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The reason why I'm making this review is because I love this manga and I don't want people to go through what I did, so read this attentively.

First, I would like to say that this manga is not for "anime-manga nerds" only. I know plenty of people who like football and/or play football (and I don't mean with their friends, I mean fr), who like this manga, as much as people who don't. I think the issue is that many people took what Ego said too literally and weren't bothered to see how what the manga would progress, so they missed out on what the ... manga can actually offer. So please, give it a chance if you want to read it and don't stop just because of the first few chapters.

With this out of the way, I'd like to start talking now about the manga itself rather than the "drama"/claims that people make by only reading the start. Why's this manga good? The manga presents itself pretty well and the football matches are crazy good. It makes us readers feel like we are supporting a team and cheering on them. The first arcs are very interesting and different, the players clearly weren't ready for what came to them and it's cool to see how strategies and emotions they're going through. You feel the stakes and, honestly, even though some plays might be crazy, the manga can be pretty grounded.

The art is also a big complementary role to that and honestly it makes the goals pretty badass. I will talk about this later, as it'll become important, but as of now it's all happiness. The characters are also super enjoyable and honestly they're very diverse, I'm sure most people can find at least one character they like. What's neat is that they also don't feel closed in a box, even though some are stereotypes or have super defining characteristics, they're not limited by that and go through pretty good development.

I'd say that until around half of the manga, this was truly a 10. Maybe a bit over the half, I don't recall 100% which chapter specifically I started feeling like this manga was going downhill, but the arc that is around the middle of when I'm currently reviewing (ch. 150 should be around the middle) was probably one of the best things I've ever seen.

Now, the arc after the aforementioned one is the sole reason why my grade got this low and I love-hate the manga.

The first reason why I'd say it ruins the manga is the pacing. Even though the other arcs were shorter, they felt greatly paced and it was as if they had the perfect amount of seasoning. This one arc has basically the same amount of chapters as all of the other ones together. It's crazy how slow the pacing is and it's so bothersome. Every day I was wishing it would end.

The second reason I'd say this manga gets super bad is because the "weapons" (which is a concept of what the player excels at, explained at the very start) become crazy, it just doesn't become like Inazuma Eleven because it doesn't want to. It took out everything that was good on the matches, like the emotions, threats and stakes, and lost it.

The last reason is the art. The manga stopped flowing through matches properly and every chapter the author tries to make an "aura farming phonk edit" art on the very last page, so tiktok and youtube shorts kids and editors go full dopamine mode. It becomes obnoxious. That is not to say that there aren't moments deserving of it, it's just that every chapter is not worth of having a badass art.

Just a reminder, this is a preliminary review, so read this knowing the context it's in

This manga is the perfect out for people who hate NEL, like me.

Whatever is missing from current Blue Lock (NEL) is in here. My opinion, even tho I don't like yaoi, is that Blue Lock actually needs to be in between yaoi and sigma phonk edits to be good, and that's exactly what this manga gives us.

The story floats between rushing through scenes (which some of them can be uninteresting, but they could've also spent a bit longer on them just to let us enjoy more of the narrative) and ... really focusing on some spots, which is when the manga goes crazy and becomes really good. The positive point of this manga is also that we don't really focus on one character, but instead on the duo NagiReo, which adds on a lot of angsty and emotional moments. Seeing their perspectives also expands the universe by putting more details on side characters that don't really get justice on the main series or how certain teams were planning to play, along also their internal tactics (like how Reo or Nagi see football and the games)

I don't really need to talk much about the art, since it's fantastic and it feels like the main series. The animalistic auras being there are also a nice parallel, keeping the story consistent and showing how those details are there, even before it actually happened on the main story (timeline wise).

A last thing that is cool to take note of is that some stuff that happen on the main series is actually foreshadowed here. Which, ofc, I'm not spoiling, but this should entice you to reading this.

If you miss the original Blue Lock, which felt like stakes actually existed along with heavily emotional characters, this is the manga for you.

This manga was good/decent, until it wasn't.

First of all, I just want to put this plainly that I was reading this manga during my cardio workouts and I was so intrigued that I decided to finish reading at home instead of on other days of workouts, so this is just to show how excited I was.

This manga from the get-go had a lot of problems. Bad pacing, mediocre art and weird square/bubble placements. Everything felt so confusing and hard to keep up with. The pacing was so fast, it felt like the story was happening in one second (which, tbf, you could totally see that ... as a positive, since the game seems to happen in one day), and that was so obnoxious to read, as everything kept happening non-stop and new things kept popping up.

However, even with all these problems, the author could at least keep the readers hooked and honestly the fast change of who to doubt was at the same time refreshing and problematic. Even then, the manga kept getting more and more interesting, you'd find new information and sometimes the author would stop and focus on something, so it felt as if finally the plot was catching up to something.

Unfortunately, the plot twists on the last chapters were just terrible and the ending on top of that was definitely one of the worst things I've ever seen. If you're a death game/high stakes game enthusiast, this will definitely not be of your taste. The plot twist is so shit that the stakes, which were high, got dropped immediately because of how dumbfounded you'll feel when reading it.

One last thing that is worth mentioning, but that is just a small annoyance, is that a character contradicts what they said during the manga, however, nothing is worked with it. It's a point that comes up and is dropped to irrelevancy immediately. This just reinforces how bad the writing is.

Besides the problems with the plot, the characters were also very forgetable. Often I found myself forgetting their names and they're so bland that it's really hard to like any of them. Particularly, I found myself sympathizing with/interested in the nerd and the protag, as they had something going on for them.

This manga is not completely dogpoop, but it feels extremely pretentious and tries to show how life can be depressing and it's all pessimistic, but instead the stories only cause you to raise an eyebrow and be like "oh I guess that happens, whatever".

Ch.1 talks about cheating and how marriage life is not always happy, it feels very eh and it even feels like it endorses cheating in a way (the girl always lacked love and found herself love upon being rejected by a guy during a cheating moment or whatever). It's very boring and unless you like cheating, it'll probably be just a miss ... and leave you with a straight face.

Ch.2 is one of the more interesting ones because it deals with masturbation/porn addiction and attention-seeking behavior. However, I'll point out that even though the story has a good theme, it completely flops with its resolution because, again, the story is trying to have a pessimistic approach with life and although it might be realistic in some way or another, it still doesn't really leave me satisfied, even though negative endings can be done quite well. Both protagonists had a very traumatic experience with one another (a guy and a girl) sexually related and in the end, it just shows how the girl moved on from it, whilst the guy became even more of a porn addict and also an incel. I wouldn't really mind that, but I think such topics had more potential to be discussed and mainly considering how the story was going for. The ending felt like a turn-off. EDIT: I'd like to add, maybe I'm being biased here, but because I've experienced being a porn addict, it's quite sad to see this theme never get the importance it has (unless it's some influencer trying to gain a following from men). It'd be cool if they had developed the characters together and going through their problems.

Ch.3 is another one with cheating-related things, but instead it talks about p3d0 and sexual development of girls. It is kind of interesting, as it tries to approach how the girl views sex and family, having an abuser satisfy her sexually, but being an abuser, and a boyfriend who treats her right, but doesn't really give her the satisfaction in sex and doesn't yet want to have a family. The story develops rather quickly with the professor being reported and whatever, but the ending also feels non-sensical as it contradicts all that we had read before.

Ch. 4 this one is kinda cool, it deals with young girls being models for adult magazines and how they deal with it. The girl meets a guy who swears to not see the content and that he loves her for herself. However, as the manga progresses, it tries to show how some people are so devoid of personality that they become some "pavlov dog" that reacts to keywords and all turns mostly well in the end. It shows a bit again the attention seeking behavior from some girls, but I liked a bit this one, as it felt sweeter than the rest.

Ch. 5 maybe I'm some low IQed person because I didn't understand anything at all on this one. I'm p sure it has something to do with symbolism of flowers and also with how people deal with loss, however I have no idea how the two MCs relationship really matter. One of them went to have a sex life and died??? I didn't really understand the point of it, it is the worst one in my opinion (again, maybe because I'm stupid).

Ch. 6 it's an isekai parody where the girl is trying to be with the mc, but in every universe she ends up getting rejected (the guy is on an eternal loophole of being isekai'd). I don't really know how to rate this, it just exists.

Ch. 7 it's one of the cooler ones as well, except that the idolatry point they were trying to criticize ends up being right? I think maybe it's because of how twisted and devoid of personality the girl is, but it's still pretty interesting nonetheless, as it goes a bit away from the darker pretentious pessimistic points and goes for a more interesting topic to discuss.

I really love this artist's art style and the reason I came to read this was not only because it's hers, but also because I saw a picture of chapter 2 on social media and wanted to check it out. Overall, it's a really pretentious and pesismistic story that most of the time doesn't achieve a point to actually make the reader reflect on the topic they wanted to criticize/point out.

It's an ambitious project to sell their capture motion device and make their VAs very famous. (Perhaps they made money selling it to V-Tubers, who knows)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1XggkjyDzA (Video showcasing behind the scenes)
The show is satire so disconsider all the 1s, however that doesn't mean the satire is good or funny, it just pulls you a prank in the first episode that you're thinking whether it's satire or not. I was watching it with my s/o as a joke and it feels so draining to watch it in one go even though the episodes are 8 mins each. So far the only thing I'd give props to ... it are the voice actors and the ending, they're very good and the song is catchy (btw Kaguya-sama and Komi-san's VA is one of the characters before the fame I'd guess LOL).
Idk if the ratings show regardless if I write or not, but I'd say:
Story 4 it's satirical, but it's bad satire;
Art 6 (considering the time it was made imo);
Sound 8, I've complimented the VAs and the songs, so I have nothing else to say;
Character 1 they're really unfunny and are trying to be as "quirky xd" as possible;
Enjoyment 3 it was fun while I noticed it was satire in the first ep, but then it became annoying and draining;
Overall 4 would recommend watching it with someone else, but it's too bad, so I'm not sure if it's even worth it.