Super entertaining anime and a compelling depiction of football drama. The portrayal of football in combination with the dramatic moments is what makes this anime great. I've been watching and playing football since I was like 6 years old so I can connect more with a football focused sports anime than other sports. This anime is really good at presenting obstacles to characters and then coming up with smart solutions that bring a tonne of satisfaction and catharsis. In particular with the main character Isagi who's progression from episode to episode is well executed and more importantly fun to experience. We can use buzzwords like "character development" but ultimately what matters is how the story made you feel.
Theres a lot of discourse on whether the anime is realistic in its depiction of football, i can only assume from people who dont watch football or dont understand it. Yes the story exaggerates things, whether that be ideas, abilities or concepts but all of it is rooted in footballing logic. For example Ego is super important for a striker, there's strikers who don't score many goals despite being talented because they don't have the right mentality. The innate somewhat selfish desire to score goals above all else. You watch football you can see certain players just have a hunger for scoring. Some people also take the concepts in blue lock too literally and miss the nuance behind it. Like the dichotomy of teamwork vs ego, people think Blue Lock is suggesting that teamwork is discarded and that you should just play for yourself. No that clearly isn't it, we literally see the concept of chemical reactions which is basically a fancy word for Teamwork Its the coming together of Egos, the reason ego as a concept is heavily emphasised is because Ego (the character) wants the blue lock players to develop an ego as a first step. Ego is the building block for everything else and to make players develop it he needs to hammer the concept in. Even the super abilities the characters get have a rooted logic in actual football, they're just exaggerated.
The characters are all quite solid, not a super standout character but they get the job done and perform well as vehicles for the hype. The story does a good job of mixing in their personal problems with their football. The characters can be edgy but I didn't mind it too much. My main issue is the arrogant characters like Barou, they can get quite annoying as they're really over the top. That might work in a battle shonen but is somewhat out of place in sports. Isagi dickriding everyone gets annoying too.
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