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This is only my 2nd full review of an anime so bear with me. I tend to be a long-paragraph merchant about things that I’m passionate about but I plan to keep this review as short as I possibly can.

Blue lock is essentially a death game that offers a fresh approach to the sports genre. Our main character, Yoichi Isagi a striker, fresh from losing an important high school game is invited along with 299 other students to Blue lock, a location where the top striker in Japan will be developed in order to lead Japan to its first World Cup win. I will admit ... the plot sounds problematic. Why on earth should 299 other people waste their time and energy while only one striker gets to lead the line for Japan? This question is getting slowly answered in the manga but it’s still a valid question nonetheless.

The first episode puts into perspective what Blue lock is centered around and the message it is trying to convey, the presence of ego. We see this concept first explored in the first few minutes of the first episode where Isagi has one of the toughest dilemmas in football. He had a one-one with the goalkeeper, he could shoot himself or square it to his teammate for a 99.9% tap-in. He decides to take the selfless approach which results in his daft teammate missing a sitter. That miss was costly as the opposing team went on the counter and killed the game. Isagi ended up losing and that is where Blue lock started laying down its marker.

Blue lock’s message is a topic that is very much relevant in the world of football. To be a professional footballer, you have to have some sort of ego. A desire to be the best that trumps everything else, the desire to rise above and capture the moment when presented. Football is ruthless for selfless players, who get overlooked in nearly all aspects of the game, so most high-level players and managers have massive egos even bigger than blue lock's players. This isn’t to be confused with selfishness which is what people seem to have a problem with apart from the sometimes edgy dialogue. The first example of that is in Team Z’s first match. One of the characters in team X featured Barou, who is a talented player who would go on to be very important in other arcs. Team Z’s tactic was to mark him with two or more players but that just ends up freeing more space for his teammates. He was able to make the right decisions in assisting his teammates instead of selfishly and foolishly going for the goal every time. Also, in the same match, our main character, Isagi was involved in a scene where he decided to pass instead of shoot which raised a few eyebrows from his teammates and opponents. Jinpachi is opposed to teamwork centered around a mindset that kills off individuality and self-confidence. Many people seem to misinterpret his philosophy as abandoning teamwork and going 1 v 11, which is just not true. We also see this concept explored numerous times in the second selection arc where teamwork is encouraged… somewhat. It is Blue lock after all. Some players cross the line between egoism and foolishness and Barou is one such example, especially in this arc.

When we meet with Barou in the second selection, he created a team of “average joes” assuming he can just use them to pass the ball to him and he can score all the goals to fulfill his king persona. What ended up happening is that he lost his first match and got snubbed for an “average joe” because of his frustrating nature of wanting to play his own way at the expense of his team. He meets up with Isagi and Nagi and he just assumes he can play the same way and they’ll just support him while he gets to play his selfish way. Of course, Barou is humbled and he realizes that his way of playing doesn’t work if he can’t even get the ball. This sequence of Barou struggling with himself and even how he gets his groove back all but reinforces Blue lock’s philosophy that egoism involves putting your interests first and making them the driving force behind your actions but also being able to realize when those actions will benefit your team and when they might not. There’s a fine line between egoism and foolishness and I feel like both sides were explored with great depth.

The last thing I want to cover before I close this already-long review is the realism in Blue lock.

Blue lock is surprisingly overlooked for its realism. I have seen a lot of football fans say it is a shame to the sport, I have also seen alot of casuals call it unrealistic as well. It is not trying to be too realistic but I do feel like there are some realistic aspects worth mentioning. Apart from the concept of egos being so relevant in football, I also want to talk about the tactics that were introduced. Team Y, I thought had an effective tactic against Team Z where they looked to be compact when they had the ball, offering no time or space to Team Z, and then when they got the ball, they were quick to release their best player and that tactic troubled Team Z for a while. That tactic is as old as time in the footballing world and I like that Blue lock implemented that. Blue lock is extremely exaggerated, there’s no denying that. But these exaggerated skills like Kunigami having a wand of a left foot or Nagi’s trapping ability are all skills that are reproducible in real life and not some supernatural otherworldly entity.

The story is remarkably grounded with scenes like Nagi and Reo's tense relationship, Bachira constructing a monster to combat his loneliness, Chigiri being shackled because of fear that he might break his leg again, Rin wanting to step out of the shadow of his brother, Naruhaya and his commitment to his family, etc. There is a human side to these edgy teenagers and that isn't talked about enough.

The sports anime genre is approached unusually by Blue Lock. Every shounen fan should watch it because of its unique psychological elements. You may be captivated by its story and its characters or even appreciate its subtle realism like I've come to do. Regardless of whether you're watching it as a hardcore football fan or a casual who has never seen or played the sport, there is something for you to learn and enjoy about Blue lock. There are more themes and aspects of Blue lock to discuss so I hope my fellow reviewers will touch on that and then some. My score would probably be one or two points higher if the anime gave justice to the manga in a visual sense but it didn’t. With all due respect, who let 8bit cook?

Mediocrity can mask itself in funny ways. When I think of the word “overrated”, I think of shows that have been able to hide their mediocrity in such admirable fashion that they do not get noticed by the majority of anime fans. We’ve had our fair share of overrated anime like Clannad which was able to mask its mediocrity with emotional p0rn, No game no life, and even more recently Sono bisque doll with its uncanny ability to cater to the most down bad section of weebs. But no mediocre anime has been able to reach such heights of popularity as quickly and as effortlessly ... as Spy X family has. Some of us are quick to convince ourselves that ratings don’t matter but when an anime(a first season at that) reaches so close to the top of the charts on this site before even clocking six episodes, there’s something in the works. This is my first complete review of an anime. I’ll try to keep things spoiler-free but some minor spoilers from the anime might spew out on account of my rage.

Spy X family is the new anime on the block taken on by two popular studio veterans, Wit and Cloverworks, who know more than a thing or two about how to adapt a successful anime. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past three months, you’ve probably heard about it. A spy on an undercover operation marries and adopts a child all in the name of avoiding war. The plot follows Twilight, a renowned spy who is tasked with investigating Donovan Desmond, who I think is a leader of some country, group, or something. Desmond apparently only shows his face in his child’s school thus sparking the culmination of convenient story arcs and just all-around nothingness that fails to leave me with much satisfaction or anticipation.

Spy X family falls short in quite a few areas starting from its overly convenient plot. There’s just too much that didn’t need to happen. Firstly, the existence of Yor. In what school do you need two parents to be present for an interview? Aren’t concepts like death, divorce, adoption, and many others present in this anime? This means that Yor has no right to be this integral to the plot this season. Now don’t get it twisted, I don’t hate Yor I think she’s a tolerable character but the way she was introduced to the story was stupid. The only reason she exists, to begin with, is to appear in Anya’s interview. She hasn’t done anything else to prove that she can be important to the overarching plot of the show yet. That might change but you have to admit that for now she’s kinda just flailing around having very little importance to the story so far and is mainly used as eye candy. I would rather have characters pop up randomly and then be included in the story rather than being included in the most ridiculous and unrealistic ways.

Secondly, the dialogue. I value dialogue a lot in a story. A good dialogue aids in creating convincing characters by exposing essential details about their backgrounds, quirks, etc. It reveals aspects of characters that make them relatable. Spy X family does not excel here, unfortunately. The dialogue is forgettable and doesn’t leave me with any impression that these characters can be entertaining in any fashion. The most fascinating relationship is between Anya and Loid but that does not get explored enough or as in-depth as I would like. The other characters leave very much to be desired as well in terms of dialogue. The characters are not entertaining or thought-provoking. It’s not like the interactions between the characters are incredibly witty or funny, intellectual, natural, or realistic. The interactions between the three main characters seem lifeless at times and it feels like time is moving that much slower when I watch these characters communicate with each other. I feel like if an anime(A “comedy anime” at that) cannot establish some form of entertaining dialogue that goes past the stereotypical cheesiness that SXF advertises, then it is simply not worth my time. The dialogue is easily the weakest part of this show and when people such as me try to discuss these issues with Spy X family twerkers, it always comes back to one lazy ass point,” iT’s JuSt a SliCe Of LiFe CoMeDy iT’s NoT tHaT sErIoUs”. Okay, let’s address the comedy then.

When anyone criticizes the anime, the stans are so quick to say that it’s just a comedy slice of life and whatnot but here’s the twist, it’s not even that funny! Comedy is subjective and everything but I want to see the people that get a good laugh by watching some of the “comedic” scenes in this show. The comedy is repetitive with slow and awkward timing and it’s normally filled with Anya or Yor doing something over the top like slapping a relative until he starts bleeding or Anya falling on her face like an idiot. Also, can we talk about the fact that Anya, a four-year-old is being forced to an elite school with people two years older than her and not only expected to keep up with her elite classmates but to do so well academically that she gets a Stella? I feel like it’s another stupid and cruel attempt at comedic relief. Admittedly, the manga is a better representation of comedy but I feel like the anime’s shameless use of meme moments and explosive animation to pass off as comedy does not work for me. What makes it even more confusing is that it’s not hard to make me laugh. Some of my favorite comedy anime are trashy anime that don’t take themselves too seriously. The simplest joke can have my chest hurting from laughing too much. As with most “funny” anime these days, Spy X family is filled with wholesome moments that get the fans going. Watching Loid act like a dad is cute, Anya being stupid is cute, and Yor blushing for no reason is cute but it’s not funny at all. I can’t even think of an anime that came out in the past four or five years that hasn’t outrageously relied on these overused tropes and tried to pass it off as comedy.

This section will be dedicated to all the stupid things that didn’t need to happen. Can we talk about episode five? The most over-the-top celebration of a child going to school I have ever seen. Also, the organization that Loid works for made itself to be an absolute joke, and the “best” spies were just really dumbed down to fit the subplot which was to “save” Anya from a “villain”. In a show that people praise for its relatable slice-of-life moments, I don’t know how anyone could tolerate this episode. Another episode that didn’t advance the plot was that dodgeball episode. Never have I ever seen such attention to detail in a pointless episode that does nothing different than the previous episodes. I don’t think there’s been enough plot development to allow for irrelevant episodes. If Loid’s mission was so urgent that he had to enroll his four-year-old child in an elite school with people two years older than her then surely the plot should progress faster right? While we’re at it what about the backstories? Does Anya’s tragic backstory revealed to us in the earlier episodes play a part in the progression of the story? Certainly not. The show focuses on scenes that make the fan base melt over interesting scenes that reveal to the audience the implication and why that backstory is so relevant to the character. But instead, we had about two or three full episodes of not building up anything. It’s such a shame because everything has been set up, the plot looks interesting, and the characters? Fairly bland but can improve if they focus more on the actual story. Ultimately, all we get is a poorly written slice-of-life anime with the occasional dark episode or two which I feel is a huge waste of potential.

To end this review let’s discuss some of the few moments where Spy X family showed the potential to be great. I could write about the art, music, or animation but I feel like that is already the topic of discussion in many other reviews of this show. What I want to focus on are the moments where there was potential for a good anime.

First off, Anya passing the exam. We all knew that she was going to pass but seeing the genuine excitement from Loid as he sees her number on the board! One of the first instances we see a genuine father-daughter bond grow is during Loid and Anya's celebration together and it was honestly beautiful and relatable and is by far the best moment in the anime until it was ruined by that stupid hide and seek game. Another moment is where Loid lashes out during the interview. Again that did nothing but strengthen the bond between Loid and Anya. It showed that he is not just creating a family to fulfill his mission but he cares about Anya. The show clearly shows promise but it holds itself back from being good by always clicking the reset button on any meaningful progress, reducing it to a standard comedy series(depends on what your definition of comedy is) with no actual intention of advancing its plot so far. I’ve read a bit of the manga which suffers from the same problems as well. All in all, Spy X family is a disappointment but not an unsalvageable one. It showed good perhaps even great moments but not nearly enough to justify its incredibly high acclaim.

I only recommend the first part of this show leading to a certain main character’s death as for the rest of the show, it’s just a mess I mean no wonder it isn’t streaming on Funimation anymore, the characters just seem like they don’t fit in to the show, the plot of the show can be confusing and sometimes you either want to sarcastically laugh at the sore mistakes this show makes or get pissed off I did enjoy some moments like when the boys attempted to escape from prison but at the end of the day it’s just a convoluted mess move along ... if you were expecting something grand