I believe that Blue Lock is a great work. It's great but not without flaws. I'd even say it's Kaneshiro's best work so far and I've tried picking up his previous works but couldn't finish them as they weren't good in my opinion or my jam.

Bear in my mind that my review might be updated once the manga finishes.

Blue Lock is one of the most prominent and popular new gen sports manga succeeding the masterpiece Haikyuu!! and the golden Kuroko no Basket. Why did I mention Haikyuu!! and Kuroko no Basket? Well, we'll see. Haikyuu!! is a manga that's all about teamwork, coordination, cooperation, and personal growth. Haikyuu!! sees characters performing at their best and evolving when in combinations and duos creating their perfect attacks and play style that way while still maintaining their uniqueness. Kuroko's no Basket had each player have a special skill, but ultimately teamwork was the center and the pillar. However, Blue Lock diverges from this and plays around with the concept of teamwork, individuality, sportsmanship, and friendship in a way I haven't seen before. Blue Lock introduces the concept of egoism and an egotist striker, winning a match by scoring the most goals by oneself and becoming the number one striker in the world. For this to happen, Blue Lock has a mix of sports and battle royale, something Nagi describes as "a death game," or soccer Squid Game but without bloodshed. Blue Lock delves into the players' psyches, egoism, and still emphasizes that teamwork is important for coordination and to avoid clashes in interests. The ensemble cast goes through an interesting but long journey into finding their egos and motives for playing soccer and advancing further in life and their soccer path. The reason they exist and work hard to win. Reading and seeing how characters go from point 0 to point 100 or even mid 50 before their arc fully concludes is amazing as some characters felt hopeless and had a sloth like development that took the course of the whole manga. I think the mixture of psychology, battle royale/survival competition, and action shonen is its selling point and what makes it unique, which is why I, ironically, don't enjoy comparisons or recommendations with older gen works like the aforementioned Haikyuu and Kuroko no Basket despite the similarities I pointed out. Nothing quite matches the genre and setting of Blue Lock and its character writing.

Let's move on to the characters. The characters are one of the strong points of the manga, depending on whom you ask. The characters have unique designs that you can tell Kaneshiro and Nomura had fun and effort into creating but might've also been troublesome. They're also eccentric and take soccer way too seriously. The characters have fleshed out backstories and internal conflicts with some even having complexity and contradictions like my current favorite Michael Kaiser. Some characters, however, are just inspirations from other popular shonen works. Rin is Sasuke, and Sae is redhead Itachi and they resemble all anime characters with sibling issues although Kaneshiro went a step further and keeps us on edge to what happened to change and harden Sae unlike his childhood days. There are questionable characters or moments that feel quite out of place as it comes across as a poor decision in wanting to make the series hardcore and edgy. Characters that are perverted or outright weirdo like Shidou and his sexual innuendos over soccer and moments where characters have cringeworthy dialogues (e.g. the infamous "have you ever played soccer with your life on the line?" and "I'll fucking kill you even if it's the last thing I do." Here I, like many detractors, believe these are one of the manga's flaws in terms of the characters' dialogue writing. That said, it's easy to get past them and skip these eye-rolling moments (because that's what I did, a whole child speaking of fighting someone strong, destroying them, and then dying at freaking 4 or something talk about creepy baby edgelord). I can't help but cringe at Shidou's lines that thankfully die off and become scarce as the manga nears the Neo EGOIST League arc. It can't be THAT serious.

Another aspect the manga shines in with its characters, is how their psyche and environments play a role in their relationships and reasons for playing soccer. Nagi's reasons where lacklustre and just to accompany Reo at first now he's searching for what drives him, Isagi wants to become stronger and more egoistical to make up for the match he lost in high school, Reo wants to prove his parents and the world wrong in his independence of his parents' name and wealth and in achieving something by and for himself without support, Bachira saw solace in soccer and made up a monster that he let go of now, then in the later chapters we have complex characters Ness and Kaiser from Bastard Munchen have tragic backstories into how they discovered soccer and what it means for them, etc. I don't recall a series that explored the motives and circumstances and their connection to the sport and how it impacts their current selves, so kudos to Blue Lock for the emotional and psychological exploration aspects. However, I have a problem with Nagi as a protagonist written currently at the beginning of the World Cup arc. Nagi suffers from lethargy and a lack of purpose. He doesn't know why he plays soccer and why he works hard and why he's fired up a theme in his arc that's consistent in the Episode Nagi spinoff, the movie, and main manga. However, to advance things Nagi has a slow development into finding the source of this fire and motivation that concludes rather quickly and in a rushed manner. I'm anticipating a delve into his psyche beyond just wandering around soulless and not something more life-changing and eye-opening to be compelling and convincing. Nagi came a long while, very slowly and baby steps as he's described by other players, but the payoff and conclusion isn't satisfying if you're his fan or as worthy of a deuteragonist.

Then there's the bait in the dynamics of the characters. I believe Kaneshiro wasn't confident in the success of the manga so he created the character relationships to be as dramatic and cheesy as possible, being ripped off from a shoujo manga on purpose to bait the fujoshis which worked too well for him. There's the relationship of Nagi and Reo that resembles teen drama with misunderstandings, codependence, and jealousy and there's Kaiser and Ness relationship that explores obsession, power imbalance, and trauma bonding. Don't get me wrong, they're well written and enjoyable but it's still noticeably cheesy and pandering to anyone with eyes, proven by the official art, content, and merch capitalizing on their popularity (nothing for Kaiser and Ness yet but who knows).

Now moving on to other flaws. The fanservice with Anri, the assistant of Ego, is absolutely unnecessary and adds nothing to the plot. There's no need to pandering in a soccer manga that targets a young audience. Kaneshiro can't write a respectful, prominent female character as of yet and Anri is a prime example. She's also ignored and disregarded by Ego in an annoying way as a female reader.

As we know, the premise of the manga is that Isagi Yoichi will become the number one egoist striker in the world. Thus, we're seeing his journey as he rises to the top and devours the losers and weaker opponents, which makes it predictable like any other shonen, or so I fear. Isagi spends the beginning of the match struggling and losin,g then finally finds a way or a solution to turn the tables and win. There's a pattern that I noticed whenever a new opponent is introduced and Isagi has to adapt to them to win but it happens too many times you can predict it before it happens. This is a minor flaw. Nothing major as I think Kaneshiro can switch it up or make them lose in the World Cup arc. The fact that it depends on Kanehiro's vision is what gives hope and excitement that something different is being cooked. Another thing I'd say is the pace, sometimes it's quick and sometimes it's too fast or rushed like the training arc was wrapped up quickly after a lengthy and development-rich arc like the Neo EGOIST League arc.

The art style has improved a lot, going from huge foreheads to reasonable ones and the shadowing/inking is different.

All in all, Blue Lock is a work that I rate as 85, and I call it a flawed great work. That's all, bye.