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

Oct 10, 2024

michidicchy

Recommended

This anime is the "Football Manager" of football-related anime. This is a very fresh and almost realistic way of how a football club is run. Also, this anime introduces me to the manager's pov on managing the team, communicate with other players, thinking strategiclly, and many more related to running a football club. In a sense that this is the predecessor or test run of "All or Nothing" docuseries from Prime. No hate or shade to Captain Tsubasa, that heavily focused on Tsubasa and co's backstory. All I have to say is: I have a great time watching this series. Also, the opening is a ... banger tune. It always hype me up!

I really hope that there will be another anime like this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 13, 2022

KSeca

Mixed Feelings

"Where's the fun in it if everything is going as planned?" - Takeshi Tatsumi
Giant killing follows the story of a professional soccer player turned manager going back to japan to revitalize a team no one thinks anything of. Wouldn't it be interesting if the underdogs won? Although, i must admit, the manga does a better job of sticking up to the name "giant killing", I still think the added atmosphere from the anime provides a unique enough experience that it's worth watching.
Animation is nothing special for it's time, some of the motion scenes are well animated so i assume the budget is being ... allocated into some sections, but of course you can't ignore The abhorrent cg sometimes on faraway shots.
The sound design is quite good at times, enhancing the experience and building tension or expectation, but occasionally the voices and sound mixing are not up to par.
Some moments have given me chills, made me smile or feel hyped up. At times I feel like the pacing is unecessarily slow, despite the presence of jarring cuts and timeskips. Sometimes i don't feel like i have a full picture of the sequence of events in the games, but that's likely because they never planned to adapt a second season and so the pacing wasn't exactly well thought out.
You get dragged along in the story, hoping for takumi to do great things, yet being dissapointed or impressed just like characters in the story, almost as if you're a spectator through real life events.
Although sometimes the dialogue is stiff, it has its moments. I ocasionally find myself invested in the story or the characters, feeling excited or distraught.
Certain parts of the show have us focus on different characters and their growth, as well as how Takumi becomes a catalyst for great things to come. You tend to wonder, what cool thing will happen next.
Unfortunately, the moment where the story really begins and it starts to get really really good is towards the end. However, for what it's worth I was really satisfied with the ending
I feel like with a lot better pacing, budget and execution this could have been something close to the one outs of soccer, but alas, no dice.
However, I still love the story of giant killing and as a manga reader, the music and the atmosphere makes me more hyped than the manga could.
Needs an execution that brings it justice, 8/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 10, 2018

Ajgeo

Not Recommended

It's really hard to give something with art this terrible anything above a 5, even if it's made up elsewhere.

Story: 6
run of the mill underdog story. Pretty much the exact same character setup as one outs and extremely similar to many other sports animes. I don't mind them though.

Art: 1
Worst art for any show I've ever seen

Animation: 5
Sometimes you see nice scenes with people messing around with the ball or running, but otherwise it's the worst CG bullshit I've ever seen or stills.
...
Sound: idk, bad
Nothing standout. Whenever I stop and try to pay attention, it's still boring and dull.

Character: 2
Main dude is one of the light novel protags with a mysterious background and laidback attitude wtih some random OP superpower... don't hate that in a sports anime myself, but everybody else is a caricature and that is offensive.

Enjoyment: 5
Just being an anime about adults is nice.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Anime not dubbed in english pt 7

by Idk5008

29 Entries · 1 Restacks

new season please pt4

by Idk5008

50 Entries · 5 Restacks

Football/Soccer

by AGROS

31 Entries · 8 Restacks

	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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