Ranked #1583

Area no Kishi

Among the new animes this season, Area No Kishi ranked top in my 'must watch list' simply because i love soccer. I was hoping for a soccer anime with no superpower involved and upon hearing about Area No Kishi, i was excited. After watching the first episode, i am not disappointed with it but i am expecting more.

Story(8)
For the story i am giving it a 8 because of both the potential development of the protagonist, Kakeru, as a player as well as his development in terms of romantic relationship with Seven. First episode was quite promising for me, and i certainly am looking forward to the upcoming storyline.

Art(8) & Sound(7)
The art looks bright and refreshing. The soccer actions were also well animated. I like the voice actors for the characters as they were compatible and refreshing to the ears.

Character(8)
I am loving the characters for this anime. Kakeru is like any other protagonist in shonen animes: kind, understanding and have the most potential in whatever they are good at. Despite it being a common trait among other shonen characters, i like how it works well in this anime. His brother, suguru, is a cool soccer talent which reminds me of rukawa in slam dunk. Seven adds a nice flavour to the story as she will most likely be the center of a potential romantic relationship.

Overall, this anime has a fair share of both comedic moments and soccer actions. I look forward to future episodes and hope it can meet the expectations i am having for it. read more

Football Chronicles, Chapter 2: Area no Kishi
Note: some footbal animes will be named in this review for the sake of comparison. This is, mostly, to see how the game is faced in each series. Of course, no spoilers.
Also, football as the real, english one (aka soccer), not the american one.

For a loyal follower of the world's most popular sport like me, there's nothing better than the news of a new football anime Area no Kishi/The Knight in the Area is the more recent bet... what can we expect from it? Let's see...
The story of this anime focus in Kakeru Aizawa, a 14 year old kid who loves football, but decided to stop playing, and become manager of his school team and in the not too distant future, be a coach (being the Japan national team his final goal). Although this seems like a very valid dream, Suguru Aizawa, Kakeru's older brother, and one of the best players under 15 in Japan, knows that Kakeru is only running away: he knows that his little brother want to play, but he's afraid of playing cause a few years ago, he injured a rival. But don't worry, Kakeru will eventually overcome his confidence issues and return to the field (i mean... come on, just look at the pic of this very page). Besides the Aisawa brothers, the third protagonist of this story is Nana "Seven" Mishima, a former teammate of Kakeru back in primary school, now returning from the United States to join the team as a manager. Seven's not only beautiful, cheerful and dedicated, she also lacks the usual tsundere traits that most females MC have in this type of anime (like Sanae in CT or Miki in HH). She's almost too perfect to be real... or rather, shes like that typical character in a romantic comedy...
There are also many players relevant to the plot, being the most important (or at least, important enough to be in the opening) Ryuichi Araki (Suguru's companion in the national team, owner of an unbelievable metabolism), Kaoru Matoba (same age as Kakeru, tiny yet skillful), Reo Kurebayashi (libidinous GK, but sadly for him, he lacks the charm and succes of Sakai in Hungry Heart xD), Makoto Hyoudo (nice and inteligent MF), Akito Horikawa (sly DF), and Kota Nakatsuka (defender with interesting offensive traits. One of the sources of humor of the series, and one of Kakeru's best friends).
Usually, spor... football animes (I can't say a lot about the sport genre in general, since I didn't watched that much outside the football realm) don't tend to explore the characters a lot, except for the traditional topics of self-improvement and friendship. That's mostly because the important stuff happens inside the field, not outside. In AnK, however, thats not exactly the case. I'm not saying that this anime is revolutionary in terms of character development, but some serious stuff tend to happen on the personal level, being the most important characters in this matter Kakeru and Seven. This may be attractive to peolple who don't like football that much, yet enjoy the sport enviroment and some character interaction.
The animation is very good, and the character design, without being ground breaking, is well done. All the characters are very different from each other, and there isn't any wierd hair color, or crazy hairstyles that might disturb Yusei Fudo ;).
Sound... well, the opening, Higher Ground, is cool and everything, but, the really wierd thing is... there's no ending. This may sound silly, but, in this modern day and age, in wich series with only 12 ep tends to have 3 or 4 endings, i found it pretty remarcable. As for the voices, there are certainly seiyuus with lots of recent experience: Yuuko Sanpei is Kakeru (Yoko Machi in Bokurano, Selim Bradley in FMA: Brotherhood, Aphrodi in Inazuma Eleven, Sasha in Seikon no Qwaser and many others), Shizuka Itou is Seven (Hildegard in Beelzebub, Nadie in El Cazador de la Bruja, Misa Kakizaki in all the animated Mahou Sensei Negima incarnations, Darri in Gurren Laggan) and best of all, Minoru Shiraishi as Nakatsuka (Taguchi in Hen Zemi, Taniguchi and Kimidori in Haruhi Suzumiya, and obviously, Minoru Shiraishi in Lucky Star). A nice little detail is that foreigner characters speak in their own language, and subtitles appear on screen (that's when talking with someone that can't understand them. When the conversation is between foreigners, the audio is in japanese, but they're speaking in their own language. Understood?). Sadly, the entonation is terrible, with a very marked accent, being terrible obvious that the seiyus don't know crap about english xD. Rather than bad, that last thing's funny (Giant Killing did a best job is this subject, by the way).
But the most important question you should be asking now is: what can we expect of Area no Kishi in the football aspect? Is close to Captain Tsubasa, with endless fields and shots that can destroy nets/fences/walls? It's like Inazuma Eleven, where super powers, time space manipulation and theme fields are the norm? Is like Giant Killing, where everything is hyper-realist, not only the game, but the people and the results too? Actually, this series reminds me of Hungry Heart, wich is in the midle of CT and GK in terms of realism. Here, we have football that looks like football (and not a shonen battle), fields with the proper measures, players that move at reasonable speeds, and shots that follows the laws of physics, all that proved in the match Between Japan and Brazil in ep 1. But in the second episode, we saw a couple rays of lights and whirlwinds coming froms Suguru's shots... not that these elements made the shot stronger, powerfull or anything (they were, actually, just passes), it was just for the sake of flashiness, like the Kyosuke Kano's Orange shot. Players get tired, and when they do something unrelated to their position, everybody note it: if, for example, one DF is sent to attack. If the rival team neutralizes that offensive, there are high chances that they counterattack in the side that the DF leaves unguarded. Thats logic and tactics for ya, people! The only thing that i noted a bit unrealistic was that the matches tend to be very spoken: the players talk, and talk, and talk... all this with the ball in play, and during the marking! (one of the toughest moments of the game, no less). Lot's of series have internal monologues that takes a considerable amount of time (in CT that was fixed with huges fields xD), but in AnK the dialogues are, in fact, between the players, in simply unrealistic periods of time (and while running!). There's also a small supernatural factor in AnK... but since it doesn't affect the game itself, it's not worth mentioning n_n.
So, if football's your thing, Area no Kishi is an excellent choice, although there aren't matches in every episode, and the characters have some inner demons that need to be fixed, the games are fast, real changing and exiting. If football is not your favorite sport, but the sport genre appeals to you, then AnL may be an interesting choise, since there is less football than in other animes, and characters have an equal (or higher) importance than the sport.

Oh, and if you are curious, chapter 1 of my Football Chronicles is Goal Field Hunter n_n.
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Crónicas futbolísticas, capitulo 2: Area no Kishi
Nota: varios animes de futbol van a ser nombrados en esta review, para comparar varias cosas. Mas que nada, es para ver como encara el juego cada una. No hay ningún tipo de spoilers, y de paso aprenden un poco sobre otras series n_n.

Para un fiel seguidor del deporte más popular del mundo como yo, nunca hay noticia más grata que la de un nuevo anime de futbol. Area no Kishi/The Knight in the Area/El caballero del área es la mas reciente apuesta... que es lo que se puede esperar de ella? Veamos...
La historia de este anime es sobre Kakeru Aizawa, un chico de 14 años que ama el futbol, pero que decidió dejar de jugarlo para convertirse en manager del equipo de su escuela y, en un futuro no muy lejano, ser entrenador. Aunque este parece ser un sueño muy valido, Suguru Aizawa, hermano mayor de Kakeru, y futura promesa del futbol japonés, se da cuenta de que Kakeru solo esta huyendo: el sabe que su hermano quiere seguir jugando, pero quedo desecho cuando, en un partido de practica hace unos años, con su pierna menos hábil, lesiono a un rival. Pero no se preocupen, Kakeru eventualmente superara sus problemas de confianza, y retornara al campo de forma activa (o sea, es obvio... solo miren la foto de esta pag). Aparte del los dos hermanos, el tercer protagonista principal es Nana “Seven” Mishima, antigua compañera de equipo de Kakeru en primaria, que ahora regresa de Estados Unidos para unirse al equipo como asistente de campo. Seven no solamente es hermosa, alegre y dedicada, sino que carece de los rasgos tsunderes habituales de la protagonista femenina típica de este tipo de anime (como Sanae en CT o Miki en HH). Es casi demasiado perfecta para ser real... o mejor dicho, parece un personaje de una comedia romántica.
También hay otros muchos jugadores relevantes a la trama, siendo los más importantes (o al menos, lo suficientemente importantes como para ser nombrados durante el opening) Ryuichi Araki (compañero de Suguru en las juveniles de Japón y poseedor de un metabolismo increíble), Kaoru Matoba (chico de la misma edad que Kakeru, muy hábil y de contextura pequeña), Reo Kurebayashi (arquero libidinoso, aunque, tristemente, carece del éxito de Sakai de Hungry Heart xD), Makoto Hyoudo (medio campista inteligente, aunque alegre), Akito Horikawa (defensor risueño) y Kota Nakatsuka (defensor que lucha por ganar una posición, con gran vocación ofensiva. Uno de los generadores de humor de la series, y uno de los mejores amigos de Kakeru).
Usualmente los animes depor... de futbol (no tengo autoridad como para hablar de otros anime que no sean de futbol) no tienden a explorar mucho a los personajes, excepto por los tradicionales tópicos de auto superación y amistad. Y es que lo importante ocurre dentro de las conchas, no afuera. En AnK, sin embargo, la cosa no es tan así. No voy a decir que en este anime hay una revolución y los personajes crecen, maduran y cosas así, pero realmente pasan cosas a nivel personal. Esto puede resultar atrayente para personas que no vean al futbol como un gran deporte, pero que disfruten el ambiente deportivo, el compañerismo y blabla.
La animación es muy buena, y el diseño de personajes, si bien no es el mas innovador, esta muy bien hechos. Todos los personajes son bien distintos unos de otros, y no hay colores de pelo o peinados locos que puedan molestar a Yusei Fudo ;).
Por el lado del sonido... a modo de curiosidad, no hay ending, algo muy raro en estos tiempos modernos donde series de 12 capítulos llegan a tener hasta tres. El opening, Higher Ground cumple. En cuanto a las voces, se trajeron a varios seiyuus con amplios curriculum, siendo Yuuko Sanpei la voz de Kakeru (Yoko Machi en Bokurano, Selim Bradley en FMA: Brotherhood, Aphrodi en Inazuma Eleven, Sasha en Seikon no Qwaser y muchos mas), Shizuka Itou es Seven (Hildegard en Beelzebub, Nadie en el Cazador de la Bruja, Misa Kakizaki en todas las encarnaciones animadas de Mahou Sensei Negima, Darri en Gurren Laggan) y lo mejor de todo, Minoru Shiraishi como Nakatsuka (Taguchi en Hen Zemi, Taniguchi y Kimidori de Haruhi Suzumiya, y obviamente, Minoru Shiraishi en Lucky Star). A modo de detalle, hay que decir que los personajes extranjeros hablan en su idioma, y en pantalla aparecen subtítulos (al menos cuando hablan con alguien japonés. Cuando la charla es entre ellos, el audio esta en japonés, pero se entiende que se suponen que hablan en su idioma), lo que siempre es un punto para el realismo. Desafortunadamente, siempre tienen un acento marcadísimo, notándose a kilómetros que son japoneses hablando ingles xD. Pero bueno, mas que algo malo, resulta cómico (hay que decir que esto estaba hecho un poco mejor en Giant Killing).
Pero la pregunta mas importante que ustedes, deberían estar haciéndose ahora, es: que podemos esperar de Área no Kishi a nivel futbolístico?. Es cercano a Captain Tsubasa, con sus cancha interminables y sus tiros destructores de redes/alambrados/paredes? Se parece a Inazuma Eleven, donde lisa y llanamente hay superpoderes, manipulación tiempo espacio y canchas temáticas? Es como Giant Killing, donde todo es híper real?. La verdad, esta serie me recuerda mucho a Hungry Heart: Wild Striker, que seria el intermedio entre CT y GK. En esta serie tenemos un futbol que parece futbol, con canchas de medidas reales, jugadores que se mueven a velocidades razonables, y tiros que respetan las leyes de la física, todo esto puesto en evidencia en el partido entre Japón y Brasil del primer capitulo. Pero en el segundo, ya vimos un par de destellos y rayos de luz que salen de los disparos de Suguru... no es que estos hayan hecho que los tiros sean mas fuertes, o potentes, o nada, solo aporta un poco de espectacularidad, similar al tiro con resplandor naranja de Kyosuke Kano en Wild Striker. Los jugadores se cansan, y cuando hacen algo ajeno a su posición, se nota: si por ejemplo, el defensor de un equipo se manda a atacar, y el quipo rival lo neutraliza, lo más probable es que aprovechen el hueco y hagan un contraataque. Táctica y lógica pura!. Lo único que puedo remarcar como poco realista en esta serie es que los partidos suelen ser muy hablados: los jugadores hablan, y hablan y hablan... y esto, con la pelota en juego, y durante la marca! En la mayoría de las series suele haber monólogos internos de duración considerable, pero en AnK hay diálogos que de hecho son entre los jugadores, en periodos de tiempo simplemente irreales (sin contar la incomodidad del dialogo durante una corrida xD). También, AnK cuenta con un pequeño factor sobrenatural... pero como no afecta al juego en si, no vale la pena mencionarlo n_n
Así que, si el futbol es lo tuyo, Area no Kishi es una excelente elección (por que tampoco es que haya tanto de donde elegir), aunque no haya partidos en todos los capítulos, y los jugadores tengan algún que otro demonio interno que arreglar, los partidos son vertiginosos, reales, cambiantes y emocionantes. Si el futbol no es tu deporte favorito, pero el género deportivo te atrae, entonces AnK puede ser una buena opción, dado que no hay tanto futbol como en otros animes, y los personajes tienen una importancia igual (o mayor) a la del deporte.

Ah, y si sienten curiosidad, el capitulo 1 de mis crónicas futbolísticas es Goal Field Hunter n_n read more