I understand why one would enjoy Blue Lock. The art and characters are real pretty, and it's hype in the way of popular sports series like Haikyuu and Kuroko, in the way that definitely eventually guarantees an anime season or two.
I just can't help but feel that the series misses the point of football? Blue Lock is about owning up to your own selfishness and ego as a player in order to prove your superior football skillz.It's interesting but, the problem is that soccer is.. truly a team sport. It doesn't matter if you have the best [forward, attack, whatever the position is], as they won't be able to operate without an equally competent team. WHICH BECOMES EXCESSIVELY CLEAR like twenty chapters in once all the [that same position] players except the protagonist just... default to regular football positions...Why are they even still in this training camp? Even worse, instead of regular football matches (which are great for supporting character conflicts, narrative development, etc, normal sports anime stuff) we end up getting all these fucking wacky and convoluted football-adjacent games and excercices, which aren't satisfying, because they're not football!
Honestly, while ripping off the Kuroko art style (yes, mixed with Bleach, yes yes), they should've also ripped off the rest of the fucking story format. Make sure each team has one of each position, but is just ultra-powerful in that one position. Like this, we can still get over-powered protagonist AND the satisfying functionality of football as the team sport it actually is!
Also again, the art is pretty, but the character designs arent anything special. Most of the characters look like Bleach or Kuroko background characters, unless they're irreparably evil, in which case they look like the weird teeth gangly guy from Yowamushi Pedal. Finally, and this might be just me reading into this a bit too much, but is the lack of women to act as supportive side characters in this manga sort of solved by having two very feminized / homoeroticized players close to the protagonist (I'm thinking of the guy who only ever dribbles and passes and the princess guy)? Much to think about.
