Blue Lock: Episode Nagi

 I finally reactivated my Crunchyroll account a few days ago. Sure, I could still watch its selection of anime shows and movies with my free account, but it was whatever they decided I could watch whenever they felt like it. Well, everything’s available, and I now have a new avenue for reviewable movies.

Let’s begin with Blue Lock: Episode Nagi, a film you might recall I would have seen back in June had the movie theatre hadn’t played hopscotch with the schedule. This is the film version of a spinoff of Muneyuki Kaneshiro’s soccer manga, albeit illustrated by Kouta Sannomiya instead of the series’ regular illustrator, Yusuke Nomura. It’s finally time for kickoff.

Seishiro Nagi would rather play video games all day than do practically anything. One day, he meets his classmate, Reo Mikage, a rich kid who wants to get into soccer to alleviate his lonely life. He ropes Nagi into his impromptu soccer team in an exhibition match set up by Mikage’s dad. Their mad skills get them scouted by Blue Lock, a spartan training facility which aims to find Japan’s next great striker. Those that fail will be banned from professional soccer. No pressure, right?

Nagi and Mikage find themselves among Blue Lock’s three-hundred hopefuls, all of whom live for soccer. Nagi only takes the sport seriously to get his phone privileges back. He and Mikage takes their team through victory after victory, though their friendship is tested when they confront series protagonist Yoichi Isagi and his seemingly weak team. That’s pretty much it.

This covers the same ground that the anime’s first season did in 2022, ending just in time for the recently premiered second season. This perspective flip is actually a good starting point for new fans of the series. The soccer matches play out like fights in Dragonball, with each play represented as an over-the-top special move. They all look and sound great. The eccentric characters, even the minor ones, are quite fun; it helps that each is introduced with a handy caption. After watching this movie, binging the series seems like a fun game.

The only problem is that the film runs out of gas near the final stretch. The seeming climax is followed by several new characters and plot twists before it just ends. The film is only ninety minutes long, but that stretch felt much longer.

It’s quite logical that Nagi is the film’s MVP. The depths of his ennui are often hysterical, particularly when he naps on the goalie’s net! Not under it, on it. Him narrowly saving his phone from falling down the stairs is genuinely impressive, and he continues to impress the audience in each soccer match. It’s quite compelling to see him bond with his teammates, especially Mikage, and learn to love the sport. The climactic twist, where Nagi ditches Mikage for Isagi, is given a reasonable rationale. 

Who else is on the field? Mikage is quite sympathetic when he exposits about his bored rich life, where he could theoretically have anything, except genuine friends. As I said, his and Nagi’s friendship is great, even when they become rivals at the end. The MVP of their team is Zantetsu Tsurugi, an airhead who is painfully aware of his shortcomings, and tries his best to fix them. That makes it a bummer that he disappears from the plot at the end. His malapropers are entertaining, though. What we see of Isagi is of a decent anime protagonist type; the MVP of his team is the crazy-awesome Meguru Bachira. Jinpachi Ego, Blue Lock’s headmaster, shows some surprising depth behind that, well, ego.

Blue Lock: Episode Nagi is a good appetizer of the craziness of its host series. It eases you into the franchise's central premise quite nicely, rather than leave you stranded in medias res. Its ending wasn't perfect, but the main characters' friendship capably carries the film up to that point. So, yeah, it's a pretty good sports anime movie. I may have been late to the game, but I'm pretty pleased that I made it after all. That's it for now.