Futsal Boys!!!!! - Reviews

Ohhh, Futsal Boys! is done?  After episode twelve, it looked so much like the series could go on for another set of episodes against newer, better, more arrogant opposition.  But it seems that FB is begging for a second season.  Natural, as it seemed to be begging in several areas.

About mid-season, I had this nagging feeling that FB is nothing more than a reconstituted Try Knights for arena soccer fans.  Except with better animation technique ... scarcely.  And. being reconstituted twaddle, I can offer the key complaints I gave Try Knights once I translate rugby into futbol.  After all, in my far gone youth, I played soccer (left wing defender on a team that gave up multiple goals [even double digits] per game ... may God have mercy on my soul) and follow the game as well as an American can.  So, my major kvetches:

How much mileage can animators make of the 'bicycle kick?'  I know the skill level is high to execute such a somersault/smash of the ball in flight, but the anime takes the maneuver from spectacular to semi-divine.  And I never recalled giving my kicks some spectacular name as 'Supreme Heavenly Dragon Annihilator.'

Going into introspective soliloquys while moving the ball is not done in soccer.  Which explains why Sakaki always had the ball stolen from him while he agonized over the question "To pass to Yamato, or not?'

Carrying on any form of conversation (and deep, philosophical ones at that!) while in gameplay seems unnatural.  At least Toi had the opportunity to call time out which never seemed to happen in Try Knights.

The plot was a predictable as many a sports anime goes.  Koyo Gaduken played the gamut.  The team of ruffians who used brute strength to intimidate.  The team of over-rated players.  The arrogant squad who felt that, having beaten Koyo once before, are invincible.  And worse of all, the team of super-stars waiting in the shadows for their game with Koyo.

Yes, the team that could summon up the specter of season two!  Okay, it might need go this way, but let's do it right.  We will need to up-grade Koyo Gaduken.  Keep Toi, steadfast team captain who might be a third-year and need leave the team.  Make Ryu do laps (a player who has the capability to lose himself in gameplay).  Bench Sasaki (we need no player who refuses to be a 'team player').  Give Yamato a rulebook (his zeal to surpass rather than to compete might be his flaw).  Buy Taiga better gloves (he is decent as a goalie, but he needs an edge).  Get Satori some contacts (with a team this thin, the manager may need offer playing time). 

In short, Futsal Boys! is a conglomerate of characters that show up on any team, from 'ball hogs' to the player who needs a little more work.  Keep this in mind should season two strike.  Koyo is still a work in progress, but Yamato, who must prove something to the father who abandoned him to play pro soccer, has made his first important strides.

But the animation ... auugghh!  First, the color combinations of the team uniforms, some resembling camouflage, were revolting!  The action scenes approached file footage as that predictable shot neared.  The same tactics performed repeatedly in a single game, it just gets boring.  The music gives a good feel for action as done by six misfits in the world of athletic competition.  But get me excited ... not happening.

Just calling Futsal Boys! another predicable sport anime will not do.  To depict the game one played and still loves to watch, FB was pure torture.

Well I managed to watch the 12 eps from this one and I found the anime was okay overall. I like the way they developed the MC, a boy who didn't know how to properly apply futsal techniques. He has some complex towards his father but I guess this is just some misunderstanding the anime didn't properly explain (I think a 2nd season would suffice my doubts, but this is because I see the urge to see his idiot father and Yamato reconcile). I liked the way they showed why the goalkeeper Taiga has stopped playing futsal, I'm very fond of characters's backstory lol. He and Nagumo are besties, this was really cute and refreshing with all these handsome boys. I found Sakaki annoying since the beginning and LESS annoying at the final episodes, the reason is because he was arrogant and a 'solo player' at first, but after that, I found him annoying because he was always stuck on the past. He struggled a lot but he is stubborn too, which doesn't made me see him in a good light. But thanks to Yamato, this stubborn one was finnally able to trust his teammates, and I got emotional again lol. I love these camaraderie between teammates in sports animes, I guess we can say it's a part of the essence in this genres.

About the animation, sincerely I find it weak. It wasn't bad, but the way they animated the characters playing futsal wasn't dynamic, some animations were really static. Most part of the show they didn't even show the characters shooting at the goal, just the ball entering or not entering the goal lol. But the good point of the anime were the visuals of course, the characters were all very handsome or very cute, this for sure is the appealing of the anime. It reminded me the times when I watched Free!, but Free! has a lot better animation. And the sounds were fine, I love the seiyuus from the characters, handsome voices are included in the pack too lol. As most of the animes, I only pay attention in the OP and ED if they're really good, I didn't find they good but they were okay.

PASS: A DRUDGE STORY

1/10 or 10/10?

*FULL SPOILERS*

One's enjoyment of this anime will completely depend upon the lens used to view it. The story begins with delinquents perhaps in their late teens or early twenties bullying elementary school children and preventing them from playing futsal. A skilled high school player shows up and challenges them for rights to the court. Shortly thereafter a professional break-dancer arrives via crashed bicycle to join in against the delinquents. He beams with confidence touting 0 experience and 100% obsession with the sport. For whatever reason, the bullies agree to this instead of just beating them up. These dudes have no issue harassing 7-year-olds, why not fight teenagers? Anyway, the "heroes" defeat the delinquents. They relinquish the court but slash the break-dancer’s tires on their way out.

At the end of the day, the leader of the delinquents shows up, who happens to be a 30-year-old man in stiff jeans and leather jacket. He starts calling out the futsal team claiming they "gave it to his boys and he's here for payback". A passing student, who turns out to be the best character later, asks what his revenge plans are. The blunt answer is, "a futsal match", as if the question was stupid. So now we have these clear adult gangsters playing a futsal match against high school freshman and sophomores as a means of exacting vengeance for...losing earlier...If you are entertained by the absurdity of the premise when this is in no way a parody show, then definitely start watching.  

Now these adults don't change into sports attire like the futsal boys. Yeah, the entire team is now participating in this farce. The captain decides to take responsibility for 2 freshmen who he’d not known previously and joined the team 10 minutes ago. These goons have little skill and simply resort to aggressiveness/cheating. You're following right - some degenerate adults called out high schoolers in order to defend their honor on the futsal court, but somehow cheating doesn't conflict with their code. The ref watches impotently as the team captain tells him to ignore the fouls. The ethics are all over the place. Futsal boys manage to squeeze out a victory utilizing the break-dancer’s precision hand spin kick into the goal. Since this rivalry reflected villains of a children's cartoon, I expected this hilarious matchup to continue, but the gang is never seen again T.T

Again, if the plot seems dumb to you so far, don't worry the players are equally dumb. Break-dancer, whom I will refer to as Red from here on, is OBSESSED with futsal. It's all he wants to do, he falls asleep with “Futsal Magazine”, and futsal games on TV. Guess how many professional players he knows. One. He created this fantasy where he competes against a single pro, who is also in high school, despite having not played the sport before and...not knowing any rules. Apparently Red has the learning capacity of a goldfish. 

He isn’t alone in his idiocy, however, as the skilled prodigy mentioned at the beginning doesn’t know HOW TO PASS. He shall now be known as Blue. We see an example of his pass into the corner and it’s a good 5 body lengths in front of the recipient rocketing out of bounds. The captain (Green), who spent the entire summer training in Spain, decides it’s for the good of the team to not utilize his own skills and force people into positions they’re not good at. He moves his second-year home boy(Yellow), who was the main play setter, into goal and makes Blue take his spot. We literally see Blue reading a Passing For Dummies knock off later that day. He can’t figure out that drilling the ball as hard as possible out of bounds is bad. He explicitly states, “I can’t do it.” Green is committed to his stupid plan despite being an otherwise totally reasonable human being. Guess how many episodes it takes to resolve this team chemistry issue. The entire season. Any other popular sports anime, you see progress within the first couple episodes. I can’t even say it's resolved by the finale. It like happens once successfully and Blue dives full force into the metaphysics of his pass. Anyway, let’s go back to their second practice where Green says, “Oops, there’s a tournament…TOMORROW.”

Another important character not mentioned thus far is Silver. He’s a little dude rocking a side-pony tail and was known as Wittle Dragon or something because of his signature shot where he leaps 15 feet in the air to kick a lob from himself. He’s flamboyant and energetic much like Red, but he actually knows the fundamentals of the sport. Recognizing that Yellow is a noob in goal, he wants to recruit someone who used to be on his team. Here’s where we get the best drama of the show. Silver approaches a tall blonde beefcake with earrings named Taiga. He’s working solo at a French restaurant, so he’s 15 and probably a Michelin star chef. I’m guessing he has multiple dependents be it siblings and/or children since he’s the man. Silver attempts to recruit him, but Taiga tells him he will never put gloves on again. Finally, some mysterious backstory I can bite my teeth into!

Sadly, we move to the tournament with Taiga supervising his restaurant, but then meet the most ridiculous character of the show. For the record, there aren’t adults anywhere. The only adults we’ve seen are gangsters who bully children. The stands are full of other high school students. The announcer for the tournament is this creep show rocking Harajuku fashion named “Hurricane”. He knows all this personal information about EVERYBODY, including what they did in middle school. He has no references since he’s just standing in the middle of the stadium with only a mic. He even knows the names of their special moves, which are basically regular shots but from an outer space backdrop, but half the characters don’t shout them out. He had to either ask these boys about it or more likely stalk them. There hasn’t been a clearer pedophile since Hisoka licked his chops watching Gon in Hunter x Hunter.

The tournament is going poorly. Red is all excited running around like a buffoon still not knowing the rules. Blue passes once to fan 50 ft. out of bounds then gets mad nobody received it. Yellow is getting owned in goal since he’s never played before and was forced into it. Green thinks his plan is still brilliant and again stands around passively despite spending all of time training internationally. Silver is praying for Taiga to change his mind, so we get to see what happened in the past. Silver is dribbling and about to shoot when the opponent flagrantly fouls him. The wipe out is straight up ragdoll simulator. The initial impact is on his THROAT. He for sure would’ve snapped his neck and then he rolls over hard bending his spine the wrong way before rotating 5 more times in 2 seconds. It was obscene, for sure manslaughter. Silver starts holding his knee like that was somehow the focus of his injuries. Taiga comes out of the goal to call him on his nonsense. THEN THIS KID INSULTS SILVER FOR BEING SOFT. Bruh. It was attempted manslaughter and then he has the gaul to throw shade on the victim. Taiga takes his gloves off and beats the shit out of this fool. He’s somehow the only one ejected from the game. His team’s reaction is to ostracize him for coming to blows. It makes no sense whatsoever. Taiga swears to never put his gloves on again because of the unearned shame thrust upon him.

Mid-tournament, one of the opponents lightly trips Silver, and comically says, “Oops.” The animators decide to reuse this horrendous wipe out over a minor tap for some reason. Fortunately, Taiga telepathically senses Silver’s injury because we unofficially view a romantic relationship between Taiga and Silver. SO he abandons his Michelin restaurant despite no other staff present and rushed to the tournament with gloves in hand. Yellow is subbed out immediately since he’s trash in net and Taiga blocks a shot by transforming into a lightning tiger and jumping 20 ft. in the air, well above the net. If he had simply stood still this shot would’ve missed by a mile, but we had to see how good Taiga is and what better way than to catch a wild miss?

Anyway, that’s the whole show. Red manages to learn 1 other pro player’s name. We waste 9 more episodes with Blue as the focus moaning about passing. He switches back and forth between not understanding how to pass and straight up refusing to pass. Green decides to put in moderate effort in the final tournament for the first time. There’s random fan service in the middle, I think? The players go to the beach and have a BBQ, but they’re all mostly clothed still. There’s an entire team of models that anybody would be insane to like. Taiga is the only one who does and says awesome things. The special shots go down in quality. There’s a striker duo who uses a skill called “Twinkle Twinkle” and it’s literally them running up field sending obvious basic passes back and forth with a galactic backdrop. Given the idiots trying to stop them, I buy it being unstoppable there. Maybe the most reprehensible special shot is called “Rose” and the dudes just punts it from the opposite goal with rose pedals exploding out. It speeds straight by everyone into the net and nobody even moves. Why? Even dumber, his teammates point out, “Wow, haven’t seen him break that out since challenging squad x.” Also, why? If you have a shot with no conditions that automatically scores from anywhere, why are you waiting? Other anime will also establish how taxing such an ability is or something. This guy just doesn’t bother using it?

The execution of characters, plot, and futsal are so abysmal that it circles around and becomes entertaining. I would recommend watching this with friends where you can criticize everything together or perhaps while inebriated. It’s a learning experience. You’ll need to pinch yourself to make sure it’s real.