BLUELOCK

Episode 12

The players of Blue Lock are now moving up in the ranks, both literally and figuratively. We had teamwork and camaraderie combined with personal self-discovery throughout these past 11 episodes, but now it's time for everybody to put their mettle to the test. As the first half of this episode breaks down, just because you discover what your weapon is and how to evolve it doesn't necessarily mean you can use it under every circumstance imaginable. Team Z had such synergy with each other to the point where they could set up perfect shots when things got complicated. However, a great striker needs to be able to re-create those circumstances under pressure. I liked how that was established here with the state-of-the-art training rooms that comedically drained Ego of his budget, which makes me wonder how anything past this point is going to be paid for. That was legitimately funny, but I wonder if that foreshadows whatever will happen after this following selection process.

Speaking of which, it's nice to see Nagi again with a surprising amount of character development. This next stage of the selection process is focused more on individual growth and how your ego can be pushed in a more self-serving way. That will create tension with other people, but interestingly, Nagi's relationship with his best friend Reo is being used to highlight that. If I had to guess, I'm assuming that Nagi is probably going to go further than Reo, and it makes me wonder what's going to happen to their friendship since they promised each other that they were going to be the best in the world…even though the rules of Blue Lock arguably make that impossible. This episode was a significant cooldown and setup for the next series of walls that our leading players will have to climb, and I'm excited to see how this next match being set up goes!

Rating:

BLUELOCK is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.