Blue Lock

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]

Bachira, Meguru Main

Kaito, Tasuku Japanese

Isagi, Yoichi Main

Ura, Kazuki Japanese

Chigiri, Hyouma Main

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Kunigami, Rensuke Main

Ono, Yuuki Japanese

Nagi, Seishirou Supporting

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Itoshi, Rin Supporting

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Barou, Shouei Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Shidou, Ryuusei Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Mikage, Reo Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Itoshi, Sae Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Furukawa, Shin Producer

Arisawa, Ryouya Producer

Mori, Yuuki Producer

Nagahama, Hiroaki Producer

Reviews

Jan 4, 2025

captainkunnka

Recommended

Main: Outstanding (9.0) / 10.
This category rates how well the anime accomplished what it set out to do and how well it fits into the genre. I'm rating this as outstanding. While not a perfect anime by a long-shot, what BlueLock attempts is to, unlike other sports media, fully lean into the emotional aspect of playing football. At the same time, it's much like Jujutsu-Kaisen which lives by the rule of cool. So, is it fantastic writing? No. Will it hype you up as you're watching it? Probably. It's a really cool balance of (sometimes) genuinely good character work and interactions, actually interesting social commentary ... on modern Japanese society, and aura moments that will sometimes hype you up, sometimes make you cringe so hard you just want to bite a wall.

Problems arise in the later episodes, though. By now, we have a cast of characters we know. As such, there's a limited amount of stuff the show can do with them (sometimes having them "evolve" though it always felt hap-hazard to me), its only decision being to add new characters to the cast to keep things interesting. However, the last episodes have Isagi and his team confront his "rival" and his team, except we already know everyone from both teams as well as their abilities. As such, it feels almost like watching a Pokemon battle: Barou plays chops and hits for 30! Then we just carry on like nothing happened. While the other games in this season had an actual structure to them, the latter ones devolved into something far, far, far more boring.

Story / Plot: Excellent (8.5) / 10.
I'm not saying this is a Shakespearean drama, but I do find the set-up extremely interesting. The pacing is just slow enough during games to make you feel their length (or the situation on the field), yet quick enough to not bore you. The structure is basic, but effective. Isagi starts off quite weak, yet has insane potential and a power that revolves around thinking (so he can't just "train" it and it always leads to hype moments in clutch situations during games). Can you FEEL he's the protagonist? Yes, unapologetically so (to the point the side-characters will comment on it sometimes). Does he absolutely EARN every improvement he gained? Yes. The improvements are really well timed, too.

Non-Plot: Outstanding (9.0) / 10.
There's lots of fun, small character interactions I liked a lot.

Fan-service Toleration: If I speak, I'm in big trouble / 10.
Lots of men if you're into that. And Chigiri if you're into... that.

Dialogue: Kinda Bad (4.5) / 10.
Excerpt from my journal logs: "STOP TALKING ABOUT DEVOURING OTHER MEN!!!"

If I allowed myself to be more biased, I'd probably rate this as a 2/10. This anime has had some of the most painfully cringe lines I have ever had the misfortune of hearing. As I said, in the later episodes games devolve into Pokemon matches where each character does a move then fades into obscurity. Isagi then comments on that move (if you're lucky he just says "wow, Barou did chops!" but if he wants to be extra annoying he'll add something about chemical reactions, villains, devouring and so on, which are all stuff I'm fine with as a one-off analogy but to actually have it be a recurring TERM in this universe is fucking insane), the character has their "I, too, am in this anime" moment, and we carry on. Which, okay, I can tolerate as long as Isagi's protagonist energy far outweighs the filler side-character meat-riding. The problem is this simply doesn't happen as the show goes on. The annoying pseudo-banter between people (like people calling Zantetsu "Baka-Zantetsu" or Chigiri being called "Princess", the nicknames and banter in these moments feels forced as hell) is guaranteed to drive you insane at some point, and no number of cool Isagi scenes can fix that. This leads to both character moments and game moments feeling forced, and thus already a hard watch. Tacked on is then the constant rundowns and flashbacks to said already bad moments, which makes them even tougher to watch cause now we're seeing them twice.

The problem is BlueLock can actually deliver unironically killer lines when it wants to. Ego Jinpachi, Chigiri, Isagi all have their moments of brilliance and it makes me be able to forget the annoying bits. But not fully.

This was supposed to be Average (5.5), but I just remembered Rin exists. Minus 1.

Characters: Great (8.0) / 10.
Y'know what, I was going to bitch about how edgy and annoying some of the characters are, but I don't care. The good characters are genuinely good, the bad characters are so bad they're enjoyable to watch, and there's a very, very, very small number of them I actually disliked. I liked Ego Jinpachi a lot, wasn't crazy for Nagi at first but he grew on me as the episodes progressed, Chigiri was such a goddamn drama queen you just have to love him, Bachira was wonderful, Rin and Barou are such edge-lords you can't not have fun when they're on screen, and that's about it for the characters I have an opinion on. Isagi is my favourite main character in all of anime. I will not elaborate. Watch Episodes 5 and 18.

Visuals: Bad (4.0) / 10.
Actually really good prior to Episode 7, then it all goes to shit. It didn't really diminish my enjoyment for the most part, but some plays you just cannot take seriously due to how ridiculous they look. Switching from reasonably OK hand-drawn to 3D CGI within a single scene was especially jarring. Honestly though, I didn't really mind as long as it was kept to these background moments.

Sound: Perfect (10.0) / 10.
Perfect voice-acting, perfect music, perfect sound.

Enjoyment: 8.25 / 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 22, 2025

farcillieftw

Mixed Feelings

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 logic ... that 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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 14, 2025

RyanSpring

Not Recommended

Pulling no punches, Blue Lock underwhelmed me from start to finish. Its base concept on which the entire show revolves around and within which it takes itself extremely seriously, youth soccer, simply isn't all that intense or all that dramatic. The setting wildly underwhelms as it is an entirely true, non-hyperbolic statement when I tell you that literally every single episode, 24 out of 24, takes place within the Blue Lock facility and after reaching said facility in the first episode, the characters literally never leave. The writing and manufactured drama have a very juvenile, blatantly aimed at teenagers kind of tone and never has ... any meaningful stakes beyond simply winning or losing at soccer. Expect eye-roll-inducing lines such as an antagonistic rival player telling the main character "You're just an NPC!" that SCREAM "We're trying really hard to make 14 year old boys think our show is cool". Its run of the mill modern graphics and equally run of the mill modern voice acting, while not detrimental to the show, never do anything to distinguish themselves from its contemporaries, nor does the soundtrack.

Ultimately unless you really, really love soccer or if as far as you're concerned any shonen is automatically good, there's just no reason to watch Blue Lock. It isn't particularly good at ANYTHING. A score of 8+ here on MAL is WILD to me. That MUST be a very young crowd with low standards and/or recency bias, but this show is super overrated.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 6-7
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6.5

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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