Writer Muneyuki Kaneshirto and artist Yusuke Nomura's soccer manga looked like a good candidate. While the high school sport being played differs, it too is a popular comic originally published in a weekly shonen book, and it is apparently pretty popular. I see tankobon volumes of it coming though the library on a fairly regular basis, and it seems to have lasted quite a while, as I've seen numbers in the twenties on the spines (It looks like there have been 39 volumes released in Japan to date, and Kodanasha Comics just released volume 32 in the states last week). When I've flipped through them, the soccer action seems incredibly intense.
Not the anime proper, but just the opening, which you can see here. It looks ridiculously over-the-top, with boys and soccer balls raining from the sky at one point, the ground similarly littered with fallen soccer players at another and the hero Yoichi Isagi posing atop a veritable mountain of players in one of the many striking images in the relatively short sequence.
And then there's an image that seals the deal, as there seems to be a super-villain of some sort involved...? At the very least, a thin man with opaque glasses and a big, thin, toothy grin appears on the screen, gesturing grandiosely with his arms. Can a soccer comic have a supervillain in it...?
So, I finally gave in and reserved a copy of the first volume from the library.
Blue Lock is...not what I thought it was. Nor is it what it looks like.
Now, at this point, millions of readers all around the world know this, but I am writing this post for comics readers like myself, who know the comic exists and think merely "soccer manga," not for current Blue Lock readers.
The first volume opens with a portentous three-panel, three-page, full-color section about the uniqueness of a particular soccer position, that of the striker:
Within the world... ...of soccer...
You can train a player... ...to be a first-class goalie, defender, or mid-fielder.
But strikers are entirety different...
A first-class striker can't be taught...
They naturally appear... ...wherever the game is the hottest!
Okay, I have no idea what that means, exactly, but it sounds cool, and that last line appears over a two-page spread featuring Isagi holding a soccer ball, surrounded by a bunch of determined, colorful-looking kids.
From there, we visit a meeting of the Japan Football Union in the wake of the Japanese team's sixteenth round loss of the 2018 World Cup. New hire Anri Teieri, a strident young woman whose bust and butt seem to swell when she becomes angry (Is this the creators' way of saying that she is sexy when she's angry...?), lays into the men in the room, chastising their complacency, their "soccer is just business" attitude and their acceptance that the Japan will never win the World Cup.
She has a plan. "I will produce... ...players who can lead this country to a World Cup victory!!" she shouts. She then dramatically slaps the monitor at the front of the room, upon which we see a headshot of the "supervillain" I glimpsed in the anime opening.
"Please observe!" she continues. "This is the indispensable coach who will help us destroy and remake Japanese soccer... ...Jinpachi Ego."
Next, we jump to the climax of a high school soccer game which will determine which of the two teams competing will go to nationals. Isagi has the ball and is driving towards the goal, with only the goalie left to stop him; if he makes this goal, it will tie up the 0-1 game and give his team a chance. If he misses, all is lost.
At the last moment, Isagi remembers that "Soccer is... ...a team sport played by eleven people...", and we hear one of his coaches call his motto from the sidelines: "'One for all, and all for one'!!"
Isagi passes to a teammate, who takes the shot...and hits the post of the goal, thus failing to score. The other team gets the ball, and their star forward Ryosuke Kira drives all the way to the opposite goal and sinks a shot, winning the game and crushing Isagi's dreams of going to nationals.
Okay, so far, so good, and pretty much what one might expect from a soccer manga.
But then things get weird. Arriving home after the game, Isagi finds a letter waiting for him. It's an invitation to join "a special player training program." He accepts and, arriving at the designated location with him, he finds Kira. They go in together, and find the room filled with other boys, all of whom seem to be forwards like them. In fact, there are 300 of them total.
And then things get weirder still. The lights go out, and a spotlight falls on thin, wiry Jinpachi Ego, dressed all in black with a soccer ball bolo tie, glasses and a pair of spectacles:
I'll say this plainly.
Only one thing is necessary for Japanese soccer to become the best in the world:
The birth of a revolutionary striker. You 300 will be my subjects...
...in an experiment aimed at creating the world's best striker.
To this end, he has had the Football Union construct a pentagon-shaped facility he calls "Blue Lock." If the boys decide to join the program, they will abandon their homes and move into the facility together and begin his training regime.
"Whoever survives this Blue Lock," he says, " And outlasts the other two hundred ninety-nine...the last remaining player... ...will become the world's best striker."
The assembled boys think he's mad, an assessment that come in part from the national philosophy of what soccer/football actually is.
Ego explains:
Just what is soccer?
A team sport played together by eleven comrades...?
A band of brothers...?Each relying on the others...?
Wrong. And that's why this country's game has always been weak.I'll tell you...soccer is...
...a sport in which you must score more points than your opponent.
Whoever scores the most points is the best.
If you want to play at 'getting along,' then piss off.
Ultimately, the passage concludes when the spidery Ego cajoles and convinces them that he can make one of them the greatest player in the world, the one who will score the final goal that will win Japan as World Cup, and the climax of his speech leaves Isagi shaking, with what looks like a cloud of gray energy or fire igniting in his eyes.
At the end, he and all 299 other candidates rush forward to join the program.
The rest of the volume is devoted to the boys in the compound, something of a prison, military installation and laboratory rolled into one, in which Isagi finds himself in "Room Z" with eleven other players. They wear weird, tight-fitting black uniforms that automatically rank them based on their abilities (Isagi is 299, which is why he is in room Z, with the others who are among the worst of the 300).
Oh, and it is only at this point, after they are all already in Blue Lock, that Ego reveals that whoever is eliminated from the program "will forever lose the right to represent Japan."
So, there is a real penalty to failure. The losers won't die, exactly, but they will lose their "soccer lives."
The first trial is a game of "tag," in which whoever is "it" has possession of a soccer ball, with which they have to hit one of their fellows...and eliminate them from Blue Lock (Which would then leave each room with 11 occupants, the same number of players on a soccer team).
So Blue Lock is a sports manga...sort of. But the massive elimination, all vs. all set-up put me in mind of Battle Royale, too. There's an element of science fiction and of dystopian fantasy to the book as well.
By the end of the first trial (and the first volume), we see that Isagi is willing to become ruthless and cutthroat in the way Ego wants them all to be, as, after showing mercy to a rival at one point, another of his new roommates puts him in a position in which he must act without thinking about it, and the action he takes is apparently one born of pure survival instinct...or, perhaps, his true self...?
The premise, then, seems to be watching what happens to a regular, decent kid in this situation, and how he deals with the immense pressure to become a sort of supremely selfish psychopath in pursuit of becoming a soccer star. And with 299 other boys in the same position, there's plenty of room for Kaneshiro and Nomura to fill the cast with interesting characters, a few of whom we meet in this volume.
It's honestly a pretty crazy premise for a book, and it's easy to see how intensely dramatic and suspenseful it can be. It's a sports manga with an angle that makes it far more than a sports manga.
I'm not sure it's for me. While I am curious about how it ultimately ends, and if Isagi will make what seems like a Faustian bargain in pursuit of being the best (and if the creators will settle the conflict between Ego's vision of the game and what is presented at the more standard vision of soccer in Japan), it doesn't seem like a particularly fun comic.
The setting made me feel a little uncomfortable and claustrophobic, and the set-up seems to be one that will accentuate the nastiness of the characters. Also, at this point, there wasn't much in the way of soccer. I know that will change—based on that anime opening, it looks like each room's team will play against one another, as you can see letters on the characters' jerseys—but the fact that they are playing in the context of the Blue Lock program rather than for their schools seems somehow less interesting to me.
Anyway, Blue Lock has great art, great action and a totally insane premise, so it's not really a surprise that the book is as popular as it is.
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