The following contains spoilers for Episode 1 of Blue Lock, "Dream," now streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix.
Blue Lock is one of the Fall 2022 anime season's sports anime, and is anticipated to be a big one. The manga for Blue Lock has been published on Weekly Shounen Magazine in 2018, and is still ongoing, and readership has continued to rise every year. In 2021, Blue Lock won the 45th Kodansha Manga Award, and the series has even been recommended by the mangaka of Attack on Titan Hajime Isayama. Posters for the anime series could be n been seen all over Tokyo in the days leading up to the premier of the first episode.
Blue Lock is about soccer, a sport popular both in Japan and around the world. It specifically follows a high school boy named Yoichi Isagi, a striker (the player whose main responsibility is to score goals) who dreams of representing Japan on the international stage. The Japanese Football Association has decided to start a risky and unprecedented new training regime to push Japan towards success in the World Cup, and this new program called "Blue Lock" has accepted Isagi as one of 300 under-18s to try. The last person to make it through (and survive) the program will be selected as Japan's next striker, and Isagi wants that to be him.
High Stakes
The stakes in Blue Lock have never been higher. The Blue Lock program was developed by Jinpachi Ego, a man determined to use science and his new ideas to drive Japan into becoming the World Cup champions, something the country has never achieved. In Ego's eyes, the striker is the most important position on the team, and being the best striker in the world is more important than being a good team player. These are the words he uses to entice the 300 high school boys to enter the program.
Blue Lock is not just a normal training regime, though. The boys have to all live together at the high-tech facilities with next to no information about what they will encounter there. They have to leave their high school teams, their friends, and their families all behind. And while they have the promise of becoming the greatest striker in the world if they can be the last man standing at the end - they also find out one they are already at the facility that if they lose, they will never have the chance to play for Japan, even at a lower rank. The stakes have never been higher for athletes right at the cusp of an international career.
A Sprinkle of Realism
For soccer fans that are watching Blue Lock, it does tie the story into reality, at least loosely. Yes, the Blue Lock program looks like it's going to be completely unrealistic, but that is what makes the anime fun. To keep the setting real and believable, though, Blue Lock mentions real soccer superstars from around the world, including Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and the soccer legend Pele.
The shots of the Japanese national team, and even Isagi's dreams of himself in playing for them, all are very true to the real uniform the team wears. These small details ground an otherwise unbelievable soccer story just enough to keep soccer fans happy.
Is This Dystopian?
The Blue Lock facility and program itself set Blue Lock apart from your typical sports anime. The building itself - or what we have seen so far in the first episode - has a dystopian feeling to it. It's all concrete walls, locked doors, and cold corridors. The boys seem like they will all be trapped living together while being pitted publicly against one another. Their rank is displayed on their uniform out of 300, so they always know where they stand - and who their biggest rivals are.
Their can only be one winner at the end of the Blue Lock program, which goes against the typical idea that soccer is a team sport that can only be won when everyone works together. So far, Isagi still believes in working as a team, but it will be interesting to see how his beliefs are challenged throughout the rest of the season. There also were some interesting side characters introduced so far, especially the eccentric Meguru Bachira.
Blue Lock has the potential to be not your average sports anime about friendship and overcoming odds, but rather something else entirely. Hopefully it will keep the tension and unpredictability high going into the rest of the season. The first episode definitely left us wanting more, especially with that cliffhanger ending, and not knowing the fate of Ryosuke Kira, who seemed to have been introduced as a main character but may well be already out of the program.