The sports anime genre has seen a big rise in the past few years because of major anime series like Haikyuu! Kuroko’s Basketball, Yuri!! on Ice, etc. But the one series that has taken this rise to the next level is Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura’s Blue Lock. Based on the widely popular sport of football/soccer, Blue Lock brings a new kind of twist to the sports anime genre.

Blue Lock Anime | Credit: 8bit Studios

The original manga of Blue Lock started in 2018, but it has become so popular that the series is challenging industry juggernauts like One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen. The main secret behind Blue Lock’s success is that it broke a major sports anime trope and it worked in the favor of the series and its creator.

A few years ago, Kaneshiro revealed this secret and the success it brought to the series. The manga creator also pointed out that this aspect of Blue Lock was inspired by his own personality in real life.

Blue Lock Broke The Teamwork Trope of the Anime Community

In 2022, the popular German magazine AnimaniA interviewed Kaneshiro and illustrator Nomura regarding Blue Lock and its widely growing success in the anime and manga community.

Related Blue Lock Season 2 Could Push Back the Success of Sports Anime that Haikyu and Aoashi Set with Series Trailer “looking like a PowerPoint presentation”

During the interview, Kaneshiro was asked an interesting question about how he does not include the element of teamwork in the series, despite it being based on football which requires the most amount of teamwork.

Kaneshiro revealed:

My biggest difficulty is creating characters who live for ‘someone else’. Simply because I am not that type myself. One could look at the motivation underlying a ‘selfless’ mindset from another perspective, namely: ‘I’m great because I sacrifice myself for others!’. And suddenly selfless would be a selfish way of thinking again!

According to the mangaka, the selfless attitude while working as a team can be viewed as selfish behavior. Thus, he would much rather let his players form selfish personalities from the beginning to make the story unique.

A still from Blue Lock | Credit: 8bit Studios

This selfish aspect of Blue Lock characters originates from Kaneshiro’s real-life personality. He himself is a big football fanatic and thus decided to imbue his own principles in his characters and it evidently worked for him.

Muneyuki Kaneshiro’s Opinion About Players Being Selfish in Blue Lock

While talking about breaking the teamwork and selfless trope in his Blue Lock story, Kaneshiro in a way pointed out that being selfish is supposedly better for the characters. It makes them look more real and forms a connection with the audience.

Isagi in Blue Lock | Credit: 8bit Studios

Kaneshiro stated:

So at the end of the day everyone lives somewhere ‘for themselves’ – so why not let your ego run free? That’s cool! Those were my thoughts when I wrote it – and maybe that gave the work that characteristic touch.

Football is the sport where teamwork is probably required the most. Thus, the sense of selflessness is quite a common trope. However, this doesn’t change the fact that a lot of players initially play for themselves.

Related Blue Lock Author Muneyuki Kaneshiro’s Top 4 Favorite Soccer Players are Neither Ronaldo Nor Messi

Kaneshiro has just tried to portray that feeling in an exaggerated manner through his characters in Blue Lock. Breaking this shonen trope was a huge risk but it was worth it.

Blue Lock is available to watch on Crunchyroll.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire