The following contains spoilers for Episode 16 of Blue Lock, "Tri-Fusion," now streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix.
This week on Blue Lock, there was not much soccer action, but there was plenty of good set-up so next week we can get right into it. We got to see a lot of interactions between players and what is going on both on and off the pitch, including a reappearance by Isagi's old friends and the Bachira's new teammates (who are struggling in their own way). Seeing how all the characters are interacting with one another is fun, especially with how big the personalities are in Blue Lock.
Blue Lock managed to move up one spot on the Winter Anime Rankings according to MyAnimeList, and is now in the very respectable fifth position! This season has been excellent so far, with a nice balance of action and character development, and enough tension to keep things unpredictable and interesting. If it has a slow week, it always picks back up quickly the following one. And next week is set up to be action-packed!
A Dysfunctional Team
As we predicted last week, Isagi, Barou, and Nagi are not a good team. Their fight over who would sleep on the single bed persisted into this week and set the tone for their relationship throughout Episode 16. Barou refuses to work with the other two, and his entire strategy is simply score as many goals as he can and make everyone else just help him do that. Blue Lock has always been unique to other sports anime in that it does encourage this idea of selfishness over teamwork, but Barou takes it to a whole new level.
When Nagi, Barou, and Isagi need to talk about who they will choose if they win the next round, they cannot agree on even that. They all choose a different person for their own reasons. If they are the winners and get to choose who to take onto their team, there is definitely going to be another big fight - and it will be bigger than just who gets the single bed, that's for sure.
We did get to see some new characteristics for Barou as well, including that he is obsessed with being neat and tidy to the point of tidying up after others, and is also a stickler for protocol and rules! It was good to see him fleshed out a bit more beyond just not playing well with others.
Reunion
We were waiting for Isagi, Barou, and Nagi to run into Chigiri, Kunigami, and Reo, and it happened this week - in the bath of all places, which was definitely some fan-service for the viewers who were interested. At first, it seemed like everything was going to be okay between the two teams, and Chigiri and Kunigami understood Isagi's choice to leave them behind, especially once he revealed he had lost the next match and lost Bachira.
When Reo entered the scene, though, that dynamic totally changed. Reo's only motivation now is revenge for Nagi leaving him. He wants Nagi to be sorry that he left, and he wants Isagi to be sorry for taking him. This narrow-mindedness is unsettling, and will definitely be important going into the next match. Everyone else is there to be the best player, but Reo is there for vengeance.
Context Reminder
It is easy to get caught up in the drama between characters and exciting matches in Blue Lock and forget what is going on outside the walls of the facility - to be fair, that is exactly what is happening to the players as well. But "Tri-Fusion" reminded us a little about the reality behind the program, and its goals to produce Japan's star player. Not only was Ego back (and not just on the big screen inside the facility) but Anri was back too, along with all the stakeholders who are forking over the money for this experiment.
It was a good chance for Ego to remind the viewers exactly why Japan needs his program, and it also let some drama outside the pitch and the game develop. The stakeholders, of course, want to make money. Anri and Ego want to create a star player. The two ideas are not directly coinciding at the moment, and Ego is willing to spend any amount of money to achieve his vision. We can expect more to come from this in the future, because this argument did not seem over.
On a side note, Anri is the only reoccuring female character in the entirety of Blue Lock. While many sports anime do not have many women, they typically have at least one who features more than this. We would really like to see more of Anri, or another female presence at least sometimes!
It looks like next week will be a really tense, high stakes game, and we are already counting down the days until Episode 17. What makes Blue Lock so special is that it can be hard to predict, and this next match could go either way. We assume Isagi will likely move forward this time, but will it be by winning - or will it be by being chosen by the other team? It could go either way, and either way means we will be saying goodbye to some other characters soon.