Blue Lock vs. U-20 Japan just premiered, continuing the story with the Third Selection arc. However, unlike the first installment of the anime, which didn’t cut much from the source material, showing exactly everything that happens both on and off the field except for a couple of chapters, season 2 is taking creative liberties concerning the manga by including original content regarding upcoming events and even what is to come in future arcs.
Although this might seem like a risky move by 8bit Studio, since one of the reasons Blue Lock season 1 was praised was because of its fidelity to the manga despite covering 94 chapters in 24 anime episodes, the changes in this new season do not modify future events but instead improve the characterization of the players and the pacing by restructuring certain moments in the story as well as creating expectation in the viewers to one of the biggest matches in the series, the all-or-nothing game between the 11 best Blue Lock strikers with the Japanese U-20 National Team.
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Blue Lock’s Anime Restructures the Manga to Highlight the Itoshi Brothers’ Relationship
The Anime Also Leaves in the Air Kunigami’s Match in the Second Selection
BL season 2, episode 1 covered from chapter 95 to part of 97 of the manga, but the beginning teases the flashback to the fallout between Rin Itoshi and his brother Sae, which wasn’t shown until chapter 123 during the halftime of the match against Japan U-20. This rearranging is meant to make the Itoshi brothers’ relationship more intriguing, as the anime only revealed a part of their 1vs1 without showing the complete flashback and also included several sequences of them in the opening and a couple of hints to other scenes of Rin, even to one in chapter 270.
Additionally, another change from the manga is the scene featuring the match of Kunigami and Reo against Shido and Igaguri in chapters 88 and 89, as well as the scene of Kunigami getting eliminated from chapter 94, which was skipped in the last season and has yet to be adapted, even though it could have been included in the episode as a way to introduce Shido. As this doesn’t affect the continuity of the story, it could have been a decision to maintain the mystery among viewers regarding Shido’s skill before the tryouts and the circumstances of Kunigami’s loss.
Blue Lock Season 2 Anime Original Scenes Help Introduce the New Characters
The Anime Developed the Relationships Between Blue Lock’s Top 6 Players Ahead of the Tryouts
Season 2 also creates anticipation for the match against the U-20 by creating original anime scenes introducing earlier the first antagonist of Blue Lock, the JFU chairman Hirotoshi Buratsuta who wants to eliminate the project. Buratsuta is first heard on a call with Ego and later makes his appearance in a conversation with Japan U-20’s coach Hoichi Yasumori, which is similar to their dialogues in chapter 107 of the manga, along with the introduction of the captain Oliver Aiku, who didn’t appear till later in chapter 110 and is one of the major characters of the arc.
Also, in the scene of Ego talking to Buratsuta on the phone, on the central screen he is analyzing the statistics of the Blue Lock best players, and on the left can be seen the members of the U-20 team, while the right screen has flags from different countries, which is a reference to the NEL arc. The episode also features more interactions from the top 6 elite players, Rin, Shido, Karasu, Otoya, Yukimiya and Nagi that weren't included in the manga and helped introduce the new characters' personalities.
The Original Anime Moments in Blue Lock Season 2 Enhance the Series for Manga Readers
Blue Lock Season 2 Could Include Matches That Were Skipped in the Manga
Some anime original scenes make allusions to other moments in the manga, like the clash between Rin and Shido before the tryouts, which builds up their bad relationship. In this scene, Shido not only displays the same behavior he has in his introduction in chapter 88 but also the same axe kick and a similar dialogue to the one he said to Kunigami in chapter 89. Likewise, the new dialogue that Isagi says to Reo is similar to a quote that Bachira said to Isagi at the beginning of the NEL arc in chapter 154.
It’s not actually about what the right answer is. What matters is your resolve to turn your decision into the right answer. - Isagi
It's not about making the right choice... It’s about making the chosen path the right one. - Bachira
Additionally, the pacing felt better than in the manga by finishing the episode after revealing each group, adapting just the first pages of chapter 97 instead of ending the chapter at the start of the first tryouts. Moreover, as the anime includes new content, it is possible that it also includes the tryout matches that were skipped in the manga. Because of this, by carefully teasing the upcoming events of the story with new content, Blue Lock Season 2 feels like a new experience for manga readers and also builds up the expectation of a U-20 matches from the start.
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13 9.2/10
Blue Lock
TV-14
Animation
Sports
Blue Lock is a sports-centric animated series based on the manga series of the same name. The show follows the Japan Football Association trying to recover from their poor showing in the 2018 FIFA World Cup by hiring a football genius, Ego Jinpachi. With his new intense training regimen, Jinpachi invites the best football players in Japan to compete to become the team's new star player - and high school student Yoichi Isagi may be exactly who he's looking for.
- Cast
- Ricco Fajardo , Drew Breedlove , Alex Horn , Mark Allen Jr.
- Release Date
- October 8, 2022
- Seasons
- 2
- Streaming Service(s)
- Crunchyroll
- Writers
- Taku Kishimoto
- Directors
- Tetsuaki Watanabe , Shunsuke Ishikawa