Ranked #243

Eyeshield 21

How long is it? 145 episodes. What’s it about? American Football. All of it? Yes.

Eyeshield 21 is definite hardcore sports anime. Heck, its even sponsored by the Japanese NFL and received backing in the United States as a football series on a sports channel. And now,…don’t get turned off. Because if you do, you’re missing out on one of the most entertaining series people disregard just because of its non-traditional anime content.

Review:

Please, please, don’t dump this series just because its football. I cannot but regret that I did put off watching this and suffered my way through crap series like Blade of the Immortal. My 2 cents on why you should watch (if you don’t want to slog your way through the rest of this):
• Typical plot (yet this works perfectly fine for this series), interspersed with drama, comedy, and laugh your head off antics of its marvelous characters.
• Marvelous characters (I said it but I will say it again), You will love the characters of Eyeshield, because even Sena isn’t as annoying as it seems. And…Hiruma will send you to hell if you don’t watch this.
Now that you’re here:

Characters: To put it simply, there is nothing bland about Eyeshield’s cast. From Sena’s traditional shonen perserverance, to Hiruma’s demonic avarice (and he will become your favorite as well), Eyeshield 21 does a masterful job of designing to characters to both appeal to viewers and to transition their interactions with each other smoothly. The rivalry between Sena and Shin is also nonclichedly carried out, and all the supporting characters get their own backstory as well. To tell the truth, I don’t even think that the supporting characters were even ‘technically 2nd tier’. You cannot but feel for the other characters such as the quarterback of the Zokugaku Chameleons whose delinquent team cannot hold themselves together. And so yes, the characters of Eyeshield are not just comedic, but serious, dramatic, and all the time flawed in some way or another. There’s not fun in watching perfect characters now is there?

Plot: Well, its straightforward enough: team has a dream, team wants to go to Christmas Bowl, team must defeat rival teams, team must work together, team must train, then team must win. But this is all you need to watch Eyeshield. It’s 145 episodes does more than enough to advance the adrenaline pumping scenes of the matches. Between moments of drama and football action is raucous comedy which borderlines on the absurd (cough Hiruma gun toting blackmailer), yet makes it more funny all the same. Now come to think of it, you don’t watch a sports series too much for the plot as more for the character development and anime action.

Sound and Graphics: Nothing too shabby here. The BGMs were great, the Ops and EDs were equally great. Eyeshield does a decent job of fitting its sound to its action scenes. The animation is more than adequate for the heart pumping football action scenes. Of course its NOT realistic. Who would want to watch realistic football for 145 episodes? Nah, this is where you see special moves like those in DBZ like Sena’s Devil Bat Ghost, Kid’s Rapid Fire Throw. (No fantastical equipment, mind but enough specialty to make you want to continue watching.) That said, animation is definitely decent for this series.

Entertainment/Replay Value : This is something I wouldn’t mind watching more than once. The one bone I have to pick with the series is its sometimes slightly traditional fillers, which it has to have in its 145 episodes. But even with that, Eyeshield 21 is hilarious, action packed, and a touchdown for us viewers.

Poptart’s Rating: 9.4/10 read more

Eyeshield 21 - Japan's take on American Football. It's actually quite interesting.

Ok, so for a review on this anime. As far as sports-driven themed anime series, Eyeshield 21 does not disappoint its audience. In a nutshell, Eyeshield 21 is the story of Kobayakawa Sena and his rise from a scared little kid to a full-fledged ace running back that looks down linebackers and defensemen 20x (no joke) his size.

The story is pretty simple. Our protagonist team (Deimon) wants to make it to the championship game (in Japan known as the Christmas Bowl) and needs to make it this season because all of the seniors will be retiring the season after. The anime does a good job on giving a lot of background information on each of the characters as well as the characters on the other teams Deimon faces. And the good part is that they don't give it away all at once, but in bits and pieces which wets your appetite a little more each time, in a good way.

Character development is key in this series, because essentially, that is what you are witnessing as you watch this anime. The rise of Deimon, from a really bad team to one of the elite among Japan. And with that rise to the elite, comes the development of each character - Sena, Monta, the "Ha-ha" brothers, and yes, even Hiruma. It's really fascinating to watch all of these characters develop their skills and "special abilities" so to speak.

And where would the fun go if we couldn't see these skills animated in their full glory. Eyeshield 21 manages to do that quite well. Sena's super speed is portrayed well (although it's kind of weird at times to see him run for what seems like 30 yards, but ends up with 4 or 5).

There are enough twists and plot surprises in this anime as far as sports anime goes (I know, I'm keeping up with the manga) to leave you interested and wondering exactly how will Deimon get to the Christmas Bowl and how will they win....and *if* they win.

The music could be better, but there are a few insert songs that are amazing (i.e. Be Survivor by ZZ) and a few other pieces of music in there. read more