The match between the top team and the wily challengers continues in Blue Lock Episode 21, as both teams find out what true randomness feels like.
Blue Lock Episode 21 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 21 Review does not contain spoilers –
Blue Lock Episode 21 Review- I’m Not Here
This was a fascinating episode for many reasons. For one, the match neither started nor ended in this episode, but it still managed to keep everything remarkably fresh, and viewers still engaged in every new interaction with the ball that a player had. There were mind games, skill displays, and match-ups that we didn’t expect to see, and they made the episode much livelier than a Blue Lock episode usually is. It was still very much along the same lines as previous outings from the show, but this episode felt like much more of a complete outing from the show.
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I guess the biggest compliment can give this episode is that I have zero complaints about how this one turned out. Every time my mind even started to object to something that was going on on the screen, it was addressed straight away, and it made the show feel a lot more self-aware, to the point that it knew when some elements were missing and decided to include them at just the right time. Blue Lock isn’t an anime that is particularly known for its subtlety, but it nailed that particular factor here.
Because that description and praise are a little vague, let’s discuss a few examples here. As soon as it came to mind that Nagi, Yoichi, and Chigiri were playing their own game, Barou was immediately thrust into the dead centre of the field and the war between Rin and Yoichi. In the same way, when you realised that Bachira hadn’t gotten the ball in a while, the show immediately put that in the blast, made an entire thing out of that one event, and even named the episode out of it. These are just two examples, but there are a few more that you can look out for.
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Blue Lock Episode 21 featured much of the show’s trademark dialogue in the middle of the action. While it can get cumbersome sometimes, it was on point today, with Yoichi narrating almost everything going on in the field at a time in the process of being thrashed by Rin. It is a little hard to believe that so much can go down in literal milliseconds. However, having never played football, I can only give the showrunners the benefit of the doubt here. Even if it seems unlikely, there probably is this amount of thinking going on inside someone’s head when they are in an important game like this one.
I wouldn’t want to speculate on why this might be happening, but the animation on Blue Lock Episode 21 wasn’t as razor-sharp and gorgeous as it usually is. It wasn’t bad at all, but there were a few noticeable parts where the movement looked incredibly stiff, and the CG looked very obvious. Other than this small nitpick, this was an exceptional episode that managed to accomplish everything that it was going for and then some.
Verdict
Blue Lock Episode 21 was the series operating at its absolute best. From great football to even greater tactics, there was something in this episode for everyone who has stuck around this far.
Click here to read the review of the next episode!