Blue Lock—manga done wrong.

SPORTS MANGA IS MY FAVORITE GENRE. To this day, I find I am most drawn to the sports genre not only because I grew up playing (and watching) sports, but because sports manga done right transport me to a whole new world and do a great job of keeping me there.

Normally, you would think that fantasy or science-fiction is the genre that does the best job at immersing the reader in a new world, but I would beg to disagree. If done right, the readers learn more about the rules of the game as the sports manga progresses, and correlatively, our protagonist improves. That used to be Blue Lock.

There are two major problems in this series: scaling the power system and the pacing of the manga.

Power System

To start off, the premise of Blue Lock is actually really entertaining. Initially. The idea rests in n elite soccer facility called the Blue Lock that is created in Japan in order to produce the world’s best soccer player since Japan’s forwards (in the manga) are not dangerous near the goal. So, the protagonist, Isagi Yoichi, is invited to join this training facility because his potential as a forward is recognized. Operative word: “potential.” The story followed Isagi and the fellow blue lockers as they work toward that elusive dream.

Looking back, Blue Lock is intrinsically flawed because it rests on the idea that Isagi develops as a forward. And that hinges on him developing new abilities, weapons in other words. The first such “weapon” he develops is the “direct shot.” And yes, it’s as dumb as it sounds.

It’s literally him learning how to volley. This power in itself sets the flaw in Blue Lock. First, there’s only a limited number of possible powers the author can utilize since he is depending on physical abilities. Some of those could include “bicycle kick” and “banana curve free kick.” As you will see over the course of the manga, sometimes, the author cannot explain powers because it’s just this character or the other dribbling. So, long term, this power system is unsustainable. What’s more, during the latter half of the manga, (don’t ask me how), the top 5 strikers in the world are brought to help train a bunch of high school kids in Japan. Makes sense right? Now, proponents might argue that Isagi’s actual ability is his mental ability to see into the future. And how original is that? I would argue that literally every other soccer manga also attributes the protagonist that ability.

But this is where another problem arises. The author can only say “wow, he’s really fast to a degree” till it starts to sound ridiculous. Or, “he’s really smart” to a degree because he points out other characters that are smart or fast. For example, in the world of Blue Lock, the best player in the world, Noel Noah is brought to train in Blue Lock. The scaling system fails because the author abandons the strategy of even explaining why Noel Noah is so good. The audience just has to assume that he is. Period.

Objectively speaking, it’s really hard to scale this to the professional world. And this is a problem a lot of mangas such as Seven Deadly Sins share. How do you show that certain characters are stronger than others? In Seven Deadly Sins, a mistake the show makes is to judge power by “magical number.” Yeah, so each new villain that shows up just has a higher number. So, long term, Blue Lock is unsustainable logically based on how much the author has already scaled the power system.

Pacing

Pacing goes hand in hand with the power scaling system. As I mentioned, using such a flawed way to show character strength means that the author has to spend a significant amount of panels showing that strength off. This results in an absurd number of side characters who intrude on the story for absolutely no reason other than to show how good they are.

But it’s more than that. In the recent few months, Blue Lock has introduced characters that aren’t even necessary to show said strength. Okay, let’s take a step back. The purpose of Blue Lock is to create the best possible striker right? And the idea is to eliminate everyone in Blue Lock until there is only one person remaining: the best striker. Would you believe it if I told you that it’s been 200 chapters and not a single one of the main cast of characters has been eliminated? Not a SINGLE one. Blue Lock has way too many narrators and too large of a cast for anything to actually happen since the author makes it a habit to tell every side story possible.

I can safely say that the author can drag Blue Lock on for easily another 300 chapters just explaining the backstory of every irrelevant character he draws. It’s gotten so out of hand that over the last few months he introduced a new character who serves no purpose (I can’t even remember his name) other than that he is supposed to be a stepping stone for the protagonist. Hello? Isagi has like a 1000 other rivals in Blue Lock. There’s no reason to add another who the audience has no emotional ties with. This, to me as a reader, is the biggest “who cares moment.”

This leads to the problem that practically nothing happens in each ensuing chapter of Blue Lock. In the latest stage (Blue Lock stage 2), there are numerous five minute games that are played. The author has literally spent 27 chapters (thus far) on a single five-minute game. That's half a year of chaptes in casr you were wondering. Dear god, Blue Lock, in terms of fillers, it’s worse than Naruto and Bleach combined.

Final thoughts? Blue Lock had a really interesting concept and great first 70 or so chapters. From then on, the problems that had initially been suppressed started to take over, and the manga travels quickly downhill. So, long story short, this is a Death Note structured story. Quit before it sucks. Recently, there’s been an anime adaption for Blue Lock and I must say, whatever expectations I had were vast overestimations. The show itself does a poor job to convey the unique art style the manga boasts. But I’m willing to cut them some slack. It’s hard to animate a soccer manga and keep viewers attentive. Since society as a whole has climbed down the ladder of attention span, soccer, a sport that requires more than a modicum of patience, is hard to watch, let alone create an anime about.

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