I am not a sports anime fan but Blue Lock manages to pique my interest because it has the appeal towards action shounen fans.
The idea for the story is really interesting : A football battle royale for strikers.
Blue Lock the most unorthodox approach towards football and that is one of the reasons why it stands out compared to other football anime. Instead of regular training arc and the power of friendship to pull through each match, Blue Lock skips those training montage and tries to nurture the egoism in these characters during matches. The show is also fast paced which adds more oomph to the story development. Definitely sounds like a good show but it fell off once the story is stuck between the border of realistic and fiction.
The characters refer to their skills as "weapons" > There are visualization effects to portray character's growth > These visualization effects become canon > The show introduces more characters with quirky personality (not exactly in a good way sometimes) > Somehow the term "devour" becomes a common thing to say in this show.
If you still think it is realistic, you need heavy dose of grass touching.
Next, this is what I stumbled upon reading the manga :
I started reading the manga just before the rematch with the top 3 arc and this is where I discovered that the manga has more movement than the anime itself. That does not make any sense but it is true. The anime just merely adapting those manga panels without fully utilizing the animation medium to its fullest. The anime just mostly uses explanation which makes the imaginative process of the character's movement in the manga seems more fluid.
After that, sport fans can probably justify this but for me, there are quite a few minor retcons in the show. It is when a character is in a 1v1 situation and suddenly got intercept by another character. The fact that even the reactions from surrounding characters are surprised to see that character suddenly appears makes it feel like a cheap surprise. It is understandable in the manga that it is hard to display the positioning of all the characters on the field due to the manga panelling and the dialogue taking up spaces. However, this can be fixed in the anime but did the anime actually solves the issue? Well, yes and no. The good thing is they use overview shots of the field (the one with the characters being replaced with CGIs) from time to time so we can see the movement and the positioning of the characters on the field. The bad thing is that the anime just merely adapting those manga panels so it kinds of beat the purpose when we actually need to know the positioning of the characters.
Overall thought :
Well, color me surprise.
Not only this show is one of the highest rated football anime but it is mostly being carried by hype and not the quality of the show itself. I complaint about all this and yet I am also one of those people being pulled into this show because of hype. The animation kind of dropped after the first half of the show and my guess is the use of those visualization effects caused it to be that way.
After that, despite a vast range of characters, most of the characters are kind of cringe though. A dude that thinks that the football field is a battlefield, a dude that only knows the word "Glam" and a dude with a superiority complex that thinks he is a villain that devours the light. It would be nice if Blue Lock were to set the premise of the story as pure fiction so you know what to expect from it.
Despite all that, the show is still enjoyable because you can enjoy the adrenaline rush from it and I like the opening and the ending songs. The second opening especially is catchy and has the best opening visual so it is hard to skip it every week.
I recommend you to watch it if you like action shows and I do not recommend you to watch it if you are into slice of life and regular sports anime.
What I hope for the U20 arc (spoiler alert) :
Seeing that the announcement for the second season is already out, I am quite disappointed but at least I know what to expect this time. Well, this is true if 8Bit decides to include U20 arc with the third selection arc in the second season
Originally, I hope that the U20 arc would be a movie because the arc is definitely the best arc from Blue Lock as of now. If they actually manage to animate the whole thing carefully and stopped relying on the characters to explain everything that is going on, it is going to be pure adrenaline rush from start to finish. Seeing the Itoshi brothers going up against each other, Shidou Ryuusei being an absolute menace, the characters trying to overcome the U20 defense and Isagi's lucky shot is definitely going to be a nice closure for the movie.
Well, that is it for my review. If you manage to read everything until the end, thank you for spending time to read my review and you are welcome to share your opinion with me.