I'd never think to state that in this Winter season, Sunday is the day where conspicuously bad anime all converge to meet up together, save for the BL-centric Sasaki to Miyano that's the actual opposite of being a masterpiece work when compared to the others on the day's schedule: the laughable fully-3DCG made that is Sabiiro no Armor, the dumbfounding waste of a potentially good adaptation that is Baraou no Souretsu, and now Futsal Boys!!!!!, and yes that's with 5 exclamation marks. Who's doing this horrendous title to think that this would sell to fans in Japan? Bandai Namco, that's who.
Mixed-media adaptations are equally as bad as game adaptations, though getting into the lore of the franchise is better as a benefit from more sources like movies or mobages. But the first notation is that if the anime is outright bad, then don't bother selling potential fans to your franchise, and this is what Futsal Boys!!!!! did in its total "throw your brain out of the window" whack.
Being the first Futsal-related anime, this is easily 100 times worse than "Puraore! Pride of Orange" for exchanging the CGDCT with the CBDHT (Cute Boys Doing Handsome Things). And both series were pioneers in recognizing the sport in anime form, which baffles my mind to think that it could've been at least decent, but the final product was just an exercise in frustration.
I'm not even gonna try to review this one in much detail, because this anime obfuscated and insulted my intelligence too much. And since I've already been spoiled by Sabiiro no Armor quite a fair bit, here's yet another lightning round for you:
- Story is unoriginal. Comprised by series composer Shouji Yonemura (who's also currently doing the the same staff role for the Shaman King reboot), this "story" if you can call it that, is just the copy-paste of many successful sports shows done before, just made sheepishly bad for all the wrong reasons.
- Characters, all very unlikeable (except for the side characters). And to think that the main Koyo School team of boys are just so mind-numbingly muted both in tone and narrative, I guess this should come as no surprise. Also, who does a story that "I cannot kick a ball to you because of my trauma, just because I don't trust you, and my capable leg is suffering from some blatant stupid excuse of a "disease"" for the entirely of the show? That's one of the lamest excuses of a garbage character development story. Also, why give your shots "superpower"-like names? Because it's not funny nor inspiring at all, dunces.
- Diomedea's animation is decent, though it's done absurdly poor with consistent repeat frames, that just nice, fits with the overall tone of the garbage show! Great.
- Songs aren't good at all, they sound like character-motivated songs that just inspire about the best of the worst as they could. And even for STEREO DIVE FOUNDATION's standard when it comes to songs, I guess I can say that I like the ED a fair bit, but not too much.
The only one good thing that they did was to get the futsal positions (such as Pivot, Fixo, Ala and Goleiro) right, but that's about the only praise that this one gets. What remains is just lazy, boring and uninspired storytelling, and characters that I would desperately pray tell for the side characters to be MCs, just because they have more personality than the MC team. Ugh.
Hey Bandai Namco, if you're listening, please just forget about fixing the mobage game due to quality concerns and dump it into the trashbin, because the anime is about the best representation as it could get for your new IP franchise. And even for PR marketing, this anime is just plain bad, and so should your mobage be that way as well. I'm not cursing your game, it's just that it's so effing bad that I wanna switch off minutes into this dumpster fire of an anime.
For everyone else, just steer clear of this show. This message is plain and simple, and so should your understanding be.