The Assassin and the Ninja

I mean cool visuals for sure. But there does not seem to be any development in the characters or way of depicting the story. Whilst you can somewhat expect that they were going to continue the second season without changing much from the first, I find it somewhat dissapointing. I am not as invested in these new world class level character as I was in the old hierarchy of friends and foes of the first season. Maybe this will pick up as we go further into the season. I will still give it a shot as the first season was very good over all. So all in all let us hope the story just starts off unfamiliar and will form itself into something we will all come to love in the end.

Do they really watch these before sending them out? Who gives the green light that the animation is ready?

I thought CGI was just for top view in this and I was okay with that....a slide show? Please....

It just doesn't make sense for blue lock to take this long of a break just to come back to this. The manga is top tier so they should at least work a little harder. One piece animated episodes for 25 years and they were never this bad. These guys get a break for over a year and they can't make two running frames without having some cgi elements to it. No wonder people have rated this below a 7 when in the manga this would be a 8.5 - 9. I could swear captain Tsubasa was animated better than this.

The animation of this episode was genuinely abysmal. The plot is still the plot. That's what I'd like to say as to why this episode isn't significantly lower. I feel as if a rating lower than 5 only comes when I begin to discredit the source material as well as the adaptation.

This doesn't mean this episode was acceptable. Frankly, it's shoddy. Blue Lock was one of the highest grossing manga of 2023, and is probably the biggest sports manga of right now (yes, we could debate that) and yet we're getting a very low budget adaptation. Genuinely, I don't get it. The studio had enough money to keep the rights to the adaptation, and yet didn't have the money to genuinely animate frames.

I'm actually not so mad about the "powerpoint" or "fan animation" work that's been done, when you think those frames were properly coloured and drawn, and still pretty well done even if it is shading. I think, don't get me wrong, it's crazy they're resorting to this, but comparing it to Baki or other trashy animation it's far better than CGI, recycling the same frames or whatever it's fine. What I'm more mad about is the little details. For one, facial expressions. Emotions are crucial for Blue Lock's concept as a show. It is a high emotion, high stakes, high action drama as much as it is a sports show. As a result, where the constant stills still work to depict the drama, when characters are conversing there faces and gestures need to depict emotion. And that wasn't done. At all. They didn't even try. There was a moment when Isagi and one of his fodder teammates where talking, on a side profile, and what they were saying completely mismatched the faces they had. This is a real issue. As well as this, the game itself became hard to follow at times, considering we got 1 player views and very few drawn frames, just like a manga panel animation as people said. I know this sounds contradictory to what I said about not caring about the powerpoint style, but when it's making it hard to follow, that's a far bigger issue than being badly drawn. It's taking away from the thought the author themselves puts into every touch of the ball in the manga. That's downright degrading for them. It's not just butchering an adaptation of their manga, but changing it, as if to say "this part of the plot is less important to us as it is to you". I suppose that's the same for the drawing, but framing is not a matter of skill, it's a matter of effort.

Obviously, every other reviewer will complain about these same things, but I thought I'd highlight the specific reasons this royally sucked as an episode. The animation just sucks. Simple. This doesn't mean I won't watch the show because I prefer usually to have voice acting etc. (which I could not fault) but I've read the manga past the U20s so I could very easily drop this at any time. I'm just hoping this will be slightly better later in the season and that the simulcast is still being refined.

5/10. This sucks. Watch Dandadan.

Blue Lock Season 2, Episode 2 is a major letdown, especially when it comes to the animation quality. It feels like the visuals took a huge dip, looking almost like a low-quality PNG image at times. The fluidity and intensity that made the first season so captivating are missing here. Instead of the dynamic, fast-paced animation that fans love, we get stiff movements and poorly rendered scenes that break the immersion.

It's disappointing to see such a drop in quality for a series that relies heavily on high-energy action and detailed character expressions. This episode could have been a highlight of the season, but instead, it feels like a rushed job that fails to live up to expectations.

Overall, this episode missed the mark, making it hard to stay engaged with the story. Here's hoping the animation picks up in the next episodes.

People are just hating for no reason. I understand ppl might think the animation isn't good but it isn't terrible, I personally found the episode to be really entertaining as a manga reader and I felt that animation was good enough. I know that other sports anime's have insane animations, so maybe you guys expected the same with blue lock and when they didn't happen you started hating. Whatever it is, that animation was not a slideshow by any means there were good animations especially when chigiri was running down the flank, as well as rins goal. I do however believe the u20 arc will have much better animation bc it will prolly come out in a few months.