Blue Lock is a sports thriller anime for the shonen demographic, based on the manga series written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Yusuke Nomura. It follows a young striker named Yoichi Isagi as he participates in a battle royale style contest with a total of 300 contestants to become the striker who can lead the Japanese team to nationals.
However, while season 1 leaned in heavily on the themes typical of shonen anime, its second season seems to have forgotten that Blue Lock is a shonen anime about soccer. The soccer elements may still be there, but the demographic seems to have been lost with the rise of the contestants’ egos.
Shonen Anime All Share Some Themes
Here’s What Shonen Anime Is All About
Shonen anime is targeted at young male readers, unlike seinen which is targeted at adult men. These anime are designed with an audience of male viewers from 9 to 18-years-old in mind. However, this is just the intended demographic. Anyone from any age or gender is more than welcome to watch shonen anime.
Anime that fall under this umbrella tend to have specific themes in common. Weekly Shonen Jump lists these themes as “friendship, perseverance, and victory,” while CoroCoro Comic instead lists the common themes as “courage, friendship, and fighting friendship”. Shonen series are often full of action and adventure, but can have more slice-of-life or realistic elements as well.
Related
50 Best Shonen Anime Of All Time
From Dragon Ball to Naruto, anime’s shonen series tend to be some of the most popular in the medium. But which are the best of them all?
Shonen protagonists tend to be cool, confident, and willing to take on the world, even if they may be afraid. They may appear to be normal at first glance, but often they have hidden abilities deep down that make them stand out in their own way. Their story arcs often follow the hero’s journey and tend to have happy endings, though this isn’t a necessity for shonen anime and manga.
Blue Lock Season 1 Locks In to Shonen Tropes
Team Z Fights to Overcome the Competition
Blue Lock’s first season introduced the concept of the Blue Lock competition to its viewers. Action was kept high as the strikers of Team Z fought against stronger opponents in a battle that was essentially life or death, at least for their dreams. Although the series began by eliminating one of the potential Team Z candidates, the majority of the First Selection was used to highlight the way the team worked together.
Friendships were formed as the strikers of Team Z played together, learning about each other and challenging themselves to be better than their peers. However, at times, this rivalry turned outright hostile. Jingo Raichi is a hot-headed striker who was frequently frustrated by having to play on the defensive part of his team instead of going for goals himself. He would often pick fights with his teammates.
Related
Why BLUELOCK Is More Than a Sports Anime
In a crowded field of sports anime, Blue Lock stands heads-and-shoulders above the competition.
Wataru Kuon took that hostility to a new level with his desperation to stay in the competition. He was even willing to sell out his teammates’ strengths and weaknesses to have a chance to move on to the Second Selection. Ultimately, he recognized his wrongs and fought to help his teammates, even if he received a red card in the process. Though he didn’t last much longer in the competition, Kuon chose his teammate’s success over his own safety, highlighting the themes of friendship and camaraderie.
The Second Selection leads the contestants to make new allies. Once enemies from outside Team Z join Isagi’s team, proving their own strengths and weaknesses among the heroes fans have grown to know and love. Along the way, Blue Lock’s first season was filled with intense, high-action soccer matches that kept viewers on the edge of their seats, rooting for their favorite characters to survive.
The shonen themes were slightly undermined by the character of Jinpachi Ego, who organized the Blue Lock competition. His focus on the growth of strikers as singular entities and his emphasis on their ego shunned the noble themes of friends growing alongside each other that shonen is built on. This only got worse as the season progressed and shifted into season 2, where standing out and proving your ego became everything.
Yoichi Isagi Began as a Near Perfect Shonen Hero
Isagi Is Exactly What Shonen Fans Are Looking for, to an Extent
Blue Lock as a whole fits the common shonen tropes that fans have grown to love. However, Yoichi Isagi, the series’ protagonist, also proved to be a perfect shonen hero, fitting many of the common tropes associated with the genre.
In the beginning, Isagi hardly stood out. He’s the second to the worst player with no noticeable skills of his own. He has no secret weapon he can put to use to help his team through the First Selection. However, this begins to change as Isagi realizes he does have his own strengths and works to improve them. He’s more than just an ordinary striker. He has excellent spacial awareness, which he later pairs with his knowledge of of-the-ball movements and his desire to devour others’ skills to improve his own game.
Related
Isagi Yoichi is the MVP of Blue Lock Season 2 Episode 3
With Team A’s victory on the line, Isagi Yoichi’s ability to assert himself and coexist with his team was all that stood between defeat and victory.
He is a soft-spoken but good-natured soul, looking for the best way for his team to get along and work together. He starts as a near nobody and works his way into greatness with the help of those around him.
However, as Jinpachi highlights the importance of one’s ego for this tournament, Isagi begins to turn away from focusing on succeeding as a team. It’s no longer “all for one, and one for all”. Instead, every match is a chance to prove his own worth. His team may help, but it’s ultimately an attempt for Isagi to get himself noticed. Isagi has begun to turn his back on shonen hero tropes. Even if he still looks to have good relations with his teammates and work together, it’s ultimately for his own selfish gain.
Blue Lock Season 2 Turns Its Back on Shonen Tropes
Ego Overcomes the Power of Teamwork
When the first season of Blue Lock came to a close, several contestants had managed to make it through the Second Selection. However, many others were eliminated, including familiar faces that fans have grown to love. For example, fan favorite Rensuke Kunigami was among the contestants who were eliminated from the competition.
The second season begins by highlighting the six contestants who stand above the rest. Isagi’s friend Seishiro Nagi and rival Rin Isagi were among those chosen to be the top six of Blue Lock. Though Isagi had managed to improve by leaps and bounds since he first began playing at Blue Lock, he was not able to stand out enough to be recognized. Rather, he’s fallen short yet again. This seems to be a common factor as the series progresses.
The competition pairs the top six into three teams of two who the remaining Blue Lock contestants can choose to join. These teams take on each other to try and defeat the others in single elimination rounds for those teams, to prove which potential team has the most possible chemistry working together.
Related
Blue Lock Season 2, Episode 4 “Chameleon” Recap & Spoilers
Reo and Nagi’s relationship takes center stage in Season 2, Episode 4 of Blue Lock.
Like before, the theme of one’s own ego and surpassing those around you takes center stage. Those outside the top six need to step up their game to prove they’re capable enough to be noticed by the elite players. They need the ego to prove they’re just as good as the top six, if not better. Teamwork may be needed to win these competitions, but there’s a focus on oneself that can’t be ignored.
In addition, many shonen anime have lighter moments to lessen the tension between fights and action-packed scenes. Blue Lock moves from one match to the next with little breathing time in between. The bonds that were made between the members of Team Z have fallen into obscurity to highlight the necessity to stand out as a single striker. Ego has overcome teamwork.
Blue Lock Has Failed Its Shonen Roots
Ego Is the Ultimate Victor
Blue Lock may have the courage and perseverance that shonen builds its roots on, but it leaves out the key component of friendship and growing as a group. Jinpachi Ego’s obsession with a single striker carrying an entire team to victory has crushed the budding friendships of Team Z, turning former allies into rivals or, worse, enemies. The only victors can be the ones with a strong enough ego to use their teammates and opponents to build on their own strengths.
Though Yoichi Isagi has the potential to be a proper shonen protagonist, Blue Lock as a whole has crumbled into a fierce competition where only one soul can stand out apart from the crowd. As of right now, that MVP is rarely Isagi. He can’t seem to overcome his obstacles and the friends he needs to support him are few and far between. The shonen themes of teamwork and friendship have fallen prey to the strength of a single ego over the good of a team. It’s sad to say, but this soccer anime has forgotten the shonen roots it was built upon.
High school soccer players from across Japan gather for a controversial project designed to create the best and most egoistic striker in the world.
- Release Date
- October 8, 2022
- Cast
- Ricco Fajardo , Drew Breedlove , Alex Horn , Mark Allen Jr.
- Seasons
- 2
- Studio
- Franchise
- Characters By
- Creator
- Distributor
- Main Characters
- Production Company
- Story By
- Writers
- Taku Kishimoto
- Directors
- Tetsuaki Watanabe , Shunsuke Ishikawa
Discover more from reviewer4you.com
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
