Warning: Spoilers for Blue Lock episode 19! Second part of Blue buckleThe show’s first season fails to resolve both the series’ unique conflict and the hero Yoichi Isagi’s turn into villain, all of which were promised by the first batch of episodes. From the beginning, the soccer anime sets up the inevitable tragedy that Isagi and his teammates will be destined to confront due to the exclusive nature of their eponymous death match, in which declared that there could only be one winner in the Blue Lock.
Such a fierce competition naturally also requires competitors who wish to succeed to have a mentality that is not conducive to maintaining friendship. Since the series is inherently a subversion of the typical sports anime, viewers tend to expect Blue Lock to be more accepting of these unusual tropes.
Tragic, as Blue Lock tells it
In episode 19, Isagi participated in his first match with his two former teammates without much fanfare, and he has yet to become the opposing force that Blue Lock promised. Before the highly anticipated 3-on-3 match, Isagi’s former teammates and opponents Chigari and Kunigami discuss revenge against him. The moment this necessary plan is implemented, Isagi and his new team appear on the scene, eliminating any negative feelings they had towards him. This mentality persists until a random moment after the match when Chigari tells Kunigami to continue playing so they can exact their revenge. Isago also did not show any discomfort during these reunions. Meanwhile, he shows momentary evil when he uses Barou’s derogatory use of the word “donkey” against him during the match.
The irony is that at the end of the highly anticipated match, only Isagi’s teammate Nagi got the moment that fans wanted Isagi to have with Chigari and Kunigami in the Blue Lock as Nagi completely tormented his friend and his former teammate, Reo. As a shounen series that unusually puts “friendship” on borrowed time, it would be more effective if the hero took down Kunigami in this fashion rather than giving fans what they expected – a character other than him hero takes on the role of villain. Even though Chigari and Kunigami have a moment where they show they still want revenge on Isagi, the damage has already been done. Fans were bracing for tragedy as Isagi was destined to have a tragic rematch with his teammates, and although the series surprised when that moment came sooner than expected, There is currently nothing to suggest any future rematch will be different enough. The first rematch was probably the hardest and seemed pretty easy because they kept their emotions to themselves.
Isagi is still not “Evil” enough
Conversely, although Isagi’s mistreatment of teammate Barou was extremely amusing, Isagi later blamed her actions solely on being caught up in the moment. Either way, that scene should never have happened because Barou should never have been on Isagi’s team. There would have been a more effective development if Isagi had not chosen Barou out of spite. This may have contributed to Isagi’s expected villainous personality while also remaining true to his understanding of Blue Lock. Before that, Isagi chose to compete against the three best players even though it was unlikely to succeed because that is the type of mentality that Blue Lock requires its opponents to adopt. Isagi choosing not to continue with Barou could still be viable for him as a character, as not having Barou on his team would force Isagi to try harder to win. It could also force him to compete with Barou again.
Advocates of Blue Lock’s second route might justify these developments as the original creators’ efforts to work toward these moments instead of rushing into them. Many events were accelerated as Isagi confronted Chigari and Kunigami almost immediately. More than that, Blue buckle has positioned itself as the ultimate subversive of the entire genre, and its failure to do so will cause it to fall back on the same formulas used by the other series it is trying to dramatically subvert. hopeless.
Blue buckle is streaming on Crunchyroll.