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Upon seeing that one of the new anime out was a football anime I rushed to watch it. Football anime have been good to me in the past with the likes of Whistle! And Hungry Heart: Wild Striker so I came into this with high expectations.

Those expectations were shot to pieces. The anime’s football scenes are dull compared to the series’ I mentioned earlier and the anime’s overriding theme – which becomes obvious within the first few episodes – is poorly executed and shoved in the watcher’s face in nearly every episode.

Additionally the plot gives the feeling that in another 10, or so, ... episodes it won’t matter because all it seems to be there for is to boost the main character’s football skills and make the other characters react.

The final nail in the coffin, for me, is that there is not much sense of actual team spirit which is normally one of the best parts of a football/sports anime. By this I mean there isn’t really a sense of a goal for the team beyond winning and that nearly all of the team could be replaced with stickmen and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Having said all of that, parts of the story are well done and one or two of the characters are surprisingly complex. If you have run out of other good football anime or want to try something with an original plot then this may be the anime for you but otherwise you’re better off staying away.