I know that my score may be a bit high for some people, but I want anyone reading this review to really hear me out. I have watched a lot of sports anime. It might be my favorite genre of manga and anime. The inspirational stories that have been created through the medium of sports have been genuinely motivating and awe-inspiring to me throughout the years. Sports in real life are something that most people don't care about because it's hard to understand the intricacies of sports. Sports anime allow you to understand those minor intricate details to the sport, and dramatizes them to become entertainment. Sports stories normally don't work without 1 key element, the characters. Aoi Ashito is our main character. And the people that surround him throughout the series are ones with minor flaws and specific details that need to be worked through. An example of this is the one thing that I already noticed about Ashito upon watching the first 3 episodes, is how the show handles minor character details. The main character is a poor kid. In most sports stories, the main character being poor is normally used as a small way to make that character more relatable. In Aoashi, Ashito being poor is actually meaningful, and it completely affects the beginning of the show and the character's actions. It is a real thing that affects the story in real-time. The main plot is also very basic, but the way the show explains the fundamentals of soccer is very easy follow, especially for someone who doesn't know anything about it. The story focuses on all the characters on the team, and Ashito has to grow in meaningful ways as the story progresses. Nothing in the show is unearned, and Ashito has to start from a place of lower skill than everyone else. What really makes this show shine to me is in those moments were everything comes together. Characters who weren't getting along affect the how a match is played. When people on the team hate each other, the entire team is affected by it just like in real life, so watching the culmination of every character coming together and working like a real team is extremely satisfying. The characters never end up liking each other through magic either, sometimes the characters accept that they will never like each other. But the characters recognize how to understand one another, even if they don't like them. This is a realistic thing that is done on actual sports teams, and to me what sets Aoashi apart from all the other sports anime, is its dedication to making you feel like you are part of a living and breathing team filled with players who actually exist. The moments aren't as well animated as something as Haikyuu, but keep up due to the realistic struggles taken to get to the moment. The moments mean more than better animated sports anime moments, because the struggles to get there are real, and come from a place of realism. A character doubting themselves throughout the first part of the story, struggling to accept that they aren't useless, finally gets a goal and realizes that everyone deals with doubt. A character who wants to work with his teammates but can't because he's forced to accept his position on the team, and once he finally does, all of the sour moments beforehand culminate into a deeply satisfying moment of triumph for everyone. There is even a plot point in this story that I've never seen been used in any other sports anime, and it is genuinely one of the most unique sports anime plot points I've ever seen, but I absolutely will not say anything about it. These are the things that made me love Aoashi more than any other sports anime I've seen. The mature concepts, and the way those mature concepts are executed. Aoashi is genuinely something special, and I can't wait to read the manga, or wait for a season 2, and I really think you should give it a try.

(Also if you want a better idea of why I made my score so high for this show, I recommend watching the youtube video I made on Aoashi that goes more into depth on why I like the show.)

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