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First things first, I would definitely recommend not watching this unless you are a die-hard fan of Inazuma Eleven or any of the select characters in this short film. I essentially only watched it for Desarm (you can guess why) and I almost regret it.

For something that's been hyped up for about a year, virtually no attention to plot, characters, or new story went into this "movie". Very little went into the characters beyond the basics of their personalities (Endou and Tenma being cheery, Kidou and Shindou's calculating personalities, Fudou being.... Fudou.) and there is absolutely no explanation as to what's transpired prior to the ... events of this short film.

The art and animation is very average for Inazuma, which was highly disappointing after what Go Galaxy had to offer us. The opening sequence is completely reused from the first season back in 2008, and compared to recent OP installments of the series, its age shows. Very few of the characters shown in the opening are in this short film at all, so it feels highly confusing and out of place.

Sound is very good, all the voice actors did great jobs with their characters, and (as expected) several BGM tracks were reused from prior seasons, but said BGM is pleasant enough to listen to, so there isn't much of a problem to be had.

Character portrayal is.... shoddy. Here we have several kids from ten years in the future, several other kids from around 200 years in the future, a few aliens, and absolutely no explanation as to how or why any of them got here. The characters in this film were picked from several popularity polls in Japan a while back, and it definitely shows most of the characters are there to simply exist.

As for enjoyment.... It was fun to see all these characters come together, Desarm, Bitway, Shindou, and Kageyama are my four favourite characters from throughout the series, but I'm sorely disappointed that not much thought went into the plot or presentation of this at all.

Overall, this was very rushed and sloppily put together, I understand perfectly well that this series in general is targeted towards Japanese children, but even placing myself into the young mindset of a little Japanese child I would've found this short film to be a real letdown.

I find it odd that despite being the best written of the six Inazuma seasons, this is the one no one talks about. Sure, it's not outstanding compared to a lot of other anime out there, but it's nothing to be ignored.

The plot is a little rocky and predictable at worst, but as a children's anime, it's actually very well done and doesn't needlessly drag on certain points for many episodes, especially after around episode 18. The flow was a little too predictable about midway through the anime, but towards the end it definitely got interesting.

The new eight characters on the main team are ... developed super nicely, which is something we haven't really seen in Inazuma since Fubuki Shirou and Kidou Yuuto. All eight characters are given a reason to be there, and backstories that while are not deep, get the job done and fill in the reasoning behind their personalities. For instance, Nozaki Sakura's self-centered behaviour and need to be number one on the team is due to her parents always pushing her throughout her childhood to be the absolute best, and that there is no room for her to make mistakes. It definitely strains her relationship with her teammates

The characters that weren't in previous seasons aren't so lucky, as aside from main character Tenma, we don't see much new development in Tsurugi or Shindou. I found Kuroiwa's backstory to be very frustratingly lacking. Very few of the aliens are very well developed at all, which was very odd as they were the true main focus of the anime. A select few aliens such as Bitway and Lalaya are interesting characters as they are, but more insight into their history (especially Bitway's) would've been fantastic.

Art and animation is very good throughout the anime especially compared to the very first season of Inazuma Eleven, though I feel the bright colours became a little hard on the eyes after a while. The art style is still slightly cringe-worthy at times, but it's nothing too bad. Scenery was very pretty, the CGI throughout the anime blended much better with the animation cels in Go Galaxy than it did in the previous five seasons.

This anime has possibly one of my favourite OSTs in anime. Nothing to rival Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji, Free, or Fullmetal Alchemist, but it definitely has a very captivating musical score, everything from fast paced rock with violins to slower piano melodies. Several tracks from the previous five seasons are reused (I recognized several from Chrono Stone at various instances), but several tracks from the new score top a lot of the old stuff.

The voice acting is all very nice and emotions are captured very nicely, but something that really stands out to me are the sound effects. Particularly, there's a scene in episode 42 where the main team plays against the final antagonist team, the captain of the main team falls victim to a sliding tackle, and lands on the ground with a sickening crack. I've never heard anything in an anime so vibrantly painful enough to make my stomach turn, even after seeing gory animes like Higurashi and 3x3 Eyes.

You don't notice it as much in other seasons, but you can actually hear small sounds very distinctly such as the vibrations of the rubber of a ball being kicked, footsteps in different environments, and other little things like that. A lot of the sounds used in space and on alien planets are very nice to the ears.

All in all, as a fan of Inazuma for a few years, I thoroughly enjoyed this anime. Aside from very few factors like Kuroiwa's backstory, Zanakurou's personality compared to Zanark's from Chrono Stone, and some of the early stuff that happened between the three main characters, I think it could work very well as a standalone anime if you haven't seen the other seasons. Despite being targeted towards children, there's several factors that I feel make it enjoyable for all ages.

Though many people may turn this anime down because it is centered around soccer and is incredibly long, if you like positive shows with many 1980s-esque story elements and/or magical boys and girls fighting against aliens, this is certainly not an anime to be missed.
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-"Football Frontier" arc (Episode 1-26)

In this world of super-powered-magical-boy-soccer, the story begins following a cheeky little middle school boy named Endou Mamoru, whose late grandfather left behind a legacy in the soccer playing world around 40 years ago. Mamoru starts up a soccer club at his middle school, but the members are never inspired enough to get any practice and ... have nowhere on school grounds to do so. The daughter of the school chairman arranges for the soccer club to recruit more members and participate in a soccer match against the super strong Teikoku Academy, or be disbanded. The rest of the season follows the team trying to become stronger to enter in Japan's middle school soccer tournament, the Football Frontier.

The story after the first four or five episodes started to feel weak and repetitive, but around the twelfth episode or so quickly regained its pacing. Plot is very generic for the sports anime genre, but is kept interesting by the wide variety of characters and their magical soccer attacks. The art, while still very nice and fluid compared to a lot of other children's anime, falls short in quality compared to the animation in the second and third story arcs, and the colours used felt very washed out. Character designs for several supporting characters felt somewhat dull (like the designs for Kino Aki and Handa Shinichi) but the main three characters as well as a lot of the episodic characters had very nice designs. Sound quality and voice acting are very good and very well done, and good character development occurs in a decent portion of the main team's characters.

Overall Score: 6/10
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-"Aliea Academy" arc (Episode 27-67)

Immediately following the events of the first season, Mamoru and his team return to their city to find their school in ruins. They are encountered by jumpsuit-clad beings who claim to be messengers from a distant planet called "Aliea". These beings announce that they have decided to take over Earth by displaying their power to humans through soccer. The main characters set off to recruit the strongest players in Japan to take down the aliens and find out what their true motive is.

The plot is a little hard to comprehend the first time in, as now the magical soccer boys are playing soccer against weird aliens, but the general story flow is very well done, and though a few things are left unexplained by the end, the story is very interesting at the least. The animation improves fairly noticeably, still very fluid and actually improving areas that were fairly rough in the first season. Colours still feel somewhat dry (even more so than the first season) for a 2008-2009 anime, making it feel as if it were a late '90s anime instead. New character designs are very well done, especially the designs for a lot of the aliens. Each of the new (more prominent) characters get a particularly good amount of development, particularly Fubuki Shirou, Tachimukai Yuuki, and Gran/Kiyama Hiroto. Sound quality remains unchanged and is still very well maintained.

Overall Score: 9/10
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-"Football Frontier International" arc (Episode 68-127)

Japan's strongest players from the last season are called back to the main character's hometown to participate in a selection match to become Japan's representatives for the international Football Frontier tournament. They have to fight through the Asian team preliminaries to claim their ticket to fight against the rest of the world and aim for the top.

The overall plot is fairly simplistic and nothing special for a sports anime, much like season one, but there are many interesting sub plots and great character development over the course of the season. The season did feel like it was dragging on a little too long, and had a few filler episodes that were pretty useless and could've been done without. Art is widely improved over the last two seasons, with more vivid colours, and even nicer animation. There are even more new characters including tons from around the world, such as characters from Australia, Brazil, England, and the U.S. The international characters did not get very much development (for example Edgar Valtinas and Mark Kruger felt incredibly flat and uninteresting, and although they had good potential they were ultimately cast aside by creators and fans in favour of the the ironically dull and generic semi-protagonist Fideo Aldena), but other new characters such as Tobitaka Seiya and Mac Roneejo are very interesting and wonderful additions to the cast. Sound quality feels even clearer than the first two seasons.

Overall Score: 7/10
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Over the course of the series, many positive and encouraging morals are displayed, and the general cheery feel of the anime is a good mood lifter, but there are several sad and bittersweet moments throughout the entire series as well. It's a very thoughtful and well balanced series, and though it may not be the greatest anime ever (as yes, it's still a children's sports anime based off a video game), it's worth watching in the end.