Warning: Spoilers for Blue Lock episode 19!The second cour of Blue Lock‘s debut season fails to address both the series’ unique conflict and the descent of its hero Yoichi Isagi Isagi into villainy, all of which the first batch of episodes promised. Early on, the soccer anime set up the inevitable tragedy that Isagi and his teammates would be destined to face off against each other due to the proprietary nature of their eponymous deathmatch, which proclaims that there can only be one victor in Blue Lock.
Such a cutthroat competition also naturally requires competitors who wish to succeed to adopt a mentality that isn’t conducive to maintaining friendships. As the series is inherently a subversion of typical sports anime, viewers have been more inclined to expect Blue Lock to embrace these unusual tropes.
Tragedy, as Told By Blue Lock
In episode 19, Isagi has already participated in his first match against two of his former teammates with little to no fanfare, and he hasn’t become the antagonistic force that Blue Lock promised. Before the highly anticipated 3-vs-3 game, Isagi’s former teammates and opponents Chigari and Kunigami discuss getting revenge on him. The moment this necessary plan is articulated, Isagi and his new team appear on the scene, eliminating all semblance of negative feelings they have towards him. This mentality persists until a random moment after the match when Chigari tells Kunigami to continue competing, so they can carry out their revenge. Isago also displays no sense of discomfort in these reunions. Meanwhile, he adopts a momentary flicker of evilness when he employs 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 has the moment fans have been wanting Isagi to have with Chigari and Kunigami in Blue Lock when Nagi completely brutalizes his former friend and teammate, Reo. As a shonen series that has uncharacteristically put “friendship” on borrowed time, it would have been more effective if the hero put down Kunigami in this fashion rather than giving fans the expected – another character other than the hero taking on the role of villain. Although Chigari and Kunigami have a moment that proves they still want revenge on Isagi, the damage has already been done. Fans were bracing for tragedy since Isagi was destined to have a tragic rematch with his teammates, and although the series did the unexpected by having that moment come sooner than expected, there’s now nothing that suggests any future rematches will be enough different. The first rematch should be the most difficult, and it seemed pretty easy because they kept their feelings to themselves.
Isagi Isn’t “Evil” Enough
Conversely, although Isagi’s mistreatment of his teammate Barou was incredibly exciting, Isagi later just blames his actions on being caught up in the moment. Regardless, the scene should have never even happened because Barou should have never made it onto Isagi’s team. A more effective development would have been if Isagi didn’t choose Barou out of spite. This would have contributed to Isagi’s expected villainous persona while also staying true to his understanding of Blue Lock. Earlier, Isagi chose to compete against the three best players even though success was unlikely because that’s the type of mentality that Blue Lock requires competitors to adopt. Isagi choosing not to go forward with Barou would have still been feasible for him as a character, as not having Barou on his team would have required Isagi to try even harder to win. It would have also forced him to possibly compete against Barou again.
Proponents of Blue Lock‘s second cour could justify these developments as the original creators’ attempt to build up towards these moments rather than rushing to them. Many events were already severely expedited when Isagi faced off against Chigari and Kunigami almost immediately. Moreover, Blue Lock has already positioned itself as being the ultimate subversion of a whole genre, and failing to do so is causing it to fall into the same formulas employed by other series it’s desperately trying to subvert.
Blue Lock is streaming on Crunchyroll.
