While the show had a lot of promise, the character development was lacking. Tsukushi emulates the familiar sports trope “not very talented, but dedicated to practice every waking moment.” This was fine for me (but if you dislike that trope, run for the hills). I was interested to see how this show would set Tsukushi apart from other characters within that trope. Not only did the writers fail to distinguish him as a unique character, they failed to write the trope very well at all. Instead of fleshing out a diverse cast, the show kept revealing new backstories for incoming rivalry teams, giving characters one or two base traits to fall back on as the story moved forward. Tsukushi doesn’t really do anything exceptional throughout the season to demonstrate how he gets better at soccer (besides running around the school a bazillion times)—he just kind of does and the viewer has to accept that because every rivalry team reacts to his mediocre performance the same way. Even though this happens in other sports anime, because he wasn’t developed very well as a character, his success falls flat.
As for the gameplay, well, it was a bit hard to tell they were playing soccer at all. The animation in general was sparse when it came to the action of the show, and it was clear that the writers took some liberties to spice up the plot. Not that sports anime has ever stayed realistic to the sport itself—I wasn’t looking for authentic soccer. However, the animation of the gameplay did not make up for the long-winded conversations that occurred on the field (conversations that didn’t really do much to provide insight or emotion to the viewer).
Days is an anime that begins with some hopeful charm and ends with dissatisfaction.
