Category: Finished Series: Sports

As this series is very fast-paced for a sports series (I mean, it’s been ten episodes and we’ve already seen what? Six matches?), I’m actually very surprised at how colourful the creators still made the enemy teams. This time with the Brazilians as well: it’s not like these guys are rounded characters, but their roles in their own team were really well explored in this match, in between the action of the football match.

I at first thought that this episode was entirely going to be about trying to stop that threesome, but that turned just to be one part of the story. A lot of focus also went in the original ace of that team, whose ego is suffering pretty badly now that he’s not in the spotlights anymore, even though the coach may still see him as a key to winning this thing. The playful portrayal contrasting with those grudges was just enough to make all of then dynamic and interesting to watch.

As for the main cast, as this was the longest match in this series so far, I love how it involved all of the major characters here, whether they did well (the defenders) or whether they just couldn’t get through (the attackers, note how Tsubaki just couldn’t get his attack right). Tatsumi may just keep bragging that this will be the match that will turn the tide, and the time indeed seems about right for them to start winning a bit, but the creators still portrayed this episode as a struggle to keep those Brazilians at bay.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

So we’ve already had English, Dutch and French, and now this episode also throws in a bunch of Brazilians. Awesome. Their portrayal is a tad stereotypical, but they did well in contrasting with the rather uptight Japanese players. And who knows, something’s telling me that the next episode will add a lot more colour to them. One of the reasons this show is so awesome is because of its huge and incredibly diverse cast, and with this episode it became even more diverse.

This episode had no soccer matches, but for a series like this that’s no problem at all: it again showed that this isn’t just a series about football, it’s a show about everything that involves football, from the players to the fast to the press and the coaches and all of the other staff members behind a team who all have their own functions. With so many details, I can more than forgive the few unrealistic parts about the soccer.

The cast really is huge, probably the largest of the entire season, but nearly all of the characters here stand as individuals. Take the supporters for example: you have the loyal fans, then there are the fans with the most status who rally everyone on to cheer as hard as possible, and then there also are the older fans who long for the nostalgia of the old Tatsumi.

I also loved Tatsumi in this episode, you can really see that he knows that he’s not going to win easily, and even he has to motivate himself a bit after such a losing streak of five matches. I think that for a lot of people, they’re into a test of endurance: how long can they keep up with the team’s abysmal performance? How long will it be before Tatsumi will live up to his name and brings a victory to the team? Seriously, out of all of the sports series I have seen so far, this one feels by far the most unique.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I guess it’s true that Giant Killing has a lot of shounen elements, although as a genre, I’d probably classify it as somewhere in between Shounen and Seinen: there’s not one genre that this series completely fits into (other than ‘sports’, perhaps). It’s of course a matter of tastes, but to me that in itself isn’t something bad. In fact, I’m glad to be able to watch such a good shounen series again. The key to a good shounen for me is to make it fun and whatever action it focuses on interesting, alongside the usual stuff as great characters and pacing.

Giant Killing brings us a very interesting twist on the ‘underdog’ trope. What we have here isn’t the usual story of a team of losers trying to become stronger and winning. It’s more like this series is about healing a broken team. The problem with the team was that it was unbalanced: it focused too much on defence and it wasn’t aggressive enough. The keys here were the two defenders and Murakoshi, who kept putting pressure on each other, so much that they didn’t allow each other to escape this visual circle. Tatsumi then came and divided the problem. Tsubaki turns out to just be a red herring: his backstory is nice, and with more experience he’s really going to make it big, however he wasn’t vital to the team’s survival.

On top of that, I just love the small details that the creators keep inserting. Take a look at the street and the people in the background: it doesn’t just feel like random people standing or walking past, but it’s drawn in such a way that it feels alive. It’s a shame that the creators had to use CG for that, but it really works. Also, in most anime when a character does something outrageous or weird in front of a bunch of strangers, you usually see these strangers just look, or utter a few “oohs” or “eeehs”. The guy on the bike went even further, though, with his brisk reaction to a guy who suddenly starts yelling out of nowhere. Also, is it me or are the stands getting emptier with every match here? They used to be full, however with the losing streak of the team continuing you can actually see less and less people showing up.

One thing I also loved was the moment at which the penalty was taken. The opposing player noted that he used to work together with Dori. Nothing more, but that line was enough to give both him and Dori a much more interesting character, by showing that they’ve done plenty of other stuff in their lives. A great way to flesh them out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

In my experience, you can really divide sports series into three categories. The first is the typical shounen, and usually the most boring: a band of underdog kids trains hard and wins in an over the top fashion against all odds. Then there’s the realistic type, like what Ookiku Furikabutte is currently doing: really analyzing and pudding down an as believable representation as possible. Touch also belongs to this category. The third category doesn’t necessarily aim for realism, but tries to explore the borders of the sport it’s discussing, with wild and reckless tactics, tailoring games based on unique characters: it’s an exploration of the extremes in a sport. This is the category of Giant Killing, along with shows as One Outs.

I was really certain that this episode would feature some sort of come-back after last episode’s cliff-hanger. You know, an entire episode dedicated to them, making up for that nasty goal that was scored against them. And they lose. Miserably with 0-4. They then proceed to lose the next two matches again. The whole euphoria of the end of the previous episode, it wasn’t just meant to build up for one measly match, it was meant to build up for the entire series!

It’s still a mystery what Tatsumi has in mind, letting the players play football tennis matches during the training. It’s in any case obvious that he’s not a Deus ex Miracle coach, and this episode really stresses that even though he won in England, it doesn’t mean that he’s automatically going to win every match here.

Central to this episode was also the buzz-cut guy whose name I can’t seem to find: his patience was bound to run out sometime, but this episode made him more than a random hothead. He’s outspoken and often gets angry, but also a perfectionist and a passionate player. But I also love how each player reacts to Tatsumi’s practices in a different way: some of them also start wondering what the hell Tatsumi is up to, while others don’t really care, others think that Tatsumi might have something in mind, and others in turn are sure of it. The cast here is HUGE, but there are so many different nuances between them.

I’ve been thinking, but this show is actually quite refreshing to watch after watching a ton of different high-school baseball series. This isn’t because they’re inferior or something, because Cross Game, Ookiku Furikabutte and Touch definitely rock in their own ways. But the way that high school baseball is set up is very limited: lose once, and you’re out. Instead, the adult teams in contrast can afford to lose. You’re not immediately out if you lose once. It perhaps leads to less drama, but it allows the creators to play much more with their matches.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Muaahahaha! That was AWESOME! Never since the bald gay ambassador of Samurai Champloo have people talked in actual Dutch in anime. Hearing the voice actors trying to utter the Dutch sentences totally made my day. What an awesome series.

En dan te bedenken dat deze aflevering ook vol zat met Fransen en Engelsen, het zou helemaal geweldig zijn als de Zuid-Amerikanen ook ergens in de serie zullen verschijnen. C’est génial de voir que anime de plus en plus orienter vers un anime international. Wo man früher nur ein paar Sätze in Engrish finden konnte, werden ganze Gespräche in anderen Sprachen geführt.

The creators actually did pretty well. There were some voice actors who just couldn’t take it at one point, but that Dutch coach was voiced really well, he even got that nonchalant monotone tone that you often hear with Dutch guys nailed. He also spoke English with quite a good Dutch accent, without overdoing it. The same goes for the French coach. It’s a shame that Tatsumi himself didn’t get the best voice actor: you could see him struggle with his English, which caused some lines to be just replaced with their Japanese counterparts.

This episode introduced a ton of interesting looking characters. What I also loved was seeing just how many different, varied and unique character-designs the creators could produce. Seriously, every character here has unique character-designs that stand out. Every person has his own features.

On top of that the creators also slapped the start of the new football match at the end of the episode. Neat. I also loved the way it was written: everything seemed to be going well, everyone was in the right spirits, the fans even brought a huge-ass sign to cheer everyone on… and suddenly the ball misses and the opposing team makes a goal. It’s really a great way to introduce the next episode.
Rating: *** (Awesome)