Unfortunately, the production often lets this source material down. I've enjoyed an awful lot of Liden Films works; from absurd comedies like "Sekkou Boys" to the slightly more intense "Hanebado" (ironically, a show which suffers from the opposite issue, exceptional production values with a story that slips up a lot at the end, despite some interesting ideas), I had a great time with "Otherside Picnic", and I even got some enjoyment out of "Love and Lies" and "Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka", even if the latter is still trashy as all hell and the former frustrated me just as much as it entertained me. I like this company's works more often than I don't. And I did like this too, for the most part.
But the animation is pretty sloppy at times, especially in the character animation. During more important football matches, it definitely improves a bit, you can tell that's where the budget went, but it comes at the expense of fairly stiff, dull-looking character animation, which is a real shame given the unique character designs they're working with. And, more crucially for me, the pacing is all pretty all over the place; the first half of the season speeds past, with surprisingly little time spent on the sport itself, only for the latter third to almost entirely show one single match (albeit with plenty of flashbacks and context trickled throughout). I've said this with a few shows before, but I think this would really have benefitted from a longer season, to give the plot space to spread out.
It's a shame that these details bring the show down, because I think with a bit more money and effort, there's no reason this show couldn't have been excellent. Again, this is the studio that made "Hanebado", and that looks phenomenal, especially during its matches. There is a fun story in here, and I did have a good time more often than I didn't. But I can't pretend that the production doesn't let the source material down.
