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anime - January 31, 2023

Episode 16 – BLUELOCK – Anime News Network


How would you rate Episode 16 of
BLUELOCK?

Community rating: 3.9

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© Muneyuki Kaneshiro・Yūsuke Nomura・Kodansha/Bluelock Production Committee

After all the psychological breakdown and high-stakes football, it was nice to have an episode just about the interactions between the characters. The general pressure of what to do next remains as Isagi tries to better understand his newly developed weapon, but it’s mostly a transitional episode. With the addition of Baro, a new team is formed, and we get an amazing look at a rival team made up of all-too-familiar faces. I didn’t expect the showdown between Leo, Kunigami, and Chikirori to happen so quickly, but given the overall structure of the selection process, I think it makes sense. I love that when the cast gets smaller and the focus narrows to the characters we spend a lot of time with, it makes it harder to predict who will stay and who will leave. While I’m pretty confident that Isagi will find a way to win in the next round, there’s a chance he could lose the match along with his team and be the one chosen to move on, leaving Nagi and Baro behind. However, if they win, I really don’t know who will move on with them, and we might feel like we have more to lose this time around since we’ve now learned about Chigiri, Reo, and Kunigami.

Of course, those are the main things that happened up front, but I like the little cues we get from what’s going on off the field. Interestingly, the top teams that signed Bachira are struggling to find new opponents; who wants to compete with the best three players in the entire system? I like that Bachira is starting to interact with Rin more and seems confident that he can show Rin the fun side of football. I even liked Ego’s conversation with Blue Lock sponsors who were impatient with not letting football geniuses blow their noses fast enough. I don’t know enough about Japanese football to know how much of what Ego says applies to real life, but basically what he said makes sense. Sometimes you can’t rush because while you may end up producing things that are impressive by current legacy standards, they may not look so impressive against global competition. Honestly, that’s how I feel about the show so far. BLUELOCK started out with a lot of hope, and while its selfish cynicism didn’t always land, this idea of ​​having to be thorough and meticulous in order to produce something special is something that runs through the show mentality.

Rating:




BLUELOCK is currently playing
Crunchyroll.