Tag Archives: Soccer

Blue Lock: Episode Nagi Review

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It’s time to talk about the big Blue Lock spinoff that was running for a while. Honestly it’s pretty sad that it ended so soon because it felt like this series still had a lot of gas in the tank. Did it really need to end this soon? To me it just didn’t make sense for things to be so abrupt like that but maybe one day we’ll get more spinoffs. Either way it was definitely a great title and it’s fun to see the extra focus on Nagi. You can even use this to an extent as a way to cover the events of the original series in a quicker way and then cut to the main series after this one’s ending.

The story starts by introducing us to a kid named Nagi. He really likes video games but otherwise doesn’t really have any hobbies in his life. He struggles to get motivated at all and just lives life one hour at a time. Well, one day he is noticed by Reo, a really rich guy. Reo has decided to take the soccer world by storm and wants Nagi on his team after seeing the kid’s ability. Nagi allows himself to be roped into this as it’ll be too much of a hassle to stop Reo each time. Well, soon he finds out that playing soccer is actually really fun and he wants to keep with it. He is even invited to Blue Lock, a program for finding the greatest striker in Japan. Does Nagi have a chance to obtain this title?

So the plot is very similar to the main title and of course we got to see Nagi a lot in the main story. For that reason, a lot of the fights are actually old with many scenes being readapted but we do get some rounds where we hadn’t seen them before. Additionally for the old scenes, we get to see Nagi’s inner voice this time around rather than Isagi’s so that does add an extra dimension to it. At times I would say the inner thoughts don’t totally match the scene though. The series doesn’t always do a great job of making this seamless to the point where you get the feeling that someone on the staff for the spinoff didn’t agree with some plot points. Still, it’s nothing that takes you out of the experience.

The art is really top tier as you’d expect. It holds its own with the main series and really does great with the inking and showing off the various monsters that the characters are capable of. Additionally, you can feel the intensity out of every soccer play. It’s really something that keeps you excited at all times which is really important. The pages really breeze by but since the chapters are longer than the weekly version, you always feel pretty satisfied. The battles are really able to develop a lot and you see what all of the players are capable. It’s definitely not your average soccer experience.

Nagi also makes for a solid character even if he isn’t quite as intense as Isagi is. When Nagi is at his best he can have those intense moments but they aren’t as automatic as Isagi. Nagi still needs a way to get his enthusiasm at different points which can take time. He also loses his way more than once so it’s good that Reo is around to buff him back up. Nagi is definitely someone who relies on Reo a whole lot although by the end of the series he starts to get around this. It is definitely a long way to get to that point but the important thing is that he made it.

Nagi’s sheer athleticism and dominating plays also make him fun to watch on the field. You sometimes forget just how tall the guy is since he’s always slouching. Honestly if he just got some more confidence and could keep it up for longer periods of time, he would be even better. Still, at the end of the day it was a smart move to make him a main character and I’d be curious who would be picked in another spinoff. Rin seems like the obvious pick but there are a lot of good calls.

Meanwhile Reo is also a fun character. The manga gets teased for all the drama but to a large degree I wouldn’t say that it is Reo’s fault most of the time. If anything, you can blame Nagi for a few of the fights like deciding not to team up during the early founds of Blue Lock. That came as a huge shock to Reo and I think anybody would be rather upset by that point. It’s like being betrayed by your best friend. Yeah this is Blue Lock where the strongest survive but it was still very personal.

Reo spends a lot of time being down in the dumps after that but eventually manages to pull himself together. In his defense, he ended up being one of the more skilled players as well. He may not be top 6 like Nagi, but his copy ability really has a lot of versatility to it. While a lot of focus is put into how much of a prodigy Nagi is, it’s worth noting that Reo went from being a spoiled rich kid to one of the best strikers in Japan. That also makes him a prodigy at soccer if you ask me. Considering he was also good at many other things growing up, he was truly a jack of all trades from the very start.

Meanwhile it’s also really fun seeing Isagi from an outsider’s point of view. The guy just seems like an insane monster with how quickly he improves on the field. He goes from being a regular joe to suddenly making moves against guys like Rin. He’s given a whole lot of respect in the series and nearly everyone either fears him or sees him as a super intense rival. That’s not something you could say about just any character and to make up for the fact that he’s not technically around, we get a shadow version of him in Nagi’s head.

The rest of the fighters are also around of course but they don’t get a lot of added context since they’re about the same as in the main series. Bachira is still unpredictable and Rin is still an absolutely dominant force. Some of the best Blue Lockers out there. It was fun to see early views of other characters like Otoya and Karasu who took a while to do much in the main series. You also get the occasional new character like the analytical poker type player. He was a lot of fun so it’s a shame that he was doomed to be locked off. Ultimately due to the format of the series, that’s the fate of a lot of characters.

Another fun thing about being a spinoff here is that outside of Nagi and Reo’s dynamic, the series doesn’t need to spend much time on character interactions. That means we get to really jump into all of the fights right away. It feels a bit like Dragon Ball Heroes in that the fights would almost be constantly back to back like a marathon. That’s how it feels with the soccer games at times. You’re going from fight to fight and the interactions in there are used for character development. Any downtime is usually for Reo and Nagi thinking to themselves about how they could have handled their conversations better. Not saying there is no miscellaneous downtime but it’s definitely minimal and that’s not a bad thing.

It’s just a privilege of being a spinoff and this series understood that perfectly. Since the fundamentals were so solid like having a great cast and artwork, it also meant that the manga was destined for greatness If it could have gone on longer then I dare say it may have hit the elusive 9/10 score like the classic Blue Lock but ultimately I do think it would have needed more time for that. This is a great manga but I would not be able to say that it is downright elite. That’s a very high amount of praise that you really have to work for. Still, there are no real negatives here. The series is a blast the whole time. The trash talk is as good as you’re gonna see it in any title.

Then there is the occasional future foreshadowing going on here as well. We see how Chigiri’s leg continues to get closer to breaking and it’s heavily implied that one more key moment could take him out for the count. There have always been theories that he will break during the world cup and this series only served to strengthen that. Now will it actually happen? Who knows, but it was an interesting angle. It’s also fun to see just how much more reasonable everyone is when Isagi isn’t around. They all act really tough with lots of bravado when he’s in the room but without him even guys like Barou are open to using teamwork. It’s a subtle way of showing just how much control Isagi has over everyone and their playing styles.


Overall, Episode Nagi was really fun. It felt like the series was over in the blink of an eye with less than 40 chapters though. It’s monthly so that’s still a reasonable length but I would have loved for it to have reached 100 chapters. Either way if you like the original series then you’ll love this one as well. They don’t hold back on the action and it has enough new content to keep you interested from cover to cover.

Overall 8/10

Blue Lock: Episode Nagi Review

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Blue Lock is definitely one of the top tier anime titles that I’ve seen. The ost was incredible and the story was just so good. I also liked the animation quite a bit so it was really the complete package. Naturally Episode Nagi is quite great as well. It doesn’t match the show though as most scenes that were in both versions end up being better in the anime version. That said, it is cool to see things from Nagi’s perspective. At the end of the day it’s hard to picture any Blue Lock product being bad.

The movie starts by introducing us to Nagi who is a very lazy guy. He doesn’t really like doing anything and prefers to just lounge around all day playing video games. To him that is his idea of having fun. Well, one day he is scouted by a classmate named Reo who wants them to be the greatest soccer players of all time. Nagi isn’t thrilled about this but lets Reo take him to the Blue Lock program. It’s a place that has gathered the 300 top strikers in all of Japan in order to make one of them the best. They can then enter the Japanese team and finally win the World Cup. Does Nagi really have what it takes?

I’d say that the first thing to keep in mind here is that the film is really marketed towards people who saw the show. With how much gets cut out and matches that are sped through you can tell that it’s not really for the general audience. I would still argue that it holds up super well as an individual product, that just wasn’t the intent either way. The movie covers a lot of ground too as it goes from before episode 1 of the show all the way past the entire season.

The skipping does start to get really noticeable after the battle against Team Z though. We move through the 2 on 2 battle in an instant, the 3 on 3 and 4 on 4 fights basically become a montage at that point. The unfortunate part is that we probably won’t go back to those even if we do get an Episode Nagi sequel but even if it was brief it was fun to see Rin dominate again. That guy really was an absolute beast within Blue Lock and nobody was safe from him. The song that played during the montage was definitely pretty fun.

It helps make up for the movie being a little quieter than the show at times. The show had one of the best osts out there like I said before so initially I was definitely missing it. Maybe they felt that a movie needs to have more quiet time for the audience to think or something like that. It’s why generally speaking an anime will meet a movie version since it has more time, cliffhangers, and can go as crazy as it wants. Anime don’t have to follow conventional movie rules.

In terms of animation, I’d say it looked pretty good. Of course a lot of it is directly from the anime so you do have to keep that in mind. The movie original stuff is also good of course. There are a lot of aura effects and eye changes throughout the movie and I always really enjoy that kind of thing. The games feel very epic and that’s the kind of tone you want for any kind of sports title. Each match feels like the end of the world and all of the players continue to get more and more powerful so there isn’t really a ceiling. Nagi was the genius from the start after all but then you run into guys like Bachira and Rin who can handle him.

It’s basically a nonstop onslaught of battle after battle for most of the film which was a really good idea. It’s also fun seeing the main characters from an outside point of view since that is rare in any title. Isagi and the gang definitely look imposing right from the start due to their team all having real designs compared to the rest of the teams that often has only 2-3 real members. That is a massive difference right from the start. They all get a quick moment to shine as well.

For the main 3 on Nagi’s team, Nagi himself is the most interesting of course. Being a genius who never actually wants to train is pretty interesting because it really pushes the theme of talent vs hard work to the max. How long can Nagi survive by coasting on his own skills without training? He will ultimately have to find out. Due to the fast pacing, Nagi does come off as a total jerk for abandoning Reo though. We really didn’t get a lot of justification or much of a look inside his psyche on why this was such an easy decision for him. You’d think that he would have had to think a whole lot harder before making such a move.

Reo definitely gets the short end of the stick here considering just how hard he was working. He really tried hard to set everything up perfectly for Nagi so you wish there could have been some more gratitude. Of course you can’t expect Nagi to hold himself back forever but it really came out of nowhere which is why it hit so hard. If he could have at least been given a chance to keep Nagi on his side then that would have been different.

Finally there is Zantetsu who is reasonable. His gimmick of not being very smart can be a little annoying at times but overall he’s a fun enough character. He’s someone who you can root for and all. It just doesn’t feel like he has quite the same amount of talent as the main two so he would eventually be discarded no matter how hard he fought. Particularly since we already have a main speed user in Chigiri who seems to be a lot more versatile while also being smarter. At that point, Zantetsu was really doomed.

Of course the film also gives you a bunch of fun cameos like Kira showing up briefly. That guy was known as the Jewel of Japanese soccer for a good reason after all. The fact that he got the title even over guys like Rin shows what an absolute monster he was. Definitely not someone to underestimate. I’m still waiting for the guy to return one of these days. When he does, things are really going to get intense. Of course first we have to see if this movie even gets a sequel. I’m certainly rooting for it to happen at least.

Overall, Episode Nagi was definitely great. I can’t say that I had any serious complaints here. Yes, I’d love for the film to have been longer so it could have properly adapted the final battles. Making this 2 hours would have really given it the time that it needed. Of course you could just go and watch the anime but for people just watching the movie, it is pretty clear how it just starts to jump by the end. I’d say the best way to think of the movie is probably as a fancy recap title. It’s no purely a recap of course as there is new footage and all but it’s just small enough where I would make that case. Either way I would recommend this to anybody.

Overall 8/10

Blue Lock : Episode Nagi

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This Blue Lock spinoff is definitely top tier stuff. It absolutely holds its own against the average sport series and then some. Of course the original Blue Lock is still the best but I’m impressed with how in depth this is going so far. I’ll have a review up for this series as soon as it’s been completed.

Overall 9/10

Fifa 20 Review

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It’s time for another Fifa title but I have to admit that this one doesn’t really have anything super new and exciting. It’s basically the same as Fifa 19 although I suppose you could say that for pretty much any sport game with its sequels. They just don’t innovate much so you either love what they have in store for you or you don’t. I’d still like to see a more dynamic level of gameplay like Mario strikers but a lot of people do like these games so they’re doing something right.

There are a ton of modes here as expected from training to minigames and of course the actual thing. I went right into the main game mode to try my luck and at least I did force a pretty solid 0-0 loss in sudden death, a 3-1 win, and then a 1-5 loss. So the results varied quite a bit, it’s hard for me to recreate any of my goals. I would say I haven’t yet mastered the patterns so I would need some serious training in Blue Lock to actually get to that point. Still, I gotta say that scoring feels pretty good so that’s better than in some of the previous games where I couldn’t score at all.

One thing I definitely do like a lot about the game is how during the loading screens you can practice your shooting and running. It gives you something to do while the actual match is being prepared and absolutely destroys having a traditional loading screen. This is really the way to go without a doubt. Even in the drills I found it hard to score though. I’d say my main issue with the game is it’s very much simulation style but for that reason you can’t turn and move the ball as you would want too. I’d like to be able to turn on a dime and really control where I’ve got the ball.

The older games all feel a lot smoother on this even if perhaps they were less realistic. This one just takes things too far into the other direction. Ah well, there is a lot of depth to the gameplay with the controls so you can absolutely get better and better if you put the time in. Train hard enough and learn all of the moves and you should be in a really good spot. It’s just no walk in the park so you will definitely need to apply yourself if you want to pull this off.

The graphics are naturally very solid. You can tell right away that this is a very modern game with top of the line visuals. There isn’t much of a memorable soundtrack at all but that’s fine for a sports title. You will be totally focused on the match itself anyway. So I would say that EA did not hold back on the technical elements and to their credit, they never really do. They always go all out with the sport titles and in exchange they get tons of sales so it is truly a win/win for all parties involved. That’s the best way to go.

We’ll see if Fifa 21 shakes things up. I’m definitely a few years behind on this franchise but I always like waiting a few years on these compared to Madden which I like to get a lot sooner. There’s just less of a rush and it’s a huge incentive to be able to get a game for around 5-10 bucks instead of 60 right? I suppose in a way I’m supporting these games in churning out more by doing this but ultimately it’s super negligible since I’m really just picking up a used copy which someone else already got. If they ever make a true Mario strikers that plays like the original? Then that would definitely be a different story!

Overall, Fifa 20 may not change anything up but it’s still a fairly high effort soccer game. There’s enough of a foundation here where it probably doesn’t have to add anything for 20 years and it will still be getting tons of sales and recognition. That’s just how big Fifa is as a brand and how effective it is. Nothing is stopping EA at this point. It’s still not super fun for me against computers but I think playing some live games would be entertaining enough even if I would probably get smoked. I like to think I would absorb some good techniques from playing a real opponent as there’s only so much you can learn from a CPU. The game is really cheap so you may as well check it out.

Overall 6/10

Fifa 19 Review

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Fifa is hardly my favorite sports game by EA but it is impressive how long this one has gone for. At this point it’s definitely here to stay and I’ll continue to pick up the games. I just wish it would go for more of an arcade feel over simulation since scoring is a lot of fun. More high scoring games would equal more excitement all around right? A end score of 2-1 may be fairly realistic to the real game but it’s just not explosive enough. Of course the bigger a fan you are of real soccer, the more you will appreciate this game.

The graphics are on point as always. The game looks really nice and there are a lot of tunes but none that really stand out. You’re here more for the gameplay anyway so that’s fine. As for the gameplay, well it’s very smooth which is good. The controls and rules all mirror the real game and the goalie doesn’t play around. You absolutely cannot just run up to the goal and score, even on easy mode. So I appreciate that as it forces you to use your teammates but I dare say the field doesn’t feel wide enough. Whenever you approach the goal is feels like you are completely stuck and either have to pass back or wait and buy some time until the goal is open.

This is where the game’s pacing ends up dying out because nothing’s really going on. The games would feel rather long as a result and while I wouldn’t want them to add super powers or items to the game, I think it couldn’t hurt to either expand the field or make less players be on the field at once. I want to be able to really test my skills of manipulating the ball in the open field and see what kind of shot I can make.

Part of this is a simple skill issue of course but I’ve seen soccer done masterfully like in Mario Strikers. Now there was a top tier soccer game that really got me pumped about the sport. I could play that game all day and it was always super satisfying. On the bright side you can get this game for cheap and it basically has unlimited replay value. You can keep on playing this game over and over and over again without any issues.

There are online modes, practice, exhibition, franchise, etc. There are quite a lot of modes here so I have to give the game kudos there. Sport games are also built for replay value with how you can challenge someone locally or online and have a lot of fun. It’s one of the great strengths of the genre. While I have my issues with the scoring, I can still see how you would sink in hundreds of hours with this as you learn through the game.

By the same token there isn’t a whole lot to say about this one so my review’s going to be a bit shorter than usual. There are only so many ways you can describe the game of soccer so feel free to check out my reviews of the previous years for a more detailed summary. I’ll just begin to wrap this up by saying that passing is something you should be doing a whole lot of. Trust me, it opens up the goal and generally makes things much easier. If you try scoring on your own…well I doubt you’ll be doing any scoring. The goalie is much too tricky for that and you’ll have the ball stolen real quick if you just try to run for a while.

Overall, Fifa 19 is more of the same just like how each NBA and Madden title are basically the same game over and over. You either like the game by now or you don’t but it’s not introducing any crazy mechanics or anything like that. This is a very straight forward game that knows exactly what it is. It’s not trying to pull the wool over your eyes or be too tricky for its own good. I’d like a fun cinematic story mode about saving the world in one of these titles but I’m not exactly the target audience here. If you want to play some good soccer there aren’t many alternatives right now so I’d say you should pick up this Fifa title.

Overall 6/10

Blue Lock Review

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It’s time to talk about one of the top new titles of our generation. Blue Lock goes strong right from the gate and the sports genre is already so stacked that initially I didn’t think it was going to match up. Well, almost immediately it has become the second best sports title of all time right after Prince of Tennis. If it keeps going strong who knows…it may even take the top spot. The anime is handled excellently with a 10 star soundtrack and the animation is on point too. This show will really breeze by with all of the great moments and there is no episode that will leave you feeling even remotely disappointed.

The show follows Isagi, a kid who made the team call in not trying to take the shot himself at the championship but his teammate missed the shot and so he regrets that. Why didn’t he take the shot personally and prove that he was a striker? Well, he was always taught the merits of teamwork and such so it just didn’t occur to him. One day he receives an invite to the Blue Lock program. Basically the goal is to create the world’s greatest striker. The stakes are high because if you lose then you can never compete for Japan in the World Cup. However if you can survive then you will truly be a star. Isagi is ready to risk it all and prove that he is the best. Ultimately the champion will come down to whoever has the most skill as well as the most ego. After all without ego you may not have the nerve to take the shot when it counts and if you can’t do that then you’re no striker at al.

It’s a fantastic setup. The guy running this program is fittingly called Ego himself. Basically the government is allowing this experiment to go on for now but they aren’t super thrilled by it so Ego has to move quickly. This is an unprecedented project so this is brand new to both the players and Ego as the coach. He does believe that this is the only way to push the players to get better quickly enough for it to matter. Additionally because of the setup, the series manages to create a lot of tension with players being eliminated here. See, when you leave Blue Lock, it’s almost like you died since you will never appear again and can’t be in the tourneys. It’s a clever way of increasing the body count while still being a soccer manga.

There’s a decently large cast here but before we dive into them lets talk more on the technical elements. The soundtrack is excellent as I mentioned before. Not only are themes dynamite but there are a lot of them. Many shows have a fairly small ost so you hear the same tunes over and over again but this one kept coming up with new tunes in what felt like every episode. Bout, Rin’s theme, Bachira’s awakening, there are tons of great themes scattered throughout the show and I enjoy listening to them quite a lot. The openings are also really solid and I really liked the first ending. It’s a very emotional track that fits in with the show on being low key but how if your dreams end then that’s it. The soundtrack is very fitting for the futuristic intense vibe that the show is going for.

Then for the soundtrack, it does a good job of nailing the intensity. Now it is true that the intensity probably can’t match the manga which is as over the top as possible but overall I thought it still did an excellent job. I like the energy effects that the characters get and how their eyes change when they enter a serious state. Think of it like Blue Lock mode to an extent but when they’re serious then it is curtains for everyone else. Yes that was really quite excellent. The soccer matches can sometimes transition into 3D while the game is going but it’s not overdone too much and you can still follow the action really well. I particularly like when the show adapts a speed scene well like with the World 5. It’s quite impressive visually.

The show also mastered the use of adding in one last scene as the end theme is playing. I always thought this was a great idea because it always sets up the next episode extra well. It makes the episode end on an epic cliffhanger as opposed to just stopping normally. Sometimes they will even have the next game start while the credits are still showing up and that’s when the series is really at its best. I wish more series would d o this where you basically have a fake ending because the show keeps going if you leave the TV on. It makes sure you stay engaged all the way to the end and it’s like a little taste of what’s to come in advance.

Okay now lets talk about the cast. First up is Isagi and he’s an excellent main character. It is always very important for a show to be excellent that you have an excellent main character so that’s one thing Blue Lock already has in its favor. Isagi is a very intense guy who really wants to be the best and isn’t under any illusions that everyone can do this. He knows that in order to be the best he will need to crush some other dreams in the meantime and has made peace with that. That’s what I like about him, it’s all very matter of fact and just makes sense. He even has one scene where he actively enjoys seeing one guy fall into despair which felt a little odd but shows that sometimes the soccer pretty much takes him over and that’s it. At that point he will do whatever it takes to get the win.

We see this throughout the show where he will temporarily be discouraged or lose some drive but then he’ll get it right back and double down. Isagi never stays disheartened for long which I appreciate and he has a lot of confidence most of the time. He knows that he is not the best yet but is determined to change that and so he keeps on practicing. He never makes any excuses or lets anyone else try to console him. He just focuses on getting better and better. This has already been paying off for him big time and I like his gimmick of being the strategist instead of having the most power. It works well within the soccer context and of course he is still a striker so you know he can score when needed.

Then we go to Bachira, the best character in the series. Rin is really close but it’s just hard to go against Bachira. This guy really loves to play the game of soccer and probably has the saddest backstory. He was all alone for so long that he basically created an imaginary friend to play against and even then that didn’t fully break him out of the shadows. It was only after meeting top tier talents like Isagi and Rin that he was really able to get out. It’s very emotional all the way through and his continual rise to the top is really fun to watch. I also like that he doesn’t back down to anyone and was quickly ready for a fight when Shido attacked Isagi.

Bachira easily could have been the main character in another series but works well as one of the rivals either way. In two different circumstances he was able to go up against an entire team on his own which is really saying something. His one man charge against Reo’s team for example is still one of the more epic moments in the season and trust me there are a ton of epic moments. It’s just something that ordinarily should not be possible and yet he pulled it off anyway.

Next up is Rin, another one of the best characters in the series. in this one he’s sort of likw Sasuke. Basically he wants to defeat his older brother due to something that happened a while back but we don’t have the context on this yet. Rin is a true prodigy and appears to be the best player in all of Blue Lock. Up to this point he has dominated everyone he’s gone up against with ease and even Isagi isn’t able to keep up with him. I like how easy Rin makes everything look. He really excels at soccer but we also see how hard he works for this day in and day out. He goes through the most grueling training processes and knows how easily you can fall from first to second. This is what he has that most of the other characters don’t, drive. Pure 100% drive and confidence in himself to be the best. That’s not something that you can learn, you have to have that from within. He never gives up on the game or in himself and fights to the last man. I definitely look forward to seeing more of him.

Nagi is another genius and while I would put him below the first 3, it’s clear that he’s on the same level and he’s another dynamite character. Up until now he has never really had to practice or work hard at anything in his life. It all just came easily to him but now he’s up against other geniuses and it wakes up his competitive spirit. I like the idea that Nagi was always very competitive but just didn’t realize it because he never had a challenge before. It works really well as a character trait and makes sense because at the end of the day nobody likes to lose. He continues to get better and better and I see him sticking around as one of the best.

Now lets talk about someone who I thought had potential to be one of the best but it didn’t happen. There was a guy in episode 1 named Kira who embodies what the main character would usually be like. He’s all about teamwork and doing the right thing. He believes that Ego is wrong in his belief that soccer is about one person standing out and joins Blue Lock to prove him wrong. Unfortunately he gets tag teamed at the end and is taken down so he doesn’t return past episode 1. To this day I’m waiting for him to return somewhere, perhaps playing for a different country or something. He was clearly very skilled and I see a lot of potential there but I guess we’ll have to see how that plays out.

Back to the players, next up is Reo and he was Nagi’s teammate for a while there. He may not have the same level of skills as Nagi but he is great as copying techniques and strategizing. That’s where he gives the heroes a lot of trouble and by providing Nagi with the ball it makes them a very solid tag team. I liked him well enough although he definitely went on a slump after the first loss. Fortunately he has now found himself and can finally start to make a comeback. I see him staying relevant for a long time.

For someone who’s not very relevant, Naruhaya fits the bill. See this is a character I didn’t like because he was not someone who let his soccer do the talking. He was always trash talking and trying to get in Isagi’s head. I feel like that means he doesn’t have the same top level confidence that most of the strikers had. You don’t resort to mind games if your play on the field can speak for itself. He kept on calling himself and Isagi average which also isn’t good because if you’re always downplaying yourself then of course you’re not going to be very good. So yeah I didn’t like this guy at all. One of the weaker characters if you ask me.

Gagamaru is another character who doesn’t really stand out. He’s not bad or mean like Naruhaya but I never found him very interesting or impressive. He does mean well though and by default to last this long he is fairly skilled. Will see if he ends up doing any better coming up. Likewise for Igarashi although in this case I would say this guy is a lot weaker from what we’ve seen. I really wonder how he possibly cleared the solo striking challenge that everyone had to go through because he’s not impressive at all. The guy’s also super petty so I won’t like him much at all. I’m ready for him to be eliminated to be honest.

The Wanima twins get some decent screen time as they were one of the first bosses. They are decent players but I feel like there isn’t a whole lot to them. They love their trash talking throughout the episodes but that’s about it. Imamura was another early boss and he seemed pretty good the whole time but ultimately comes across as a bit more of a one shot player. I was surprised he didn’t make it further since he seemed to have real talent but sometimes it really is the luck of the draw. Lemon is the guy you feel the most bad for because he’s been stuck playing the goalie in just about every match so we have yet to see what he can really do. Hopefully he ends up being one of the big players but I don’t get that vibe from him.

Then we have Kunigami who looks a lot like Ichigo Kurosaki which is a common joke while watching the show. I like his honor code and he’s a good guy. He has a lot of raw power which works really well during the matches. There isn’t anything tricky or outside the box with his play though which I would argue puts him at a bit of a disadvantage. Yes pure strength and technique are important but you need more than that if you’re going to win it all.

Chigiri is the speedster of the group and always looks very impressive in the matches. Low key they seem to hint that he really is one of the best players in all of Blue Lock. Without exception every top player always comments on his speed and I think that makes sense since speed is a big part of soccer. It’s always fun to see him with the ball and I expect he will continue to be one of the best. We already got a bit of a scare about his ankle from the flashback though so I’m worried that it ultimately will break later on which will force him out of the running. Until then I expect him to really keep exceling though.

Raichi is a very loud player who has a ton of confidence but it is unwarranted so far. He seems like a fairly average player who is not weak by any means but not quite able to tangle with the big shots yet. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong but for now he needs to do more. I do like his personality though, he takes the games very seriously and isn’t about to let anyone pull one over him. This guy is playing for keeps and understands exactly what Blue Lock represents in the grand scheme of things. He absolutely won’t be caught lacking when it counts.

Now we have to talk about one of the worst characters here…actually the worst character in Kuon. Basically this guy is a petty traitor and I’ll just never be able to overlook that guy. When the chips were down he didn’t stand by his team and that was absolutely the wrong way to go. When you turn traitor and mess with the team there is really no way out of that. From that point on I was rooting for him to fail. His skills are okay I suppose but yeah the guy is just really obnoxious and needs to go.

I liked Niko as another rival to Isagi. This guy can read the field really well and has solid skills so he’s a good parallel to Isagi. Their mind battles were a lot of fun and this guy is probably the best player who is really under the radar. I look forward to seeing what he can do when he next appears. Then there is Baro who started out as an ally, and is back to being a rival. This guy doesn’t believe in teamwork at all so in a way you can argue that he embodies the teachings of Blue Lock more than any of the others. At times it can be annoying how he just completely does his own thing but he does get results sometimes. I do think this will limit him in the long run but it makes for a unique way to play soccer which is always good to have.

Zantetsu gets the shaft from Nagi’s team as he doesn’t appear much after the initial battle but he’s still pretty good. His speed was impressive and he could hold his own with the other speedsters. I feel like this guy could end up doing good things in the future but I’m also tempted to say that he’s pretty much capped out his potential. We’ll have to see how that goes I suppose but yeah it could be a while before he really does anything super special again.

As the guy who came up with the project, Ego is a fun character. He’s always being as disrespectful as possible to the other players and his matter of fact way of talking makes people listen to him. He’s definitely not a people person but he’s here to complete a mission and you do believe that he can pull it off. Meanwhile Teieri does a great job of handling the political aspects of this like talking to the big shots. The anime actually improved all those scenes tremendously by making the executives not appear to desperate and annoying. While the Blue Lock scenes are the best part, I do enjoy the cutaways to what’s happening outside the arena. It helps to develop the world too.

For example this is where we meet Sae Itoshi for the first time and of course he is a big obstacle in Rin’s way so this sets things up nicely. We know that the guy is an excellent player but he’s actually not a striker. He’s someone who passes the ball to strikers so they will be competing in slightly different arenas. Of course the personal thing to Rin is that Sae at least was still a better striker than him at the time. Have things changed? Well we’ll have to wait a while to see how things stack up now.

Then we have Rin’s teammates Tokimitsu and Aryu. Tokimitsu is one of the more annoying characters so I don’t like him much at all. He’s constantly crying and panicking the whole time. The gimmick is that despite this he is really strong but I like my characters to have a lot of confidence so panicking like that doesn’t do him any favors. If he can ever get his head in the game then I think he can be really good. Meanwhile Aryu is all about playing soccer in a way that is glamorous to him. His signature saying is throwing the word glam into everything. The guy has the skills to back it up but like Tokimitsu I think he could stand to be a little less quirky.

At the very end of the series we meet Shido and now here is a guy with personality and drive. He’s ready to pick a fight with everyone immediately and is clearly a threat in soccer. I look forward to seeing him on the field since he left an immediate impact. We also got to see the World 5, a quick team comprised of some of the world’s best for the final training match. That was a really fun way to end the series and see just what the pros are like. What I like about this is that it really shows how this series ultimately will reach the pros. The World Cup arc will definitely be the highlight of the series if it lives up to the potential. I can’t think of the last time I read/watched any sports title where they actually made it to the world championships. It feels like it’s always the high school or college tournaments instead so the stakes here are a lot higher.

What else really needs to be said right? The show is firing off on all cylinders and even as a big fan of the manga I was super impressed at how the show was handled. It’s all just so energetic and action packed. You are never given any chance to relax and by having that final scene after the credits several times it amps up the energy even more. I’ve rewatched a few of the cliffhangers a bunch of times for that reason. It really is effective and season 2 needs to make sure and match up with this tempo. We’ll see if Ego is right or if this is actually going to be a very long winded way of saying that Isagi and friends should have kept up their teamwork. After all the World 5 actually had a good amount of teamwork going and it worked well.

Overall, This was a fantastic start to the franchise. Blue Lock has really laid the groundwork for a lot of great seasons worth of epic fights and solid characters. I would say one of the things that works really well about the series is that so many characters are interesting and worth rooting for. They all have their dreams and aspirations and it’s not like they’re villains. For the most part they all seem like good and decent people who just want to be the best. Sure, not all of them are super nice but this isn’t a battle of good and evil. It’s just a lot of people fighting for a spot that ultimately only 1-2 people will actually be able to grab. It really makes you feel the stakes involved here because realistically you have to be the very best to really stand a chance here. when you’re playing so many experts like this, it isn’t easy.

Overall 9/10

Blue Lock

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Blue Lock has easily become the definitive Soccer manga and one of the all time definitive sport titles. It holds its own with heavy hitters like Kuroko’s Basketball and Prince of Tennis. We’ll see if it can keep the momentum up and I’ll have a review up once the series is completed.

Overall 9/10

Whistle Review

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At this point it’s been around 10 years since I started Whistle but I’ve now reached the end of the series. It was certainly an emotional journey filled with a lot of great matches and character moments. I would not put it in the same league as the more intense sport titles like Prince of Tennis, Haikyu, or Kuroko but it’s definitely a solid title in its own right. We even get a physical fight at the end of the series.

The manga is about a kid named Sho who really wants to be a great soccer player. It’s his favorite sport in the world and the guy is always living and breathing soccer 24/7. Unfortunately he’s fairly small which makes it difficult to power his way through against the bigger kids and he’s just not super gifted at the sport. He’ll have to train and practice much harder than the other kids in order to catch up to them but he’s not afraid of the effort. Sho needs to first make it on the team and then he needs to earn his way into a starting position.

The opening volumes of the series really showcase how much distance Sho needs to cross in order to be one of the very best. He does train quite hard each day so it’s not like he’s slacking off but it’s just hard to keep up with the others. Just look at the range for example, they can kick the ball from double the length which is naturally a big advantage. Additionally, it’s harder to body slam someone who’s a lot bigger than you are and while you shouldn’t target players in Soccer, there is a lot of physical contact.

What Sho has for advantages is his speed and determination. It is a little easier for him to maneuver throughout the field and steal the ball if someone lowers their guard. Additionally his stamina is quite good and he’s usually the last player to go down. That works as a good morale boost to the other players when they are starting to weaken a bit. By the end of the series Sho is surprisingly still one of the weaker players. Whistle is definitely going for a higher level of realism than most of the other sport titles and while Sho kept training, so did the rest of the cast. So in the end he didn’t make nearly as much progress as you would have assumed otherwise relative to the others.

The best character in the series was Shigeki though. He’s one of Sho’s rivals and you could also call him the final boss of sorts. He’s one of the guys who helped get Sho into soccer and continued to inspire the lead. He ends up leaving the series for a few volumes but returns better than ever. He’s got a very confident demeanor to him which is important and the guy is an ace in soccer.

Additionally, he is able to fight physically. This comes in handy as he has to save someone from getting bullied. Even when he was outnumbered 8 to 1 the guy held his own. Shigeki never ran from a challenge and only continued to get better and better at the series went on. That’s why he was my favorite character, he left a real impact here.

Tatsuya is the other rival but he doesn’t hold his own quite as well as Shigeki. The main reason for that he that Tatsuya tends to lose sight of what’s really important a few times. He gets jealous of Sho and tries to show up Shigeki on a few occasions. Things never work out for him so he inevitably gets upset and starts playing rather sloppy. It’s not a trait that’s good for the rival since you can’t take him nearly as serious after that. It also happens to Tatsuya more than once which is always a bit worrisome.

I still liked him in the end but those scenes really did a number on the guy. Now that he’s more confident in his own abilities I expect he would look a lot better in the sequel. Then there’s Tsubasa who has a run rivalry with Daichi. Both of them are goalie/keepers for the team so naturally each one wants to be the starter. Interestingly even by the end of the series it’s hard to say who the better player is. I would give the edge to Tsubasa because I found him to be more consistent but it’s really close.

It’s not as decisive as you would expect and due to that both of them get big roles in the final match as they alternate. Tsubasa did start for more periods in the match though so take that as you will. Tsubasa is a very fiery character who is very loud and outspoken. Daichi is more of a quiet guy who tends to speak his mind rather than mincing words. So in their own ways they are both very confident in their abilities but go about showing it in different ways.

Technically Whistle’s cast is a fairly large one but it’s also large to the point where it’s hard to develop them all as much as in other titles. For example Haikyu is the sport title with the closest comparable cast I would say but the series really took the time to develop all of them. Granted, Haikyu is almost double Whistle’s size but by volume 20 I would say they already had more personality.

In Whistle if you weren’t one of the two keepers or rivals then you were most likely not a very notable player. The other kids were good enough to keep Sho out of the starting roster for a while but that’s about it. You wouldn’t really expect them to do much in an actual match though aside from yelling at Tatsuya at times when he would steal the spotlight. Usually they’d start losing points for the team which is when Sho would have to be called back in.

There are some supporting characters outside the team though like the various coaches in the series. They tended to be solid even if they didn’t make too much of an impact outside of the main one. The main coach always chose to believe in Sho and support him when it counted. She did take a bit of a risk near the end of the series but when it’s the main character it’s never a bad idea to try and let him surpass his limits. There was a pro player who happened to be in Sho’s neighborhood. That guy was nice he always helped give Sho some quality advice and told the kid not to give up.

Then you have Sho’s brother Ko who doesn’t do much for most of the series but he does come through when it counts at the end. Whistle goes for a rather emotional ending to be sure but one that has a satisfying ending. If the ending had been fully sad with no recovery at the end then that would have been more on the fishy side. As it stands, it works pretty well as a way to close things out.

Whistle’s artwork does look fairly old. It reminds you of something like Saint Seiya only without the fight scenes of course. It doesn’t hold up to a lot of newer titles but it isn’t bad. You can still recognize all of the characters pretty easily and the soccer games have a proper amount of intensity. The manga isn’t actually as old as it looks but it could be an intentional style choice I suppose or it’s from an artist who grew up drawing in that style so he just stayed in that style.

With 24 volumes at the ready you can expect a whole lot of matches throughout the series. It also gives the author time to let the characters just have some fun and dialogue outside of the matches too. We have time for the heroes to enjoy some good food and hang out. Some titles don’t have a whole lot of time for that so it’s a pretty balanced set up. With this many volumes over 10 years it can be easy to forget some of the early opponents though but the you won’t forget Sho’s struggles.

Part of why the main characters are all so memorable is because they got such strong character arcs. Each of them had to deal with something. Sho had to deal with his lack of skills, Daichi had to deal with improving his skills and not relying on only hunches, Tsubasa had to deal with everyone always underestimating him, Tatsuya had to deal with self confidence, and Shigeki had to deal with his rich father who owned another soccer club. There was definitely a lot going on here so even if you don’t remember some of the specific matches it was a lot of fun.

Overall, Whistle is definitely a very good series that I would recommend. It’s a very easy read and like with most sport titles there is a ton of replay value here. There may not be anything super deep or genre breaking going on here but you know that in each volume you can expect some high quality soccer content. It would have been nice to perhaps have seen a time skip where Sho is now one of the best players out there but I guess that will be a job for the sequel series. It would be nice to see Sho’s hard work pay off at some point since so far he has only made some progress. If you like sports or a good story then you should definitely check this one out, the writing is always consistent.

Overall 7/10