The match between friends continues in Blue Lock Episode 17 as Chigiri, Kunigami, and Reo try and take down the dysfunctional trio of Yoichi, Nagi, and Barou. Let’s see how it went for them in this review!
Blue Lock Episode 17 Overview
Blue Lock is the latest sports anime by the Anime Studio 8bit, previously known for producing critically and commercially acclaimed anime like That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime and Rewrite. The series is directed by Tetsuaki Watanabe, who has been a part of the productions of various anime in the past, such as Haikyuu and Kabaneri Of The Iron Fortress.
Hisashi Toujima serves as the action director for the series, and the anime is based on a manga written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Yuusuke Nomura. Click here to read the review of the previous episode in the series.
– Blue Lock Episode 17 Review does not contain spoilers –
Blue Lock Episode 17 Review- Donkey
I have a lot of begrudging respect for the show right now because whatever it is doing is incredibly effective. I have a lot to complain about in this review, but every complaint was meticulously written by the author to be embued upon the watcher, so it is unclear if that is a good or a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong; they are still complaints and things that weren’t so great about this episode. However, since those aspects are completely intentional, let’s talk about them first before coming to a conclusion about this.
Read More- Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible Episode 4 Review: The Things We Do For Love
Barou is incredibly dumb. He is playing football. Not counting the reserves, a typical football team has 11 players per side to try and win. Not just that, but a team usually has more than one striker to score goals, and strikers are also usually the ones who set up the most goals for their teammates because of the advantages their position gives them. All that is to say, Barou is an enormous idiot to play football the way he does. How he even got this far is beyond me, with his easily countered talent and lack of anything that adds value to his team.
Blue Lock Episode 17 does an incredible job dealing with a disaster like him- by knocking him down several pegs and having his own catchphrase used against him. However, that’s the thing about Barou- he is actually so dumb that he might still stick to his guns and keep making the same mistake over and over again. That’s how the author has written him, and that’s who Yoichi and Nagi are left to deal with in this round. They have made their bad by choosing him instead of Naruhaya in the previous round, and now they must sleep in it.
Read More- My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 18 Review: Ability To Kill
However, coming out of this debacle has made Yoichi and Nagi come across as much better players. They are able to do whatever damage to their opponents despite Barou and not because of him. Not only that, but the teams have been very well matched in this scenario, and the part of the match we saw in Blue Lock Episode 17 was very entertaining. The soundtrack used throughout sounded great, even when it was being played over one of Blue Lock’s traditional long football exposition dialogue.
The only flaw I see in the author’s plan is that if Yoichi and Nagi win, then we will have to tolerate Barou for a lot longer, and if they lose, it is back to the uninteresting 2v2 matchups again. We will cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, let’s call Blue Lock Episode 17 highly effective at whatever it was trying to accomplish and call it a day. Never mind the quality of what it tried, it being successful and incredibly satisfactory because that is all we need to call this a good episode. Let’s hope they figure out a loophole to throw Barou out.
Verdict
Blue Lock Episode 17 was a very fun episode that was successful in making you feel exactly how it wanted you to feel. The build to this story was great, and hopefully, the payoff in the next episode will be the same.