I'm a very devoted soccer fan so when I saw Area No Kishi, I just had to give it a go! My expectations from this anime weren't very high as I've already watched a lot of soccer anime and none of them were that good. But, this series is truly amazing! It is an entertaining and fun sports series which provides a good story but if you are not the one for sad tragic beginnings, I would suggest approaching this series with caution!
Story
The story follows Aizawa Kakeru, who believing he is useless at football opts to become the manager of his school's football team, while his brother Suguru is its ace, and is even good enough to represent Japan. However, Kakeru may be harboring a strong talent within himself that only Suguru can see, and the two often get into arguments over Kakeru's denial of his skills. Things are made more complicated with the return of Nana, an old playmate of theirs that Kakeru had a crush on!
Characters
Most of the characters of the series lacked character development! Our MC, Aizawa Kakeru is a good-natured teenager, and as most of the shounen heroes are, he is also blissfully ignorant and pure of heart. He just wants to play soccer, have fun and make his dream of going to inter-nationals come true. Rest of the cast includes Mishima Nana, the childhood friend of Kakeru and Suguru, nicknamed Seven. Nakatsuka Kyouta, the pervert friend and teammate of Kakeru. Araki Ryuuichi, the dieter and fantasista of Enoshima High. Meier Mina, the secondary love interest, national representative of Nadeshiko Japan and Nana's teammate. Oda Ryouma, the registra of Enoshima High. Hyouka Makoto the player and joker of Enoshima High, etc. The only characters to go through some sort of development were Kakeru who grows more confident, stonger and determined & Araki who goes from a quieter primadonna to a dedicated hard-worker. Overall, the characters were amazing and entertaining. As Araki, Makoto and Kouta usually combined in a lot of comedy sequences, which were probably the best thing about the show with the constant pervy remarks of Kouta and Makoto's constant attempts in ridiculing Araki's sugar addiction!
Animation and Artwork
The animation and artwork were really the worst parts of the show and No one can top the number of stills this anime has used! The animators were always taking shortcuts, especially during the soccer matches, where the size of the ball varied from time to time and the way it moved was very unnatural. This was logical when you use a still and add a really bad CGI ball! The background were also static no matter how many characters were in the scene and the bad animation also led to the bad portrayal of the game. The only thing that saved the sport within the game were some genius moves pulled off by players.
For the sound, the anime had only 1 opening and it had no ending. But, the opening "Higher Ground" by SRS was really amazing and promising. I never once skipped it and it perfectly matched the theme of the show. The OST demonstrated both an ethereal and vigorous way of presenting certain scenes to match the mood and the voice acting was also top-notch.
Enjoyment
The anime was amazing and I really enjoyed it! It was a gripping series and I honestly looked forward to its every episode. It also had a lot of twists and real medical phenomena's that do happen. I think that every sports fan or soccer fan should seriously give this a watch with an open mind!
Overall, I really enjoyed it and putting all the weirdness from the animation aside, Area no Kishi is a good sports shounen. But, It feels like the director didn’t realize what the strengths of the show were and kept adding these weird subplots that went nowhere and if they would have stayed by the exciting matches and would have added more comedy to the show, it could have been a lot better! Nonetheless, if you love sports or soccer anime be sure to check it out!
3 STAR ANIME.
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