“To the ones who end up passing, we’ll be counting on you in the future. To the ones who end up failing, turn that failure into strength needed to become a big player, and best everyone around you. Win, and prove us wrong. We, who failed to see how strong you would become, and then return.”
[FUKUDA, Tatsuya. Ao Ashi]

In advance, I apologize to you, reader. This review is definitely huge, even by my wordy standards. However, I ask that you trust me and read until the end. There are some minor spoilers too. I believe you will not regret it.

It was May 2021. There I was, innocently wandering the corners of MyAnimeList, when my eyes fell on a piece of news. Ao Ashi, a seinen football manga, had received an announcement of an anime adaptation for 2022. Until then unknown to me, the synopsis of the work and the combination of genres aroused a mix of feelings when I read it for the first time, and, whether for quality expectation or not, Ao Ashi became one of my most anticipated shows for the following year.

I'm Brazilian. Of course, given my nationality, it's to be expected that I have cultural differences from the majority of the community on this site, mainly because there are a lot of people from North America. And one of these differences may be how football is present in our daily lives. Like countries like England and Germany, we Brazilians are victims of an immeasurable passion for football and this sport is ingrained in our culture, just as basketball is popular for Americans. But anyway, why am I writing this? For the same reason as the previous paragraph: justify my expectations. If you are a reader from another country, perhaps the beginning of this review is not so relatable. However, if you are my countryman, it is very likely that the Inazuma Eleven anime is very familiar to you. Ah, childhood... I remember coming home every day, exhausted from school, and turning on the television to watch the nostalgic football anime that was one of my first. Every day, I got emotional watching public television and frantically cheering for Endou Mamoru and his teammates. Several young people in my country did the same. Combining the dubbing with the perfect audience that would see a cultural resonance, Inazuma Eleven became extremely popular in my country. Time passed, those good memories remained, and Inazuma Eleven, even though it is a work very much aimed at children, full of plot armor and nakama power, still resides in my nostalgic memories.

Ao Ashi was a hope. Years after watching (and re-watching) Inazuma Eleven, it was the first soccer anime that appeared before my eyes. When I heard about its adaptation, the first thing that came to my mind was hoping that Production I.G. was the studio in charge. A renowned studio, among the most capable in the entire industry and responsible for successful projects such as Haikyuu!!, Kuroko no Basket, Ballroom and Youkoso and Kaze wa Tsuyoku Fuiteru. If you've ever watched any of these works, you know what their team is capable of delivering in a sports anime. And enormous was my happiness to discover that, in fact, this was the studio responsible. Six months and twenty-four episodes later, the smile is shaky on my face. The joy had turned to disappointment, and the culprit, who I could least have imagined, was the studio itself. However, before diving into the reasons why I find Ao Ashi a disappointment, I'd like to first address what made me smile while watching the work. That is to say, before dumping my criticisms against the team, I need to address the other side of the double-edged sword.

Ao Ashi is the story of a career. More precisely, building a career. Like many of the industry's sports works, Ao Ashi's structure doesn't stray too far from the more orthodox formula of a dreamy protagonist in his innocent sporting ambitions, a particular talent that's unique to him within the cast, and a narrative which is scaled from there. However, the first great merit of this work, I must say, is not in the palette that the author uses, but in the extremely competent portrait that he paints using these colors. Aoi Ashito, our protagonist, is the center of the portrait. Owner of the career in question, he is definitely, by far, the best character in the entire work, and it's all due to the development and maturation that is imprinted on Aoi, both as a player and as a person. At the beginning of the work, Aoi is truly annoying to the audience. An immature young man, a symbol of individualism and a key archetype of what we see in many beginner soccer players, egocentric and fanatical about dribbling, scoring goals and making plastic plays. A cocky teenager who nurtures unshakable self-confidence, but whose talent is barely effective in the face of his ability to lose his temper and put the concept of reading a game into practice. A purely instinctive player, truly promising, but equally lacking in individual and collective tactical vision, relationship skills and judgment.

The list of how we can describe Aoi's shortcomings at the beginning of the story is endless, even if we recognize his potential as a player. And Ao Ashi's portrayal is frightening at first hand for how different Ashito looks at the end of the 24 episodes. He doesn't fully mature, obviously. It would be implausible if this happened in just a few months. However, each grouping of episodes forces him into a different environment, where he is forced to find solutions on his own and add new values to his tactics and relationship. Aoi learns to bond with his teammates and accept them as teammates or even teachers. Aoi swallows his arrogance and starts to observe the tactics of other players in order to improve his own. Aoi faces the challenge of following and interpreting a coach's directions. Aoi understands the value of people who have always supported him in pursuing his career, whether it's his family or Hana, who is now by his side. Most of all, Aoi deals with the drama of not being the center of the spotlight, given his change of position and the catharsis that comes with being moved to a region of the soccer field where he doesn't want to play.

When I watched the end of episode 13, I was truly surprised. Just like Shoyou Hinata had to abdicate Spiker's position in Haikyuu!! in order to be productive for the Karasuno team, Aoi gets a huge shock when he is pulled out of the forward position. While the story partially squanders that decision by returning the lead role and “shirt 10” to Aoi a few episodes later, the challenge the character is put into has a lot to tell us about what happens to many of the players around the world. Sergio Ramos, one of the greatest defenders in football history, played full-back early in his career. Joshua Kimmich, now one of Bayern Munchen's greats names, has recently migrated from right-back to midfield. And, of course, there are players who work in different tactical positions on the field, as is the case of Kevin de Bruyne, David Alaba, Lionel Messi himself and many others. This experimentation by coaches is something extremely common and routine in football, and linked to it is the observation that a good part of professional players has already faced at least one change in career position. Togashi himself, the protagonist's roommate, underwent the same radical change of position. Few of them were as drastic as what happens to Aoi, it's true, but at the core I ask you: how does the athlete deal with it? Not all aspirants are able to accept without hindrance that someone else shapes the vision they fantasized about. Ego fights and ascendancy are common in this regard, and instabilities like Aoi's are even more so. Catharsis humanizes the character, who is forced to mature and relearn football from the beginning. A heavy blow, before which Hana's concern and the presence of Aoi's mother were necessary for the protagonist to get back on track.

Speaking of support, this is another factor represented in a very realistic and competent way in the work. If you, the reader, are familiar with life stories and accounts of football players, I'm sure you've already realized how important the support network is in the career of most professional players. Many of the most renowned in my country gave interviews like this. The first point they always touch on is family or someone close to them who was able to provide support when needed. Marcelo, a Real Madrid idol, quoted his grandfather several times when he told the world about the rise in his career and his aspirations. Gabriel Jesus' mother played a key role in her son's support and his success until he reached stardom, today in the Premier League. For that reason, his celebrations are always simulating the act of calling her.

This is exactly why the family drama in Ao Ashi moves us. Becoming a football player is not something easy as many project and banally mock in the streets under reproduced lines of “make millions in money to chase a ball”. Pursuing this career, like all others, means giving up many things. A large portion of football players do not have complete student education, given the need to embrace the scarce opportunities that appear to them. Living football means being away from the family and letting go of the life he built previously in favor of a regulated diet, regular training and a responsibility towards the institution and his body as an athlete. At the same time, supporting your children in this career means conflicting with the desire to be close to them. That's how Aoi's mother behaves, and that's probably how the relatives of several players feel. Ashito hails from Ehime and is one of the few on the team who can't visit his family on holidays. It's a tough distance away, certainly.

However, giving Aoi the necessary push to pursue her career is also a blind shot. As I mentioned earlier, turning pro in football is all about opportunities. Have you ever heard of the maxim that “in the streets, there are many more talented players than Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo”? Well, that statement makes perfect sense. If we talk about raw, uncut talent, there are probably a multitude of extremely capable people just waiting to be discovered. However, the selection of these players and the opportunity they have is not always fair. Your career only takes off if you take advantage of these opportunities, and sometimes even that doesn't happen. Football is extremely dependent. It depends on the coach who chooses to count on you, when the selection will take place and, above all, on your psychological state. Transplanting this reality to the screens, what guarantee that Aoi will succeed if his family supports him? It is certainly not a certain event. Support from your family is an investment, not a debt.

Young people who risk everything in pursuit of professionalism and pursue a career sooner or later become aware of this, and this is also the genesis of the junior behavior that Togashi observes in EP20. After all, what's more worth it? Results or sports performance? Is it better to focus on winning matches or on acquiring professional prominence? The chance that players have can slip away at any moment, so it must be taken advantage of. If they get promoted, a team's difficulty will no longer be their problem. However, no successful career is built by ignoring the team's unity. The very individualism of wanting professional advancement is an obstacle to teamwork and the acceptance of a collective project.

Pausing to reflect on this situation, in the same line of reasoning, I want to draw attention to Kaneda's illustration. One of the players present in Tokyo Esperion's starting lineup, Kaneda was rejected by Tatsuya Fukuda. Subsequently, he scored several goals in the metropolitan league and increased his physical potential. In this case, it cannot be said that neither Fukuda nor Kaneda were wrong, nor can it crucify either of them. Kaneda just didn't fit into Fukuda's proposed game plans and ideal. However, that doesn't mean that the youngster doesn't have potential or that he's a bad player, just that the phenomenon of managing and building the squad is something more... complex than we imagine. Fukuda is aware that he may have been wrong in his choices, so much so that he himself motivates the rejects to improve according to the quote at the beginning of this review.

To cite examples, Jair Ventura, a Brazilian football coach, had already rejected the Colombian Luís Diaz while coaching Santos F.C, at the time when Diaz was still a promising youngster. Today, Luís Diaz is one of the main players on a world scale and is a regular for Liverpool, while Jair Ventura is not in the best phase of his career. Facts like this don't happen because one side is wrong, just because we're talking about humans. We are adaptable, emotionally manipulable and we fluctuate a lot, even more so when it comes to sports performance and there is the collective variable at play. The essence of the sport and the essence of Ao Ashi is the moral that there are more factors than just individual capacity and the “good vs. bad” when it comes to performance. This is also the driving force behind Kaneda's attitudes later on. People tend to irrationally transfer the blame for their attitudes to those around them, and this constitutes, for psychology, a way of accessing self-deception as an adaptive mechanism. Diluting the blame among those around them allows the person to move on and let go of the stress of having to deal with their mistakes and traumas. Kaneda applies this all the time, and his later success coupled with such a mechanism makes him an arrogant guy with his new teammates. Not that Kaneda is an incredibly deep character or whose work is dense and present. He is not. However, there is a humanized personality trait in this case and, in my opinion, this should be valued.

The last thing I would like to praise here is Ao Ashi's technical depth in the sport. Like any sports work that is worthy of a more realistic and informative atmosphere, a high content of the anime's scenes borrows and applies various tactical concepts, mixing it with the development of the protagonist and the entire Esperion team as a group. I've already mentioned this in some passages previously, but one of the most interesting things about the work is the fact that Aoi, who enters the team's concentration for the first time, is a complete mirror for those who underestimate the presence of tactics in football, given his impulsive temperament. Self-proclaimed genius for his instinctive plays, he reigned in his small world of amateur football, until he discovered that the sport constitutes a much bigger horizon than that. Aoi discovers that he has no individual tactical notion, nor any collective notion. His basic fundamentals are completely backward, and one of the differentiators of this story is the fact that it never treats individual talent as an automatic passport to victory, although it does make a difference in execution. Most of the time, it's simple notions of tactics and positioning that define the outcome of the games, but still the work is realistic enough that even understanding and practicing these basic tactics is difficult. It takes Aoi several days to figure out how to triangulate, then effectively use it with Asari and Kuroda, and just that change completely changes the flow of a game.

With every match or practice, there are concepts being taught and shown to us on the field. Anime migrates from triangulation and begins to teach us the meaning of coverage, filling in spaces, overcoming individual limitations according to the lineup arrangement, verbal and non-verbal communication between players... Even the change of formation according to the answer tactics and the offside line. These are all simple collective tactics, but they make a big difference. At the same time, game reading, decision making, distraction from marking to open spaces, individual marking... All are individual tactics, equally simple, but that value a player. After all, being decisive is far from just scoring goals and providing assists. And, above all, the way Aoi and the other players progress by learning these factors is very competent. See that coaches, as much as they want the evolution of their players, never give the answers for free. Fukuda Tatsuya's philosophy makes perfect sense, as it encourages characters to always keep a critical eye and question their play styles. Thinking for yourself is a fundamental key to getting better every day, as psychology tells us through the concept of “inner critic”.

By leaps and bounds, Aoi becomes a much more focused young man, even though he has to deal with the psychological barriers that surround him as the games go on. Insecurity about ownership, self-criticism and pressure that are established when playing in a position to which they are not used to, frustrated expectations when looking at the team on the table, impulsiveness in the face of provocation... The mind of any professional or aspiring player is never peaceful during a match. It's a bubbling cauldron of emotions, ready to spill over into constant mistakes and affect the performance of an entire team. In this light, the locker room is the point where eleven boiling cauldrons meet after the field.

Football is a group sport, of course, and as such a team's performance is subject to this relationship between players. Hard-to-approach people like Akutsu and players with inflated ego and blind to communication like Aoi is at the beginning of the story tend to affect the balance. Internal conflicts like Togashi's with Kuroda and Takeshima and the bad relationship between Asari and Aoi tend to affect the balance. Individualistic players like Kaneda, who are out of touch with the reality of the group, tend to affect the balance. This is another department where Ao Ashi gets it right, and if you, the reader, are familiar with football, I have a new example to offer you. The current Paris Saint-German squad is filled with sports stars and players who have made a name for themselves. The attacking trio, with Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr. gives the media a buzz, as well as other world-renowned players hired by a truckload of money. The press loves this pompous and hype-generating environment for people around the world. However, the reality of the team's relationship since the arrival of Neymar and Mbappé has never been a sight to behold. During the first years of PSG's hiring policy, the team was already suffering from constant fights in the locker room and speculation of difficulties in the team's relationship. Today, equipped with athletes with even greater importance, the team has not ceased to be the target of heavy criticism, largely because of the questioning whether it would really be worth investing in stars who so much want to play a leading role in a team and can be harmful to the environment, to the detriment of of more willing players, bets and revelations that would sweat and dedicate themselves to the project on the field.

Well, after spending hourglass cycles writing about what I consider successes and positives, you might be wondering why I have mixed feelings when it comes to Ao Ashi. This means that, in order to fully elucidate my opinion, this is the moment in which I turn to the other side of the blade. If anime is a double-edged sword, we need to talk about why it was such a disappointment to me. In other words, we need to return to the beginning of this review and talk about Production I.G. Let's trigger Revival and go back a little further. We are now in 2014, when the first season of Haikyuu!! it was one of the most popular works of the year and was about to receive the crown of many people as the king of sports works. In 2015 and 2016, the impression was no different, and your volleyball anime has consolidated itself as one of the main names of a studio that was among the “titans” (pardon the pun) of the industry. At the time, I'm not (yet) here to hail Haikyuu!! for its writing qualities or characters, but to analyze why its success is essentially linked to the studio. Why for me, and probably for many of you, it's so good to watch Haikyuu!! from the perspective of production?

The answer in this case is simple and straightforward: through your direction. The identity of volleyball, unlike many other sports, is its frenzy and incessant movement. As long as the ball doesn't fall to the ground, players are always preparing for a new charge or reception. It's all very dynamic. At the same time, Haikyuu!! bears the characteristics of a sports work that aims at verisimilitude, so the animations that move on the screen need to be not only flashy, but also realistic with the movement of the characters, fluid and contribute to the transmission of the tactical notions that Haikyuu!! teaches. And, if not to the general surprise of fans, it delivers exactly what it needs. One of the most exalted qualities when talking about anime is the exorbitant amount of fluid, moving, dynamic scenes, alternating with monologues that invade the characters' minds between passes and decision-making. Why the direction of Haikyuu!! in its first three seasons is it as good? Because, in climactic scenes, we see very solid choices from Susumu Mitsunaka, and because he has a top-notch team to support him.

Who doesn't remember Kyouken stealing Kindaichi's ball for the first time, in an ultra-highlight Sakuga scene that exalts the character's thick contours and puts the spotlight of estrangement on his first appearance? Who could forget, in the same match, the lifting of Oikawa in which he himself, when he got up in despair and ran back to the court, slips on one of the cloths on the edge of the court? I mean, the director even thought about adding this scene, to give more realism to the athletes' movements! Cuts in which the point of view is directly from the ground, showing Kageyama's positioning as a setter, are essential to transplant the organicity of volleyball's movements to anime. Applications of visual metaphors, plentiful in the manga, are put to even greater life in the adaptation, being combined with wonderful soundtrack choices and atmospheric animations, as is when Ushiwaka puts Hinata and Tsukishima under enormous psychological pressure and their veterans break through, one by one, for them to bear it. Metaphors such as the prevalence of crows meeting the great imperial eagle, and the phenomenal use of slow motion to represent fractions of a second before definition, in which multiple thoughts invade the mind... Haikyuu!! is an example of the incredible direction and production that the team at Production I.G. can be proud to deliver in sports anime.

Contrary to the example, Ao Ashi does not have a direction or production equivalent to the power of the studio. On the contrary, I'd say it's their worst visual adaptation of a sports work out of the ones I've watched at the time of writing. The show could have movement and physical explosion scenes. Could apply quick feints in order to add to the visual elucidation of skill and bluffing ability for some of the players. It could even animate shots and passes where there would be a creative point in the camera following the ball rather than the player. In Episode 21, we see a scene where Kuroda performs an organic move in a one-on-one, then steals the ball from Kaneda. The scene itself contributes to the characterization of what it means to individually follow another player and to convey a sense of positioning. It's this kind of scene that I ask for so much in Ao Ashi. However, elaborate sakugas are rare in this anime and, although it is not crooked or ugly most of the time, it leaves something to be desired in many ways when it comes to production.

Jumps to headers are not fully animated, so we have the classic still scenes with camera movement along a single drawing and lines in the scenery to convey the idea of movement. Kaneda and Togashi both score goals like that, and neither of them are truly exciting as they could be. There are cuts in which Aoi retains the ball in defense for a long time, but the movements to protect possession of the ball and those of the opponents are so little diversified that there is no feeling that someone is going to take it from him, only that the scene was excited to stall while Aoi makes the decision to take a long-distance pass. In many of the episodes, in fact, the opponents are static while the Esperion team communicates and adjusts its position. There are scenes where players run in possession of the ball and opponents aren't even drawn moving forward, as well as there are revolting scenes where not even players running in possession are animated by effectively running. If you want a taste, just rewatch the triangulation episode and focus on the scene where Esperion F.C. advance together for the final goal. In the classic split-screen and synchronized set display scene, none of the players run, we just have static images and lines to convey the idea of movement. When we compare it to Karasuno's synchronized attack in Haikyuu!!, this is absurd.

The few scenes that the director and animation team get right in this show are, mostly and ironically, the slow motion scenes and visual metaphors. As the holder of a specific talent - like most protagonists of sports works - Aoi stars in several moments of analysis and game vision in which he incorporates his "crow's vision" and surveys the field like a bird in the sky. In most analysis scenes, there is a double silhouette to convey the idea of movement prediction, lighting to highlight open spaces and a panoramic view that resembles the tactical analysis boards common in football. As much as the production of these scenes is equally weak and nothing much in terms of fluidity, I cannot take away the merit that they were treated with the resources that should, in fact, be applied. After all, the slow motion and the black background very well encapsulate Aoi's decision making in the small fractions of a second and the abstraction of the environment, focusing only on the players' position. It's like in Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season Part 2 EP3 from earlier this year: a semi-static or static panning camera work around the chaotic environment in order to elucidate the chronology of seconds between one event and another.

Still, I must say that the director abuses the scenes where he applies slow motion. Outside of Aoi's analysis scenes, there is still a ton of events that unfold over slow motion animations, from the protagonist's movements to communication scenes and kicks. Matches use this feature all the time, when football actually happens very quickly. Even climactic scenes slow down all the time, and this makes it seem more like a valve that the director chose to have the ability to fully animate the work than properly a prudent use of style. Peak scenes totally lack the excitement, and I truly, while appreciating the qualities the anime had to offer, found myself completely uninterested in every goal moment. It may seem like an exaggeration, but I never got carried away.

When I talk about climactic excitement, there are a number of factors. I want to point this out here so you don't get me wrong: An anime can be very well directed and truly thrill at its peaks even if it has few fluid shots. The biggest example I can perhaps bring, in this case, is Ballroom and Youkoso. One of my favorite sports works, Ballroom shares the same studio as Ao Ashi, and as much as there are some viewers who criticize the lack of fluidity in its adaptation, I think it's hard to find people to condemn the work done by the studio and the staff. Ballroom and Youkoso, like Ao Ashi, have a higher density of static scenes. The fundamental difference between the two is how Ballroom handles it and is able to craft wonderfully emotionally impactful scenes. With each episode I watched of Ballroom, I was more impressed with the art direction, which unfolded to compensate for the enormous difficulty of animating fluid scenes due to the demand for elaborate, stylized character design and, mainly, the extremely detailed dresses, that made it impossible to produce a 24-episode show with the same fluidity as Haikyuu!!. Scenes like when Tatara pairs up with Mako or episodes of visual metaphors like the “Four-legged Illusion” were extremely productive. What was lacking in movement in the anime never made me dissatisfied, given the beauty of the scenes that, even though they were stable, managed to capture all the visual details of each dance with angles that favored the grip, the characters' body posture, the facial expressions and the dazzling glow of clothes. The show, to borrow Tatara's words, was twenty-four minute breaks saying "look at me!". And I was always looking.

The art itself contributed to the show's purpose, as exaggerated body extremities are part of the sensation when dancing. The anime was awash with synesthesia in the monologues, the static scenes were precise and framed key moments from the positions, the atmosphere was always present and the fluid moments, although infrequent, were reserved for the most important events. And, behind the atmospheric scenes and the performance in competitions, an efficient use of the soundtrack that crowned the good work of the direction.

When I turn to Ao Ashi, I see that the work has none of that. The goals take place over an uninspired soundtrack that is equally not positioned in such an impactful way. The static scenes are in central events when there should be fluidity in them. The color palette is nothing different. The art not only contributes little to the proposal of the work, but also harms it at times, in the sense that there are completely cartoonish comedy scenes that give a change of brusque and silly tone to a seinen when he should be entirely serious in his departures. Seriously, the first half of the anime is annoying to watch in certain portions, because any event of the match is interrupted by a distorted drawing of Aoi, like when he is teased by Asari and, instead of the work treating the teasing as "trash talk ” and something psychologically important, she puts a completely out of tune drawing for an Aoi who was coming off badly in the match. The impact of this scene was drained, because the director chose to keep it rather than make it more serious. In Ballroom, for example, the comedy scenes exist, but keep the original art instead of changing it to something simplified. In Haikyuu!!, they are not applied in the middle of a play definition or important space, only in events between matches, in communication between players after points or in celebrations.

Dance Dance Danseur, a MAPPA anime of the same season, focused on ballet, has a much more competent direction than Ao Ashi. Watch the EP5 or EP11 of this anime and you'll know why. It's the quick camera changes. The enormous stage presence that urges on the metaphor of Luou playing the role of Rothbarth, menacing, intimidating, imposing and victorious, as an entity that Junpei cannot defeat. Junpei's frantic and elusive depictions, which irritate the rival, are shown with dynamic framing alternating between movements and facial expressions. The vocal acting and the intense soundtrack that blend together. The lighting play on the characters, making the experience sparkle over the princess and graceful ballet movements, but at the same time giving spotlight to the personalities depicted and the added physical exertion in the performance. All this is direction. And all this is what Ao Ashi lacks, to the misfortune of my expectations.

However, if I have so much to criticize the direction of this show, my sadness is even greater when I expose here that, contrary to what it seems, the director is effectively capable of delivering us a superior production. Ao Ashi is an unintentional metalanguage of the direction itself, and this metalanguage can be seen by comparing the storyboard of its two openings. I mean, when I watched the second opening, I was stunned. The storyboard of this is so inspired, so full of movement and populated with symbolic visual metaphors from the show that I could hardly believe it was the same anime. Yes, it's normal for openings to be better animated than the show itself, not least because they apparently pay animators more per take. However, while the first opening is not so bad in my opinion, if we compare it to its successor, the second one is so superior that it makes it seem as if the first one doesn't even exist.
Let's make a brief comparison. In the first, we have a cliché presentation of characters, with quick close-ups of their faces and expressions. We have racing scenes in between the match and training, which add very little in symbology. We have kicking and closing scenes that are static. We have visual metaphors, such as representing the similarity between Aoi and Hana's favorite player. We have other symbology, like Aoi's particular skill, a glimpse of his intuitive family drama through the frame sequence, and an illustration of the heavy atmosphere that descends on him in the match. And we have FOUR different shots with the close-up on Hana, all of them depicting the exact same thing: her cheering and being impressed by Aoi's accomplishments. Note how repetitive and recycled from sports shonens this opening is, even though Ao Ashi is a seinen. In contrast, Ao Ashi's second opening is exactly how the adaptation should be.

The exhausting fatigue of games and training, mixed with more fluid drama scenes that capture well the protagonist's catharsis in the face of his difficulties in starting his own career. Favorable interactions with team members, representing Ashito's learning and the group dynamics in team B, combined with the organic scene transition to, in step with the increase in music, represent the other side of the coin with discussions between the same players. Camera angles and lighting that favor the demonstration of the characters' anguish in dealing with difficult situations associated with football. Aoi, Hana and the look on their faces when Aoi is considering giving up everything. Movement in celebratory actions and the change of music to a more positive tone, while scenes of performances going well appear. Several falls, representing the thorny trajectory of the protagonist in finding himself as an athlete. The return of the opening scene, of the bird soaring over the sea, and the perspective of Aoi's mother looking across the ocean, symbolizing us that the bird represents Aoi and the flight represents the taking off of her career. The long-awaited entry onto the pitch in a stadium. Aoi, through his night training and effort results, changing his expression and accelerating more and more as he crosses paths with other players. And, watching the whole show, me, gaping in my chair, wondering why the second opening evokes more emotions in me than the entire show. After watching so many episodes and venting in this huge text, I finally found the answer. The director did that one and a half minute with the necessary passion that he should have done all the rest of the work. He and the team are truly capable of delivering more than this final product, and I'm sad that this is a realization that didn't materialize on the show.

In addition to the layers of production and staff, there are also a few specific issues I'd like to draw attention to in Ao Ashi's writing. The first of them has a first and last name: Nagisa Akutsu. Honestly, I can't understand why, at the time of writing, he is the most favorite supporting character in the work. All he did in pretty much all of his appearances during the first season was threaten Aoi, bully him, be toxic to team B players, and display a delinquent countenance that reminds me of the cartoonish grin of Tokyo Revengers villains Kisaki Tetta and Shuuji Hanma. I do not disbelieve in the possibility that the author of Ao Ashi has created some backstory or arc reserved for the character that will appear in future seasons. His number of favorites being higher than the other characters may have to do with some character work in the manga. However, taking as a reference only the anime portion at the time of writing this review, Akutsu is one of the shallowest characters in the entire work. Not only that, but he's worse than shallow. He's just a script lever to grab the viewer's attention and make us angry at Aoi's miserable situation, so much so that he always conveniently appears when Aoi deals with his career crisis and the threat of not becoming a player. The author gives free rein to him to intimidate Aoi not only verbally (as is common in the vast majority of sports environments and, if only that, it would be understandable) but also physically, more than once. There should be more Esperion intervention in physical aggression between teammates, but there isn't. All I remember are vague comments from Fukuda during the selection. Which team allows its players to fight and injure each other without any punishment? At this point, Akutsu is more of a character detrimental to the more mature character of football that Ao Ashi wants to pass on than someone who contributes. And while the character may have future work and the author can redeem himself on that, the arc created will likely need to be very well written to make me accept the change in perspective and humanization of the character. The impression he leaves is negative and pessimistic.

The second point I want to address is even more direct: the lack of a portrait of goalkeepers. Unlike Inazuma Eleven, who often turns the match into a duel between goal and shot, Ao Ashi takes the opposite route. It's been 24 episodes and I hardly saw any important goalkeeper saves or any goalkeeper being part of the team as a voice and relevant character. There are very few scenes and we don't even know the archer of Esperion F.C. I miss a player in that position who is important, even because the goalkeeper, symbolically, is the team's security and there is a lot of space to work with a character like that in a football work. For example, goalkeeper is an extremely ungrateful position, as any mistake you make is directly responsible for a goal and can easily cost you a title and your career reputation. René Higuita, the folkloric Colombian goalkeeper, is still remembered today not only for his ability to take free-kicks and the “scorpion blow”, but for his failure in the 1990 World Cup when he lost the ball to Cameroonian Roger Milla. Liverpool's Karius has become highly scarred by his failures in the 2017/18 Champions League final, which cost the English side the title. The goalkeeper is the backbone of the team, but it is also an easy position to be crucified or injured. There are many ways to work one, but Ao Ashi doesn't seem to have reserved a role for such a character, which is a waste. I hope that, in the future, the author decides to address this position more.

Last but not least, the (lack of) importance given to opponents. In Haikyuu!!, for example, as much as the characters of some of the teams faced by Karasuno high school are secondary and obviously not all matches have great planning behind the field preparation, one thing in which the work never fails is to present other volleyball players with their own characteristics, potential and style of play. Haikyuu!! is an anime that, like any story of competitive sports, has its worldbuilding dependent on the number of potential opponents. In this sense, even in matches that are not as important as those against the two-meter high school or against the Wakunan high school, in addition to the main characters, there are secondary characters that are minimally explored and moments in which the spotlight is drawn on strategies and merit of the opponent. Of course, there are matches against bigger opponents, for which there is much greater preparation and the rivals are more richly developed, as is the case with the match against Aoba Johsai. In Ballroom and Youkoso, many of Tatara's adversaries have important backstories and rich metaphors that permeate artistic performances, or else a relationship work with the partner. The spotlight is never solely on Tatara, as his opponents also have great merits and there is a conflict of points of view.

The best example here is the entire Masami Kugimiya arc. The contrast between the veteran's manly, imposing and sometimes exquisite leadership, with his unique but more old-fashioned and conservative dance style, and Tatara's young, inexperienced and passive, conflicted yet playful and evolving leadership. Even on Yuri!!! on Ice, even though most characters are reduced to archetypes with personalities or gags, there is a characterization of the other competitors. Opponents matter, precisely because it is necessary to enhance the performance of each one and add a pinch of psychological influence. Characters boast "sex appeal", while others are obsessed with their sister. There are some who are full of confidence and ego and there are those who are more timid. It's a competition, and somehow we also need to see the humans on the other side, since it's not a Manichean dichotomy, but a performance sports confrontation.

In Ao Ashi, this rarely happens. The only match in which there is a greater build-up of opponents is the match against team Musashino, the last match of the season. If you notice, in the other matches, it's all about Tokyo Esperion F.C. I don't even remember the names of the other teams and their players, and I can count on my fingers the number of faces I would recognize. This isn't because my memory is bad, it's because they don't really matter. Aoi's matches do indeed function as a vehicle for the rise of the team and the characters, but at some point the author seems to have forgotten to reconcile this with the other side's point of view, so that the opponents are just random people and have nothing to offer but responsiveness to tactics.
In summary, Ao Ashi was a very mixed and conflicting experience before my eyes. In one of the fields of vision, I see a skeleton of sports seinen with great portrayals of football and pertinent discussions, as well as a protagonist whose character work and development will drag any fan into the whirlpool of history. On the other hand, I see a production and filling of the molds in an insufficient way. A soulless adaptation of an uninspired direction that could have given me more. There are many things to talk about, and it is not my biggest challenge to understand or organize them, but to limit myself so that this text doesn't get even bigger than it already is.

When I close both eyes and then open them, now simultaneously, I see the images blended together. I glimpse Ao Ashi, the anime for which I had high hopes, but which, despite being solid, ended up without fulfilling the main element that so many look for in a sports anime: to excite and attract the spectator's support, in this case me. About recommendations, I'm not sure. Perhaps, for those interested in a soccer-centric story, I would recommend reading the manga rather than watching the anime. After all, after all this outburst and getting off the roller coaster of feelings, I'm considering doing it myself.