Blue Lock Review

Blue Lock takes the one idea every sports anime avoids, that teamwork is overrated, and builds a series on it. Jinpachi Ego, a gaunt coach hired by the Japan Football Union, gathers three hundred high school forwards in a sealed facility and makes them compete to be the one striker Japan will build around. Losers are barred from the national team for life. Yoichi Isagi, a thoughtful player who passed when he should have shot, has to learn to want the goal more than the win.

The first season is loud, stylish and very good fun. Matches are staged as psychological duels, the players' egos appear as monsters and puzzle pieces, and the rival cast, Bachira, Nagi, Barou and the icy Rin Itoshi, is designed to be argued about. Critics liked its energy and flagged its production shortcuts even then. The second season, the match against Japan's under twenty side, is where the shortcuts take over: long passages are held on still frames and pans, and several climactic plays land as slideshows. The writing stays sharp enough to keep it watchable, and the character work survives, but the show that sold itself on explosive goals too rarely gets to draw them.