Once again, Blue Lock proves you just need to explain yourself well to win me over.
Table of Contents
Introduction
After watching part of the first episode of Blue Lock at Crunchyroll Expo, it makes sense I’d check out the manga someday…and what I discovered was more than what I bargained for. For one thing, I translated Pixiv tags for part of my translation experience, including a bunch of the series’s ship tags, so I subconsciously set myself up to understand some of the character dynamics and fandom without knowing I would read the manga one day in the future.
Its Creators’ Resumes
Yusuke Nomura, the illustrator, previously worked on Dolly Kill Kill, a horror manga. The face game is strong enough that you don’t need extra convincing to see why Nomura was given the job. Likewise, Muneyuki Kaneshiro, the author, previously worked on the horror manga As the Gods Will and this shows through the dystopian atmosphere the titular Blue Lock complex has.
Speaking of which, in the second volume afterword, Yusuke Nomura jokes Blue Lock is shortened to “BL” and the fans (plus the official English manga translator, Nate Derr!) have completely run with it…haha…
It’s Making Characters (Not) Stand Out
On the flip side, let’s go over a trick that’s been done before in other series to similar effect: Hyoma’s name contains “panther”, the Wanima twins have crocodiles and…Bachira is a bee (hence his association with yellow – personally, I call him the “bee kid” as a result). There’s certainly more than that (there’s someone in the cast whose name has “dragon”, judging from the wiki), but that’s a good start.
Sidenote: On the topic of characters, I do take issue with the bangs kid (i.e. Niko), because he looks like Yoichi but with hidden eyes. Other than that, we’re good.
Similarly, Anri herself stands out, albeit by being the only female character of note. She ends up as Ego’s manservant after a volume of manga or two, which gets my goat. I mean, a spirited woman who loves soccer, getting relegated to cleaning lady for a dude who can only think about soccer in the most unconventional way possible? That’s just reproducing existing gender norms, instead of uprooting them like the rest of the manga does with soccer and strikers.
It’s Playing Upon Shared Understanding the Japanese Love Order
At one point in the series, Ego points out Japan’s soccer team is best at positions which put the team before themselves and don’t “cause a revolution”. This brings to mind a Japanese idiom – “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down”, a commonly-cited sentence about how Japanese people like conformity and order. However, by being extremely sensationalist, Ego not only turns this idea on its head, but also makes a rather individualistic sort of escape – through nationalistic pride, a concept present in most sports manga but not in this particular manner – for the originally intended Japanese audience.
It’s Showing the Pitfalls of “Aiming to Be the Best”
Likewise, if you go back to the beginning of the plot, Ego’s reasoning for creating a “genuis striker” (personally speaking) brings to mind the tale by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, The Spider’s Thread. It’s a story where Kandata, the protagonist, becomes so egotistical that he fails to get his way…and that, by proxy, makes you worry for the strikers under Ego’s (and Anri’s…?) tutelage.
Conclusion
Overall, Blue Lock isn’t made in a vacuum – it keeps referencing real-world coulda-been-a-contenders and actually-a-contenders – but what it does is combine concepts that, at first glance, don’t seem to mesh together. Now, that’s innovation.
Keep seeking the magic,
Aria.