that we can’t excuse the animation studio (or whoever is responsible for this mess) just because they didn’t ruin four scenes in an entire season.

  As for the earlier episodes, no one can honestly say the animations were good, because it would be a lie to say the animations existed at all. The only saving grace of the anime, as I mentioned, is a handful of scenes that are so inherently epic that even fan animations manage to do them justice. In my opinion, they butchered so many other goals.

  One thing needs to be clarified: adding brighter colors doesn’t equate to “quality". Please, don’t be fooled so easily, or Season 3 will end up just as lackluster.

  __Audio 7.5/10__

  I also have serious complaints about some of the OST choices, which made certain moments downright embarrassing compared to the hype conveyed by the silent panels of the manga. Just take Sae’s very first counterattack as an example—but there are dozens of similar scenes. In my opinion, these moments weren’t ruined, but they certainly weren’t represented to their fullest potential.

  The opening, however, earns its respect, and the overall quality in this regard is upheld by solid, if unremarkable, voice acting.

  Oh, let’s be honest: that “On your knees, Blue Lock” from Kaiser at the end really should have been delivered in proper, satisfying German ;)

  __Experience 7.5/10__

  In conclusion, I have to say I was quite disappointed with this adaptation. Yet, somehow, when you’re a football fan, you find yourself able to watch anything that features a ball. That said, I’d like to highlight how Blue Lock is, without a doubt, one of the most innovative sports anime in recent years. As such, it truly deserves an adaptation worthy of its manga. Hope that something changes with the next season.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  juleseverworth

  65/100
  An inconsistent narrative of missed potential

  I’m sure you’ve all heard about ‘PNG Lock’ – the discourse has been impossible to miss, whether regarding questionable OST choices, interesting narrative and visual choices or the lackluster animation, so I won’t bore you by rehashing what the internet’s been talking about constantly once more. Instead, I’ll focus on what bothered me about the second season of Blue Lock, a show whose first season I actually greatly enjoyed, without delving too far into spoiler-y territory. I will also preface this review by saying that I have not read the manga beyond 2 volumes that were adapted into season one.

  Also, yeah, this is not going to be a positive review. I really, really wanted to like this season. I'm disappointed, too.

  __ Positives__

  I want to first commend the voice acting team for doing a commendable job with the material they were given, particularly Uchiyama Kouki (though I may be biased, considering how much I enjoy his work in general). It almost feels difficult to pinpoint any one good voice acting moment, considering the norm in Japanese voice acting is so high, but there were some line deliveries that gave me chills, and I just had to start the review by giving recognition where it’s due.
  I also want to recognize that while not all of the OST choices were effective for me, there were moments I did enjoy, especially in the finale (I got chills when the guitars and drums came in), and I am an absolute sucker for the use of absolute silence in climactic moments. I loved the choice to have the final goal occur in relative quiet.
  As always, except for some parts of the finale, the art style was fairly consistently good across the board, as well as the character design. I loved the vibrant use of colour throughout the series and I thought it was a good choice for a show as vibrant as Blue Lock. Finally, I thought Additional Time fit my (immature) sense of humour fairly well, and I honestly would not say no to getting a spin-off that’s just a season of Additional Time.

  I want to start the criticism section off by saying that I tried to shelve my personal dislike of Blue Lock’s elevation of the striker role and my personal feelings about the concept of ‘ego’, and that I tried to make this section as separate from that as possible. I apologize if I failed in this.

  __ The Script__

  Blue Lock feels like a show whose script really could have used an editor. I don’t want to speak on the manga in any way, though I feel like this type of dialogue would work better in a manga medium, but within the show itself, the constant monologuing and edgy banter far overstayed its welcome. Almost every time something happens, it’s accompanied by a player literally stating the action that just occurred, usually in the form of a shocked question. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with explaining the technical aspects of plays – most sports anime do this in order to make the sport aspect more accessible to fans from outside the sporting community – but this constant monologuing gets incredibly repetitive and tiresome, especially when combined with Isagi constantly monologuing about his aspirations and goals. Some of the script is obviously necessary and has a functional purpose, but a lot of it doesn’t, and could be cut without major repercussions on the plot.
  And then there’s the dialogue. I understand that banter is an important part of the football community, and that a bit of friendly (or not-so friendly) trash-talk comes with the sport. But the banter in Blue Lock is constant, and I mean constant. It just doesn’t stop. Even when they’re in the middle of a play, let alone a game, they’re bantering each other, and usually using insults that wouldn’t have felt out of place amongst edgy middle schoolers. It’s tiring, it’s unnecessary, and it ends up making the characters feel a bit more unlikeable – at least in my opinion. That’s not to say that banter is bad – every sports show needs some good one-liners, of course – but banter needs to be utilised carefully. When placed right, a good one-liner really feels like a cathartic silence-inducing ‘mic drop’ moment, but in Blue Lock, the never-ceasing banter really whittles down at the effectiveness of it all, until it no longer feels badass, but just annoying background noise.
  Also, every time Shidou opened his mouth, my urge to file a restraining order against a 2D fictional character increased. Please stop him. (Also maybe save Itoshi Sae.)

  Addendum: Show, Don’t Tell
  I’ll keep this short, but a side effect of the excessive monologuing combined with poor animation is that we end up getting told information a lot more than we’re shown it (and if we’re shown it, we’re told it right after). It’s frustrating. I understand that it’s difficult, especially given production concerns, but it’s such a consistent issue across the season that it started driving me a little bit insane – it’s just frustrating, for example, being told that Isagi’s weapon is spatial awareness, and then having him be absolutely blindsided by someone’s sudden appearance over and over.

  __ Inconsistent Tone and Tonal Whiplash__

  One thing I really liked about Blue Lock’s first season was how unapologetically insane it was. From the very first trial at Blue Lock, it was unabashedly unrealistic, bringing a Squid Game-esque, all-for-one feel to a team sport. I might not be the most educated around football, but I don’t think it’s a reach to say that Blue Lock’s central tenet is incredibly unrealistic – and that’s fine. Blue Lock season one committed to it, had good stakes tied to it, and was just an overall fun watch with some incredibly hype moments.
  That’s…not quite the case with season two. Season two revolves around a match against the Japanese National Under 20 team – in other words, a real football team. Much of the setting, including commentators, fans, the uniforms and the stadium itself, is fairly grounded in reality. This is exemplified through the visuals and colour palette. In other words, the central premise of season two lets go of that unapologetic insanity, in favour of a real game against a (fictional version of a) real team. As such, this makes the more absurd moments, like Shidou getting tied up in a straightjacket and muzzle (a scene straight out of 442oons’ spoofs of Luis Suarez) feel laughably absurd.
  Don’t get me wrong: I have no problem with unrealism. B/R Football had an animated series where a group of goalkeepers piloted a goalkeeper Voltron to stop the Earth from being destroyed by a meteor strike that got disallowed by Galactic VAR. It was hilarious. I wouldn’t change a thing. But the issue with Blue Lock’s handling of the more absurd concepts (like a team of 11 strikers) and tones was that it felt like Blue Lock wasn’t willing to commit to either a grounded, realistic approach to the U-20 match or to commit to full-on absurdity. And I think that it was the middle ground that resulted in moments of tonal whiplash.
  I think the best example of this comes from the last two episodes, with a wide shot of the entire field. Everything looks ordinary, just as you would see on TV watching a real match…except that Shidou had wings of pink light as he sprinted across the field. If Blue Lock had committed to the unrealism – perhaps such as the Demon Slayer breathing styles, which I’ve heard are 100% visualizations and not actual water or fire slashing things – this would have been absolutely fine, but instead it just looked jarring. And this continued for the whole season.

  __ The Animation__

  I’ll keep this short – yeah, it was bad. I couldn’t really write a review without talking about how bad it was. I wasn’t really expecting Tsurune or Haikyuu level animation, but I certainly didn’t expect the animation to be so bad that I struggled to follow along with the plot. Football is a very fluid sport, and there’s a reason why TV broadcasters primarily show wide shots of the whole field – positioning and formations are important, and off-the-ball movements are important (as Isagi discovers in season 1). With Blue Lock’s ‘PNG’ animation, none of that was possible, so it felt like characters were just appearing out of nowhere and disappearing to nowhere once the ball moved away from them. It was jarring and hard-to-follow, slipping far beyond simply an aesthetic frustration, but actually hindering the structure of the show itself.
  This is not a criticism aimed at the animation team, but the producing studio. Given how the art style is so consistent and beautiful, I highly doubt that this lackluster result was due to a lack of skill in any way. I give full credit to the animation team for doing the best that they could, with the resources they had.
  
  
  Blue Lock season two had a lot of potential. It could have had incredibly flashy and breathtakingly epic visuals, it could have had a powerful narrative about rejecting traditional notions of strength and embracing individuality in a collectivist society, it could have had one hell of an underdog story, it could have had passionate and vibrant characters interacting with each other in interesting and fascinating ways, it could have attested to the power of dreams and self-confidence and having someone believe in you no matter how much you’re scorned and beaten, and it could have been a testament to the power of sports to both unite and divide.
  Instead, what we got feels like a story of a collection of insufferable edgelords told in a series of still shots, that winds up falling flat.
  The finale was good, but not enough to save a very disappointing season.

  Also, shoutout to Oliver Aiku. Honestly, I think he’s the only player in the season I’d actually want to be on a team with – he challenges his teammates to be better, he can manage clashing egos and he took the loss like an absolute champ. (If something happens in the manga to make me eat my words, I'm very sorry.)

  Continue on AniList
• 

  Kipkluif

  40/100
  Go watch galactic football instead.

  Blue Lock season 2 truly sucks all around. Everyone knows the animation is bad, and yeah, it is. Sometimes its almost decent, most of the time it's well below that. Every soccer scene is the same, someone tries to defend someone, they fail, they are surprised, Isagi monologues about it as if the greatest thing ever just happened, when in reality it was one of the most basic soccer moves ever. Lowlight of this is when Oliver talks about Reo copying his move, when all he did was head a ball away. Also, have you noticed that no goalie who isn't originally a striker has saved a shot yet?The overarching story is confusing and unsatisfactory, and yet manages to reach the most boring outcome. You expect me to believe there are this many great soccer players, yet none of them play for the national under 20 team, and somehow, neither does Sae? And if he didn't why wasn't he called up for Blue Lock? Also, why are we not seeing what happens to the corporate people who desparately didn't want to lose the match? Why does Sae tell the coach not to make substitutions? Why is there no focus on how he made one of the worst mistakes in the sport in losing the ball on your own half in the final minute, costing them the match? He just shrugs it off. And then, what the hell is this deus ex phase two doing here? Also, I expected them to lose the game early in the next season so they could build back up. But of course, the protagonist can't lose an important game. However, worst of all is how it refuses to commit to what it set up in season 1. Igaguri somehow makes it through the eliminator there and is presented as a possible threat in the end, and goes back to being a joke background character. They divert from the battle royale formula that made the concept interesting in the first place. Turns out, as soon as you abandon the elimination aspect, the hook of the show holds no weight anymore. On top of that, it means they suddenly have to play normal soccer, so they have to pull some bs like introducing new characters who excel in assisting (how did you make it this far in Blue Lock if you aren't egoistic?) and turning other characters into defenders or goalies, who not only accept this role (aren't you supposed to want to be the best striker too?) but perform up to par with the best of the country, too.
  It really feels like nobody who worked on this really understands the game of soccer, because it fails at delivering both traditional soccer and the antithesis of soccer they try to set up. This is on a narration level as well as a visual one, because you rarely get to see plays from an angle where you can make out what is actually going on.
  Additional time is fun, though.

  Continue on AniList

SIMILAR ANIMES YOU MAY LIKE

• ANIME

  ComedyHaikyuu!!
• ANIME

  ComedyKuroko no Basket
• ANIME

  ComedyHajime no Ippo: THE FIGHTING!
• ANIME

  SportsDiamond no Ace
• ANIME

  SportsAoashi
• ANIME

  SportsInazuma Eleven
• ANIME

  ComedySLAM DUNK
• OVA

  SportsDAYS: Touin Gakuen-sen!
• ANIME

  ComedyDAYS
• ANIME

  Sci-FiChao Zhineng Zuqiu
• ANIME

  Sci-FiChao Zhineng Zuqiu 2: Shijie Dasai Pian
• ANIME

  SportsSoccer Fever