I know people who are really into sports and I can confirm they are exactly like this.
Blue Lock manages to be absolutely overflow with charm by sheer virtue of being as over-the-top and deranged as humanly possible. Every single episode you'll hear a teenager talk about their pride in their skills or resolve to be the best Soccer player they can be through saying it in the most unhinged ways imaginable, accompanied by an extreme visualization of that exact phrasing. Even if the amount of depth a character has can vary in how deep or shallow they are, everyone manages to be really memorable in their own distinct brand of insanity that contributes to the constant high-energy feel of the show. A big contributing factor to that is its stellar voice cast. Pretty much everyone here brings their absolute A-game into their roles with a powerful intensity that's unique to each and every one of them. My particular favorites were Kazuki Ura as Isagi and Tatsuku Kaito as Bachira, which is especially impressive given that they're pretty much entirely new faces in voice acting. I'm really happy that these leading roles were given to such promising newcomers, and I really hope that their phenomenal performances lead to really bright futures in their careers.
Another one of the core pillars that makes Blue Lock what it is are its visuals. However, I should address the fact that its animation is an area where it stumbles a bit. It feels a bit apparent that it wasn't given as much of a large budget as it could have, or if it ran into issues in production, but it does have a noticeable impact on its animation. It often relies on stills or really rough-looking CG models in a lot of areas in a way that's pretty off-putting to see when those cracks show. That being said, its animation often being a tad inconsistent is more than made up for with its fantastic direction. Its use of incredibly intense expressions and shading that feels reminiscent of Attack on Titan at times, effective use of distinct imagery like the puzzle pieces connecting to and breaking off of Isagi or the "monster" that resides around Bachira, and incredibly strong storyboarding that makes its big headlining shots land with the same impact as a spread from a manga page give it a striking sense of style that feels very unique to it. And make no mistake with my earlier complaints about its animation, when they need to sell an impactful moment, it shines really brightly. I just hope these production issues get ironed out by the time season 2 comes around, so both the animation and direction get to work in harmony and shine ever brighter.
The thing I found most compelling about Blue Lock story-wise is the nuance of Blue Lock's goals as a facility and the type of player it's trying to be. I've seen a good amount of criticism towards the series' supposed notion that a striker is the only player that matters in a soccer team. That's obviously entirely true, but I think that angle is looking into the whole "making the best striker" aspect of it a bit too literally. The way I see it, Ego sees the problem with the Japan team being that their focus solely on fighting as one made it so that the players' individual strengths suffered as a result, so the goal for Blue Lock is to refine the selected players as individuals and bring out their latent strengths. It's an approach that encourages the players to have somewhat selfish and egotistical mindsets in how they evolve, which doesn't sound like it'd work all too well. However, the show ironically makes it so that this drive ends up strengthening their teamwork. It invites a spirit of competition between its team members where they manage to work in harmony by spiritually devouring each other (the show's words, not mine) in order to make major bursts of improvement, and those clashes of wills end up letting the players work in harmony very well. It's a very unique angle to take a sports series in storytelling wise, one that I haven't really seen before at least. I imagine that it's definitely really unrealistic and over-the-top, but the series fully embraces that aspect of itself.
(Slight addendum: I'm not trying to say that this is some correct approach to training for sports or anything, I was just looking at it as something interesting from a storytelling perspective. I just thought I'd add this since I can see how it'd get misinterpreted that way)
Watching this show week to week was one of the most fun experiences I've had keeping up with a seasonal, and I'm glad I got to experience it so often through the phenomenal stretch of Fall 2022 and the admittedly less enticing stretch of Winter 2023. I'm fully hooked on checking out the utterly insane clash of wills through soccer that Blue Lock has in store for the future, and I'm looking forward to its eventual return with Season 2 and the Episode Nagi film.
