Why Blue Lock Might Be the Next Big Sports Anime
Blue Lock #BlueLock
Sports anime can be quite the fickle beast. A lot of series in the genre fizzle out quickly and quietly. Others get that burst of fame before receding into obscurity. However, sometimes, a series gets just lucky enough to strike it big. In recent years, there’s been Free! and Haikyuu!!, as well as Yuri on Ice and Kuroko no Basket, which have managed to gain a pretty massive following with both hardcore and casual watchers. There are also the smaller hits over the last few years, like Tsurune and Bakuten, with their small but mighty fanbases. However, since Haikyuu and Yuri on Ice, there hasn’t been one of those big hit sports anime.
It isn’t due to a lack of interest. Plenty of viewers love sports anime for a variety of reasons. It’s just that there hasn’t been anything quite at the level of the previous big league titles. Until Blue Lock aired this season.
Blue Lock is a series that follows the plight of high school soccer player Yoichi Isagi. A striker for his school team, he decides to pass to a teammate during the last moments of a game instead of taking a shot himself. This ultimately causes his team to lose the game. He’s upset= by this, but when he gets home, a letter from the Japan Football Federation is waiting for him, inviting him to be part of a project known as Blue Lock. He is put into a prison-like facility with 299 other strikers from all over the country, and they are asked to compete for the chance to be the striker for the national team, and maybe finally lead the country to win a World Cup. The catch, though? If a player gets cut, they lose the chance to play on the national team. Forever.
From the synopsis alone, you might be able to tell that this series is a little different from others in the genre. Most people are familiar with the lighter side of sports anime, the series that focus on the bond between teams, working towards a common goal, and the way teams share successes and failures. Blue Lock is a bloodbath by comparison. It spits on the idea of teamwork, loyalty, and friendship; it’s a series about how champions have to be selfish.
Blue Lock Doesn’t Follow the Path of Classic Sports Anime
This is one point in the series’ favor, though. To become the next big thing, you have to find a new angle, and Blue Lock found one in telling the story not of a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed newbie player or a prodigy, but of an average player looking to push his limits. Isagi starts out as 298 of 300 players. He’s not average in the Blue Lock. He is pitifully terrible. To improve, he must learn to be selfish. He must become someone who takes the shot instead of passing the ball, he has to become the kind of person who doesn’t care about whose dreams he crushes on his way to victory. Watching this struggle of ethics is a new spin on the usual struggle for self-improvement in sports anime. How far is Isagi (or any of the other players) willing to go to win? Are any of the friendships he makes in the Blue Lock real? Does he really want to give up his ideals just to make it to the top?
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There are also the stakes of the story. Admittedly, most sports anime can feel too low stakes for viewers. There’s a lot of “we have to win because this is the third years’ last chance!” and “I need to win to show the world what I can do!” These aren’t bad stakes; they’re just not very exciting. However, Blue Lock decided to raise those stakes. You don’t win? Screw your dreams, you’ll never play professionally! It crams 300 players who all want to play for the national team in a facility and tells them to fight for it or forget about it, and you start out knowing that 299 of these people will never see their dream realized. This fixes a major problem that most sports anime naysayers have, and that’s that sports anime has no stakes for the characters.
While the story itself is a big selling point, the setup of it is, as well. In recent years, the 12-episode season has dominated sports anime. It’s not unusual to see multiple series a season that falls flat because they simply don’t have enough time to explore their concept and characters, and part of this is due to having these short runs. However, Blue Lock is already slated for a 25-episode run in its first season. It’s breaking that 12-episode mold; this is partially because it’s an adaptation of a manga and has the means to have a longer season (and a setup for seasons past the first) but regardless of this, a long run is far more appealing to viewers. It’s one of the reasons series like Haikyuu!! and Kuroko no Basket found a home with anime fans. A longer season usually makes a show feel less rushed and gives more time for development and for viewers to connect with the characters and story.
Blue Lock Can Appeal to More Than Just Anime Fans
Perhaps most important, though, is that Blue Lock is a series that can appeal to more than just sports anime fans. With a darker and higher stakes story, fans of traditional shounen, drama, and action anime might find it particularly interesting. People who don’t typically watch anime can get in on the fun, as Blue Lock isn’t a series that requires a lot of knowledge of Japanese culture to understand and has a fairly straightforward, action-packed plot revolving around a sport most people have a bit of knowledge about. And if you don’t? That’s fine, too! Blue Lock isn’t entirely accurate in portraying soccer, and in a way, that’s okay. It adds to the feeling of building “soccer from zero,” as the series says. These characters don’t know anything about soccer, and they won’t until they’re broken down and rebuilt by the ringleader of this show. It adds to the spectacle of it all. And that spectacle is something that can be entertaining for almost anyone.
Blue Lock has set itself up to be a hit by putting spins on the traditional sports anime story, posing a triumphant return of the 25-episode season, and expanding its reach outside an audience of sports anime fans. It’s a hopeful contender for the next smash-hit sports anime. Perfect timing, too; with Haikyuu!! having ended in 2020, there’s a space needing to be filled. The real question is: will Blue Lock finish strong and find its place, or will it pass the ball instead of taking the shot?