No one seems to have known if I recall properly, and he's been ignoring the advice from his doctors if I again recall properly. He was a good team member who was a beacon of hope and admiration, but this idea of him dying on the field after he's been avoiding treatment for leukemia to play soccer was just too unrealistic and hard to swallow. That would've been all fine and dandy, but what happened when they faced Kakekita in the semifinals was a bit too much.Īs the story goes, Kubo ended up burning himself out passing 11 players and scoring a fantastic goal that helped the team. He's a talented player who's going to be great, and we are led to believe that he will aside from little indications that say otherwise. All usual for the course, and of course, you have Kubo who personally made me drop this anime. You get the characters practicing together, helping each other out, all the camaraderie that comes with it as well as just episodes where they are relaxing. Now, the story starts out typical with the team forming, and old friends reuniting in their bid to advance far and become champions. Kazumi joking around was fun to watch, and how everyone meshed together by utilizing their advantages during a game.īefore I go further, spoilers are up ahead. I don't think I had a problem with any characters. They aren't anything out of this world good, but they do a good enough job of driving the story forward in a pretty reasonable direction. They all have their archetypes that they stick to, and they fit their mold well. I'm someone who isn't bothered by old anime, and rather enjoy watching them so I'm pretty bias there, but for the purposes of this review, I'd say they were fair at best. The art, and sound are typical of anime of this generation, neither being spectacular nor terrible in my opinion. For starters, I'll try to avoid spoilers, but I have to spoiler one small part to explain why this anime was bothersome. So, I typically don't review anime that I haven't finished or ones that I dropped because there is a chance that I missed something that happened later or that the anime just wasn't for me, but something about this anime really irked me to the point where I stopped watching it months ago, and when I thought about trying to continue watching recently, I couldn't. Sound: 10 I love every single song from the anime *spoiler* the best being the Kazumi Endo Ending, my god it still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.Ĭharacter: 10 Toshi who is the main character not only as a futbol/soccer player does he level up, but as a man and person but he helps everyone around him to grow aswell. Makes it normal, but it has it's moments where it absolutely shines and just tugs on your heartstrings. Onto the actual review: Story possibly 9 gonna say 8 though some parts are very cliche and predictable, but that's what That aside, if you're into friendship, teamwork, dramatic love for both a person and sports this is one roller coaster ride you wouldn't want to sit back and watch other people ride. Which if you didn't know is probably the greatest sports anime ever. By stretches of sports anime goes it's in the same class and sometimes possibly personal preference almost better than "Slam Dunk". I felt the need to review this since I saw only one other had the courage or made brain enough to. Thus, Tanaka's high school soccer career prepares for the kickoff. The disappointed Kazumi wants to see the trio reunite, so she takes matters into her own hands in her mischievous way. When Tanaka starts to lose hope, an encounter with Kazumi Endo-a girl from his childhood-becomes the unexpected key to his freedom from despair. Although Tanaka and his friends were once known as a deadly soccer trio in their junior high school days, Kenji and Kazuhiro have both quit soccer for personal reasons. The final nail in the coffin is the reluctance of Tanaka's friends, Kenji Shiraishi and Kazuhiro Hiramatsu, to join him in the club. To make matters worse, the freshmen are not allowed to practice alongside the sophomores or become regulars on the team. Kubo-the captain of the club-is absent due to illness. Now a high school freshman, Tanaka is devastated as his expectations suddenly start falling apart. Inspired by Yoshiharu Kubo's phenomenal performance that led Kakegawa High School to a miraculous victory in a soccer tournament, Toshihiko Tanaka decides to enter the same school as his idol and join the soccer club, hoping to become as successful as Kubo.