Giant Killing

East Tokyo United (ETU) has been struggling in Japan's top soccer league for the past few years. It has taken everything they have just to avoid relegation. To make matters even worse, the team has lost five matches in a row, leading to abysmal team morale. Even the fans are beginning to abandon them, and rumors hint that the home ground municipality is going to withdraw their support. With countless coaches fired and poor financial choices in hiring players, it is a downward spiral for ETU.

The board of directors, under pressure from general manager Kousei Gotou, takes a gamble and hires a new coach—the slightly eccentric Takeshi Tatsumi. Though considered a great soccer player when he was younger, Tatsumi abandoned ETU years ago. However, since then, he has proven himself successful as the manager of one of England's lower division amateur teams.

Tatsumi's task won't be easy; ETU fans call him a traitor, and the team is pitted against others with larger budgets and better players. Yet even the underdog can take down a goliath, and Tatsumi claims he is an expert at giant killing.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tatsumi, Takeshi Main

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Yoshida, Luigi Main

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Tsubaki, Daisuke Main

Mizushima, Daichuu Japanese

Murakoshi, Shigeyuki Main

Okiayu, Ryoutarou Japanese

Sera, Kyouhei Supporting

Kawano, Taketoshi Japanese

Kuroda, Kazuki Supporting

Itou, Kentarou Japanese

Akasaki, Ryou Supporting

Mutou, Tadashi Japanese

Natsuki, Yotaro Supporting

Kusunoki, Taiten Japanese

Nagata, Yuri Supporting

Asano, Masumi Japanese

Midorikawa, Hiroshi Supporting

Fuji, Shinshuu Japanese

Urasaki, Nobumitsu Producer

Kou, Yuu Director

Tsuchiya, Hiroyuki Episode Director

Kimura, Hiroshi Episode Director

Reviews

Sep 26, 2010

Mimi_Taylor

Recommended

Addicting, suspenseful, and fun, this is a story about what it takes for one dysfunctional soccer team with a poor record to regain its honor and make it in the national soccer league. This team is called ETU (East Tokyo United). The members of ETU start out with a lot of difficulty; they have poor communication, conflicting personalities, mixed low and high self-esteem, and an overreliance on one team member. But within every player, there is a talent that is waiting to be manifested. Their new coach, Tatsumi Takeshi, helps to bring out the ‘giant killing’ in all of them.

Story

Sports anime tend to have a ... few story elements in common, like a central main protagonist who is a young prodigy, stereotypical characters (there always has to be the cute, black-haired rival), and lots of filler episodes dedicated to showing their normal lives (dating, school bullies, etc). However, Giant Killing moves away from these and turns out to be something refreshing in its genre. It’s a short series that spends its time wisely to develop its characters while still focusing head-strong on the sport. There is no central main character, or a prodigy for that matter—everyone works hard to achieve and maintain their skills, and they receive an equal amount of attention.

Giant Killing takes a nice introspective approach to the characters while they’re playing soccer. They constantly think about their situation, worry about their performance, and try to concentrate. It is on the field where most of the character development takes place, as they learn to apply their mind and improve their skills.

Characters

ETU’s players are adults (20 – 33 years old), and they each have a unique combination of personality and skill. For example, Tsubaki (midfielder) is young, shy, and conscientious, and he is the fastest runner on the team. Gino (midfielder) is the narcissistic cool-guy known as the “prince,” though he’s wisely observant, and he makes very accurate ball passes. Natsuki (forward) is also narcissistic but in a loud, eccentric sort of way, and he shoots very beautiful goals. Murakoshi (midfelder) is looked up to as the leader, but he is way too controlling and lacks some energy due to being older. There is honestly never a boring moment with them, whether they’re just practicing, playing for real, or sitting on the bus to go home.

You might as well call coach Tatsumi a psychologist. He is good at studying and understanding the minds of his players. His specialty is to take advantage of their personalities in the games, purposely pairing them up with certain opponents and counting on them to make personality-driven decisions. Though the funny thing is, not a single player or outsider understands HIM. Tatsumi is rather blunt-spoken, informal, and unpredictable; he designs unusual practice activities, comes up with reckless-sounding game plans, and rarely ever expresses worry. Simply put, he’s an oddball, but deep down he’s a good strategist who can unite his players.

The players on the opposing teams are just as well-developed and are incredibly DIVERSE. They speak the language of their nationality, such as English, Portuguese, French, and Dutch, which is a refreshing change from having everyone only speak Japanese. A few obvious differences between these teams and ETU are their levels of organization, strategies, and behaviors. They have a lot more momentum going on because they have accumulated more recent wins, and everybody likes to have a big ego. But when they’re put under the fire by surprise, they face similar internal problems as ETU, such as their personalities getting in the way of each other.

As for the side characters, you just have a few people working along with Tatsumi, as well as a reporter, a cameraman, and fans. What is so awesome about the fans is that you see three generations of them: the old fans who are rekindling their passion for ETU, the younger loyal fans, and the adorable kids.

Character Designs/Animation

At first glance, the character designs are simple and boring. At second glance, they’re actually very detailed. The shape of the head, eyes, nose, chin, and hairstyle differ among all the characters, causing them to look very distinct from one another. The main turn-off is just that they don’t look all that pretty.

The soccer matches are animated very well. When viewing them from a distance, CGI is clearly used to make every single player on the field move at the same time. Watching them close-up, it’s impressive how they pass the ball and shoot goals; they really twist their bodies around in odd ways to make these kinds of moves, and at some pretty awesome camera angles.

Music

The soundtrack here is catchy and decent. The OP song “My Story ~Mada Minu Ashita e~” by THE CHERRY COKES is very upbeat, full of cheery shouting, and uses the bagpipe as a leading instrument. The ED song “Get tough!” by G.P.S sounds similar with the exception of it being dominantly rock. The rest of the music is repetitive but decent enough.

Overall

If you’re looking for an entertaining sports anime with diverse adult characters, national teams, various spoken foreign languages, and maybe a slightly eccentric coach, then look no further. Even if you’re not really into this genre or sport like I am, it can still be a great watch. The soccer matches are very detailed and tense, and the players develop wonderfully every time they play. The interactions among the characters are best part of the show; they're bursting with personality, and they make the games incredibly addicting to watch. This one shouldn’t be missed!

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 12, 2016

711nono

Mixed Feelings

In the world of sports being the underdog can sometimes not be a bad thing. Because people do not expect that much of you, you can easily surprise them by putting in a very good performance. However this is not the case for many years for East Tokyo United football club. That is until the new young manager tatsumi takeshi begins his ETU managing career and they now look to regain their honor.

Giant killing is a sports anime. Sports anime have giants such as kuroko no basket, Haikyuu and diamond no ace. Even within the soccer sub genre giant killing is still rarely ... mentioned among fans. However I did find giant killing and started watching it due to my fondness of soccer in real life. However after finally finishing it I came to the conclusion that giant killing is an anime that I enjoyed, however it had some crippling flaws that really held it back in terms of giving it a score.

The story of giant killing at first glance looks pretty basic. However when analyzed further it can definitely be seen that it is different than the average sports anime. The main characters if ETU are all adults. They aren't in high school where the stakes are low these people are real adults who are trying to make a living playing the sport they love. And for the most part I really like this. It gives more weight to the story and characters.

However a major problem with the story is that they seem to skip over several details of an actual soccer match which makes the pacing very poor. For example some of the league matches are just completely skipped over and we are given a result than they move on to the next event. This make several matches seem more insignificant than they actually are and it causes boredom. I will have to applaud that the last few episodes of giant killing were really good and I wish the rest of the series was like that. The ending to the series while nice, ,made the series very incomplete.

The characters of giant killing weren't actually half bad. All of the team members have good chemistry and work well together. They also enter many realistic and believable situations as both a team and individual players. They also grow and develop throughout the course of the story. This was very fun and entertaining to watch.

In particular some very good characters in this series were Murakoshi, Macchan, and finally the eccentric and wacky manager Tatsumi Takeshi. Tatsumi was a great character because he was able bring out the best and believe in his players. He also used several unusual methods that are doubted my many but end up working in the long run.

The art of giant killing was very disappointing. The character designs were way too angular for my taste and they made use of really terrible cgi at some points in the series. There was also unsuitable lighting which distracted from some important moments in the actual anime. The voice acting of giant killing was not bad at all and the voice actors portrayed their rolls very well. I also enjoyed much of the music present in the anime.

One personal enjoyment I had with giant killing was that the fans were very realistic in relation with the type of team ETU is. Some of the characters who were fans were very interesting and the spirit really shined through. This was also relatable to me in real life as I'm a spirited supporter of a small struggling soccer team in my vicinity.

In conclusion giant killing despite the score I gave it and the obvious incongruencies as far as the narrative goes, this was not a bad series. You will definitely enjoy it by I thought it could have been better. Because of the improbable season 2 I will have to read the manga to experience more of the story. But seriously if you like soccer this will be worth watching despite its set backs.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 31, 2017

JohnPerez

Not Recommended

REVIEW WITH NO SPOILERS

Do not think that I disliked this anime because I scored 4. I did it because technically the anime is lower than the average.

You will only enjoy this if you're a football fan, like I am. Then you will probably find fun here... like I did.

But I can't ignore the bad animation (this is an anim produced in 2010 man!) and the ugly and strange design of the characters (whats up with their noses?).

And there is nothing fun in the story besides the football (you have no good comedy or any healthy fan servisse here).

So if you are looking for an ... anime about professional football, and just that, Giant Killing will satisfy you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Giant Killing Episode 23 Discussion ( 1 2 ) TheRealNeji - Sep 5, 2010	52 replies	by Revillo_Phoenix »» Jul 30, 1:45 PM
	Poll: Giant Killing Episode 26 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Alexstratz - Sep 26, 2010	76 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 30, 8:59 AM
	Poll: Giant Killing Episode 25 Discussion Kanade-chan - Sep 19, 2010	45 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 30, 8:36 AM
	Poll: Giant Killing Episode 24 Discussion starrysky - Sep 12, 2010	46 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 30, 7:32 AM
	Poll: Giant Killing Episode 22 Discussion BlackListHunter - Aug 29, 2010	40 replies	by RGreatDanton »» May 30, 4:34 AM

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