Do you follow anime, are you aware of what’s hip and happening? I do, and let me tell you, Blue Lock is both hip and happening. As a chronic hipster I tend to be a bit skeptical of the new big thing. I won’t automatically reject it, but I often find better shows elsewhere. I think my symptoms are getting milder because I actually kind of dig this one. Regardless of how my Saturday goes I know I’ve got the new Blue Lock episode to look forward to. I can hit the bong, make some popcorn, sit down on my couch, and watch some dumbass cocky kids play sportsball. It’s a guaranteed good time.

Because I enjoy the anime so much I ended up giving the manga a shot. I’ve admittedly spoiled the rest of the anime by doing so, but I don’t mind. It was a pretty good read. Now that I’m caught up with it I want to talk about it a bit, so here we are. By the way, I won’t be talking about the events in the manga past what the anime covers. However, I will show some panels from the later chapters without context. Do with thar information what you will. With that out of the way, let’s get into it.

The Quest to Be the Best

Blue Lock is an inspirational tale about how Isagi Yoichi tries to become the best soccer player in the world through a revolutionary vore method. He is placed in a perpetual tournament arc against the best young strikers Japan has. This perpetual tournament arc is known as Blue Lock. It’s a well funded facility meant to take 300 kids and produce one world class striker. If Isagi wants to be the best, he must devour the skills and dreams of 299 other people to do so. Well, realistically he only plays against a portion of the contestants, as some of those fuckers just take an L off-screen. But he uh, gets to devour the skills of the people who devoured the people off screen. That’s a lot of devouring.

Trust me I could keep going easily. Isagi tries to devour a lot of dudes and they all want to eat his ass back. I’ll be honest though, I think Isagi’s going to devour them harder. He is the protagonist after all. All his bitches want to top him, but they got to wait in line.

Questionable connotations aside, what does devouring actually mean? Well, as I understand it they mean to take advantage of another player’s skills and plays and use it for yourself. Another person may not play in a way that’s necessarily optimal for you, but if you devour them you can make it work for you. Furthermore, you learn everything you can from what that person does well. Reproduce whatever they do well that’s within your ability to do so. Whatever quality of another can be used to your advantage will be.

As ridiculous as the whole devouring thing gets some times, there’s definitely some truth to it. The road to being the best goes through other people. Figuring out how another person found success gets you closer to finding your own. This doesn’t just apply to sportsball either. Breaking down what makes an artist’s work look good is a great step to making your own better. The same could be said for countless other crafts. Regardless of how talented you are, there is always something you can learn from another. Let them become your strength. You don’t have to something so dramatic as devouring them, but it might not be a bad idea~

By the way isn’t it kind of strange how everyone just happens to use the same words for the same idea? Naruhaya, Isagi, Barou, and damn near everyone else seemed to have come to the conclusion that “devoured” is a normal word to use. Like, where the hell does that come from? Did Ego mention it earlier and I’m just completely forgetting about that? That’s completely plausible, but that’s not the only time people do shit like that. They have all this ridiculous terminology for people’s abilities and traits or whatever and they just all happen to agree on the same ridiculous phrase. Reo thinks he’s a chameleon and now everyone thinks so too because reasons? I guess it makes sense from an audience perspective to keep the buzzwords consistent, but it makes them sound less like actual people.

All this devouring stuff begs the question, what can we gain from consuming Blue Lock? Perhaps we can treat the series like a self-help book and get some life advice from it. Let’s try that. What can we do if we want to live our best lives? With Ego’s Blue Lock plan you can find your way! Starting with step one, believing in yourself!

So to be the best you must be a narcissistic asshole, got it. Take notes kids! But seriously, this series’ emphasis on ego is its most subversive aspect. Who needs friendship and teamwork when you can make it happen yourself? Why should team members get along when they can constantly undermine and one up each other instead? These are the hard hitting questions that Blue Lock asks us.

Real talk I think there’s some merit to this whole ego thing. As long as that ego’s backed up with some actual evidence it can be a powerful tool. Even when there’s nothing backing it up it can be powerful. There is absolutely a point where too much ego hurts more than it helps. However, most of the Blue Lock kids have too little of it at the start. Chigiri barely even had the motivation to play at all, and Nagi was just here for the hell of it. Isagi took an L because he trusted a teammate to score more than himself. Sometimes passing is the right move. However, if there’s an opening to score a striker should be able to make it happen themself. Or at least that makes sense to me as someone who barely knows anything about soccer. I played it a bit after school in like, 2nd grade and that’s about it. It sounds reasonable and that’s good enough for me.

You can’t make it to the top if you don’t believe that you can get there. How can you succeed if you can’t even visualize what success looks like? Will you even know what success is if you got it? That brings me to step two, finding your weapon!

All this talk about weapons, destroying the enemy, revolutions, and all that shit with a Japanese flag in the background… well, let’s just not read too much into that so I can still like the series. It’s just a bit of national pride, no biggie. If Japan wants to rebuild their empire through football and just that all power to them. I don’t know their intention for sure so I’ll leave it at that. But uh, let it be known that what I could read into it isn’t particularly pleasant. Moving on~

If you are a striker then you have a weapon. Whether you are conscious of it or not it exists. There is something unique to you that you are utilizing to succeed. If you’re able to identify that special strength and cultivate it you will be in a good spot.

It should be noted that finding your weapon is not exclusive to strikers. There are unique strengths within you that can be cultivated towards any goals… that said weapon would realistically apply to. Direct shots and spatial awareness aren’t going to fix your marriage after all. Actually wait… maybe they could… Not the way Isagi’s used them though. Notice how Isagi doesn’t even have a girlfriend? L bozo, this is Bachira’s Barou’s chance!

One thing that must be remembered is that everyone else has a special weapon as well. As such, it is a waste to get hung up on what weapons you lack. It is possible that you may never be able to do certain things as well as another. However, there also exist certain things that they cannot do better than you. Find what you can do and build on it, that is the Blue Lock way.

If you want to learn more tips to success I suggest reading Blue Lock yourself. Ego’s message on the nature of luck is particularly insightful! Once you buy the complete collection you too can discover the road to becoming the best version of yourself! And make sure to buy all the upcoming volumes too!

In all seriousness I do think Blue Lock has some genuinely good advice peppered throughout. If you ever wind up in an expensive sci-fi sportsball facility you’d best remember Ego’s words. On that note, something I find interesting about Blue Lock is its exploration of soccer’s funding. It would have been easy enough to brush over how the project was financed. That’s a boring detail for the adults to worry about. However, in this case the funding of the facility and the pressure of its sponsors is an important part of the plot. Hell, in the manga the story begins with a talk among the bigwigs running of the Japan Football Association.

Gotta love the financial incentives of sports. You don’t need to win to make money so some organizations don’t even try to win. I know there’s plenty of sports teams like that over here in ‘Murica. I mean, sure there’s some profit in winning but imagine having to pay talented people generous salaries and NOT winning! What a waste! Perhaps the president of the JFA is a *slight* caricature, this is a shounen manga after all. But if I had to bet the real difference between this guy and some of the actual big wigs is that he says the quiet part out loud.

In spite of it all Anri Teieri’s enthusiastic pitch actually worked. Wow, they agreed to a ridiculously expensive investment pitched by a woman who recently joined? And she’s the only woman in that room too?! That’s depressingly hard to believe. Either the board is more socially progressive than they look or Ego’s name carries a lot of cred. Honestly it seems like the answer just might be both. By the way, I think the anime made the right choice showing Isagi’s match before the meeting. It hooks the audience better by getting right into the action. But hey, dedicating the first page of the chapter to a pretty lady is fine with me.

Even though they were able to obtain funding initially that doesn’t mean the problem was resolved. The sponsors are on Ego’s ass every step of the way. He’s not showing results immediately, what the fuck? “Failure is not an option,” but let’s try to shut things down as quickly as possible to make sure they fail. This is understandable to an extent because that Blue Lock shit is expensive. I won’t say how this matter resolves because that involves manga spoilers, but it was rather fitting. Blue Lock neither rejects nor whole heartedly embraces the capitalist side of soccer. What it does do is highlight its presence in a far more direct way than any other sports series I’ve seen besides One Outs. Some people may find these parts to be boring distractions, but they’re kept brief and to the point. Capital’s kinda hard to ignore when it comes to pro-sports.

We’ll see where the story goes from here. I’m guessing Isagi will eventually win the world cup and become the best striker in the world or whatever. That seems like that’s kind of the whole point of the story after all, we get to see Isagi’s long journey from being a pretty good soccer player to the world’s best. But who knows, maybe Barou takes it somehow. Fucking Barou. Regardless, even if the story ends in a predictable manner that’s fine. The enjoyment I get from this series is more about seeing what it takes to get there. What he has to learn, who helps him get there, and how cool and kinda ridiculous the matches can be. That’s the Blue Lock way baby!

The Best of the like 300-something Characters

Like many sports series there are quite a few characters to consider in Blue Lock’s cast. There’s always someone new to face around the corner until Isagi reaches the top, but some characters seem to have more staying power than others. And some of them are kinda boring and one-dimensional so I don’t feel like even talking about them. Do I have anything to say about like, Naruhaya? No, fuck that kid. That’s what I’ve got to say about him. So if I don’t mention them here they’re probably not worth mentioning or mentioning their existence would be kind of a spoiler. Honestly the best characters of Blue Lock are all established early on any way. With that out of the way let’s talk about these dumbass kids.

Yoichi Isagi

Yoichi Isagi is our protagonist-kun who we kind of have to like to stick around. After all, we have to put up with his shit all series. He’s got that normal dude anime protagonist look, but it’s subtly different enough that he doesn’t look quite like anyone else. He’s got almost the same hair as Kageyama but his eyes leave a different impression. Isagi’s got big wide eyes that probably contribute to his spatial awareness. Those are some massive oculars. Real big ole’ voluptuous eyeballs he got there. And they’re blue too, which is coincidentally the same color as the title of the manga. I wonder what the blue is supposed to mean. I mean, blue fits Isagi and it fits the title but it’s hard for me to pinpoint why.

Isagi is neither the most athletic nor the most naturally talented player in the series. However, he’s always thinking of how to improve and how to make a better play. He succeeds by being a fucking nerd that knows how to position himself well and make a good play… except when he fucks up. But he always finds a way to nail it in the end… except for the times when the narrative demands he takes an L, but we all know that he’ll be able to pull through in the most important matches. That’s Isagi Yoichi, the guy who will probably make it to the top. He may seem normal at first, but his 500 IQ plays put him on top!!!!

Isagi is the better kind of self-insert protagonist, one that has his own defined personality but is easy to relate to in some respects. I’m a nerd with little physical talent so if I were to plausibly imagine myself as a pro soccer player I’d probably take a similar approach to him. If I wanted to succeed I’d rely a lot on my mind to do so. I imagine a lot of the fucking nerds reading this will feel a similar way. And if someone’s an actual soccer player they could probably learn something from Isagi’s approach. Probably. It seems like good advice but I don’t play soccer or football as you damn-near-everyone-else-but-American people call it. Regardless, Isagi’s cool with me. I’m usually not that into the “just a normal dude with a mostly normal personality” type characters, but he’s better than most of them. Also his ego leads him to some not normal places, which can be cool.

Meguru Bachira

I list Bachira next not necessarily because I think he’s the second most important character, but because he’s the one closest to Isagi. They do play off each other well both in-game and as characters. Perhaps it’s because they’re fucked up looking eyes of the abyss brothers. Or maybe it’s because they’re likeminded enough that they get along well, and whatever differences they do have tend to balance each other out. Bachira’s more of a free soul than Isagi, but Isagi being a nerd helps quite a bit too. Later on Bachira ends up feeling like he’s just one of many characters to occasionally give screen time, but you just know he’ll always be around. New guys come and go, and we see plenty about them. Bachira sticks around though. That counts for something. He’s got a hot artist mom, that also counts for something.

So what else is there to say about Bachira… well, he’s got a monster inside of him, that’s something I guess. It looks goofy ass fuck with the anime CGI honestly, but it looks better in the manga. We never know what that monster’s name is, could be Johan for all I know. Bachira came up with the monster idea with his mother’s influence, which is fine. What is not so fine for him is how isolated he felt when he couldn’t find other kids who matched his energy when it came to soccer. The monster inside him is both what makes his play special and what makes it hard to relate to others. Basically until Blue Lock he had to play with people who weren’t that good and weren’t that into it. I suppose it’s only natural he’d be fond of Isagi for being the first guy he met who could match his energy. I hope they win that world cup together~

Hyoma Chigiri

Chigiri’s got the best hair in the whole ass series and on those grounds alone he’s cool with me. People call him princess because of his androgynous face and well kept long hair and he doesn’t seem to be bothered at all. He’s not constantly trying to assert his masculinity, he doesn’t need to. He’ll kick ass on the field just fine regardless of what he’s called. He’s fast as fuck boiiiiiii

His character arc relating to his injury is the most compelling and well executed development this manga has shown so far. His legs which are his greatest asset are a potentially limited one. There’s always the possibility of another injury preventing him from playing soccer completely. Chigiri deciding to stop letting that fear of losing everything hold him back was great to see. Too bad Isagi’s probably going to take that top spot but uhh… maybe he can be part of the team too? They play off each other well after all.

Seishirou Nagi

You know, I like Nagi but it’s hard for me to actually come up with much to say about him. I can relate to his initially lazy attitude towards soccer and his arc about getting more fired up and shit. There’s also his totally platonic bromance with Reo to consider but I don’t really feel like talking about it. Maybe if they actually made Reo gay it’ll be worth talking about, but I don’t think they’ll go for it.

Nagi’s pretty easygoing and chill compared to most of Isagi’s other friends/rivals besides Bachira, which is good. He’s consistently cool when he plays soccer and all those unique plays he comes up with are entertaining. That’s good enough for me.

Shouei Barou

Fucking Barou, what a guy. I feel like I’ve mentioned him and shown panels with him in it a disproportionate amount. He’s one rival among many, and at this point Isagi’s more important to him than he is to Isagi. Poor man’s got a mostly unrequited crush, but uh… maybe he’ll get Isagi to notice him soon in the manga… we’ll see~

Honestly, Barou is a character I have a hard time taking completely seriously. He’s a self-proclaimed villain whose evil acts include being an asshole and stealing the ball. Many dumb lines have come from his mouth, more so than most of the cast. Also his fixation on Isagi kinda shatters his cool image. Isagi made Barou take an L and the man has not fully recovered since. If I were to say one thing I like about his character uhh…. well, seeing his ego break down and rebuild was kind of interesting. If they rebuilt it into something less stupid than the villain thing that could’ve been legitimately compelling. As is, he’s an entertaining character but not much more than that.

Rin Itoshi

Oh hey, another character that started getting harder to take seriously once they changed tunes after a setback. But that’s later on in the series so I won’t comment too much on that~ Regardless, suffice to say I think Rin is pretty similar to Barou. Both have higher baseline skills than Isagi and both are among his most important rivals. They’re also both assholes, though Barou’s more of the hot headed kinda asshole whereas Rin’s more of the coolheaded kind. One thing Rin has over Barou is having less dumb lines. On the flip side Barou doesn’t have a weird brother complex so it balances out.

Anri Teieri

Here’s our resident woman of the manga, Anri Teieri. She’s the newest member of the JFA, Ego’s assistant, Blue Lock staff member, Ego’s exposition reciever, and occasional pin-up model for the manga cover pages. She’s one of those ladies that has to do every job that feasibly could be given to her. She may not be in charge, but the whole thing would fall apart without her efforts. Many such women are in similar positions and we would be so much worse off without them. I hope Anri’s getting the pay that she deserves, but I somehow doubt it.

What’s there to say otherwise… well, she’s a woman. That’s a pretty rare sight in this series. Everyone else worth noting is like, either not a woman or they’re someone’s mother. So for the most part she’s the token woman, kind of like Kiyoko Shimizu from Haikyuu!! Honestly, I like Kiyoko more but that’s mostly because she’s more my type. Longish black hair AND glasses? Fuck yeah. Anri’s pretty cute too, but she’s just… kind of normal? Her normalcy acts as a good counterbalance for Ego and all, but that’s just within the context of this manga. Put her in a show with more competition in the female category and I probably wouldn’t give her too much thought. She hasn’t even had a dramatic backstory yet (to be fair, there’s still time). Still she naturally stands out in this series. Her being the only woman also makes her occasional sexualization feel a bit off-putting.

I have mixed feelings about fan service. There are lots of imbalances in the ways women are presented in media, that much is true. Women are frequently sexualized and objectified in a way that men rarely are. On the flip side, I can’t deny there’s a part of myself that enjoys seeing it sometimes. I am attracted to women, I like seeing tits and asses, and I like how ladies look when they show some skin. That one cover page where Anri’s a cheerleader wearing a short skirt and exposing her midriff? Pretty hot, not gonna lie. Sexuality is part of the human experience, and I don’t think we need to turn away from that completely. But if you’re doing a close-up of her ass in a scene that has absolutely nothing to do with it and you never do anything like that for the guys it’s kinda sus. I believe fan service can have a place, but you gotta remember that women are people not sex dolls and that men can be sexy too. We don’t have to erase desire, but I want to see some more balance here.

To be clear I do not think Blue Lock is the worst offender by any means. Besides this one questionable panel above and those pin-up cover pages Anri’s usually drawn normally. I think the creators view Anri as a person. She’s certainly attractive, but her importance to the series goes significantly beyond her sexuality. Also this series has plenty of scenes showing shirtless dudes with abs so it’s not like there’s a complete imbalance. But when the shirtless dudes show up their sexuality is not given special attention. It’s not the worst thing in the world, and I don’t think this problem ruins the series or anything. What I will say is that manga panels zooming in on a woman’s ass are kinda asinine. If her sexuality is completely irrelevant to the events of the scene and the shot holds no meaning besides “ass sexy” then think twice about doing it. That’s enough hand wringing about two panels though, let’s talk about the guy that’s shown in the page right after this one.

Jinpachi Ego

Here’s Ego, the smart but strange guy in charge of the Blue Lock project. He’s the mentor here to guide all the unpolished gems into crushed dreams and a few shining diamonds. He’ll do so with a Cheshire Cat grin and a ridiculous pose, and I love that for him. His eccentricity keeps his speeches entertaining, and the content of them is usually quite good. I don’t play soccer but a lot of his advice seems reasonable and oftentimes applicable outside of the field. I like him quite a bit, but I’m hard pressed to come up with much else to say about him. He’s not some super deep compelling character or whatever, but honestly does he need to be? I vote no. Also Hiroshi Kamiya voicing him is an absolute treat. It’s perfect casting.

So yeah, that’s the end of all the Blue Lock characters I feel like talking about. Blue Lock’s characters are not especially complex, and half of the time when they get character development things just get dumber. This aspect is part of why I don’t consider this series truly great in spite of my enjoyment of it. Everyone’s got one or two gimmicks to remember them by, and maybe they’ll develop more if they’re the lucky few that get more screen time. I suppose when Blue Lock has so many characters it’s hard to let any of them truly get the time they need to become more than that. Some characters disappear, but someone new comes in short order.

To Blue Lock’s credit I think the characters that get more attention are usually the better ones. I mean, I’m glad we get Chigiri as a major character instead of fucking Raichi or whatever. But still, characters are not exactly Blue Lock’s strength. To be fair I feel that way about most shounen stuff I’ve seen/read, so some of it may just be personal preference.

Honestly the Art is the Best Part

Blue Lock is not especially impressive story and character wise, but it has a certain weapon that keeps it consistently engaging. That weapon being Yuusuke Nomura the exceptional artist that can successfully sell you on all the crazy shit this series throws at us. Oftentimes it elevates the wild stuff in the dialogue to whole new levels. Who needs substance when you’ve got such incredible style?

Yuusuke Nomura’s got it all, great detail, great expressions, great composition, and a great sense for movement. Every goal looks truly epic under this guy’s pen.

Now if only soccer looked this cool in real life… alas. To be fair the mangaka’s exaggerating aspects of the real sport for impact. If there was nothing genuinely cool within soccer to build off of this manga probably wouldn’t work. The intensity of the expressions and kicks come across so well in the art that it’s easier to buy into what’s going on. It may not give me that much to think about afterwards, but holy shit is it fun to see. The animators manage to capture most of these moments quite well, hence why the anime works for me. You just know the animation was only able to shine so well because they had such a great source to build off of though. There’s nothing particularly original about the way it was adapted, which is fine for the record. In this case trying to recreate the magic is probably their best bet.

Anything I could criticize about this manga’s art would be in the realm of nitpicking. It really is that good. However, I do have one nit I’d very much like to pick, and that’s how Yuusuke Nomura draws this dude.

This is like Sister Krone from Promised Neverland all over again. Why must these manga artists draw the Black characters as freaky looking caricatures when everyone else looks normal. It’s not like every manga artist does this, but it just makes me sad when it does happen. Is that really how they see Black people? It’s just icky to me. To be fair he drew Pelè relatively normally, but Pelè’s a real person you can use photo references to draw from. When tasked with designing an OC Black dude he came up with… this.

Fucking hell.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Blue Lock in order to write this post. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing because Blue Lock’s the kind of series that gets worse the more you think about it. If I just roll with whatever happens it’s a good time, but there’s really not that much more to it. It’s good at making the events of the game understandable and breaking down what you need to improve at it. It’s great at being cool to look at. It’s not so good at writing characters that can be taken completely seriously. And that’s fine, if they want to eat each other’s asses all day they can do just that.

It’s very much a shounen for better or worse, and all the crazy dialogue can be explained with that in mind. The characters don’t literally have superpowers, but their abilities and character arcs are written to be reminiscent of that. The end result is something that’s easy for the target audience to understand, but probably comes off really strangely to those who aren’t familiar with the genre. I’m really not a huge shounen guy, but I’m not sure I’d actually like it better if they played it straight. After all you won’t catch me watching actual soccer too often. I think the buzzwords and the lightning eyes make it more engaging in spite of it all.

Imperfect as it may be I’m going to keep watching/reading until the end. What kind of cool shit does the series have in store for us? What kind of dumb shit is around the corner? Guess we’ll have to stay tuned to find out. I suspect the manga will keep going for a while. The anime will probably keep getting new seasons as well. If you’re a fan of the series I think you’ll be in good hands unless the anime has production problems… which very well might happen. Regardless, the dumbass kids playing sportsball ride will continue and I’m here for it.