Blue Lock's Newest Episode Was DISAPPOINTING...

Blue Locks Season 2 has released its second episode, and to say that the community is conflicted would be a massive understatement. There is so much that happened because of this episode, I would honestly say the second episode was bigger than the first episode. I saw way more people talking about it, so yet again, I'm going to be giving you everything you need to know about Blue Locks' newest episode. From the animation, to my thoughts, the worst and best moments, and of course, what everyone else thinks. There was a lot of community reaction here. Maybe there's some opinions you agree with and disagree with. Maybe you just want to hear what other people think of the second episode. We got a lot to go over, so let's get into it. So first things first, Episode 2 is the first actual game of the new season. We pick right up from where we left off on the first episode and start getting into the actual football playing. If you're watching this, you've probably watched the second episode already and know what happens. So let's talk about the big elephant in the room, and that's the animation. It's a completely different feel than the first episode. We're past all the introductions, all the hype. Now we start getting into the real meat and potatoes. So because we're playing an actual game, the animation is obviously different. And wow, different is a very accurate word for this. Let's not beat around the bushes, the animation was way worse than the first episode. It almost looks like a different anime. The first thing was character models. Every character, but specifically Shido, were not done justice in my opinion. Almost every frame, he looks like a different character. This is a stark difference to the first episode where we had a lot of details and shading. In the second episode, they must have forgotten how to do it, or I don't know, maybe they got hit with a memory gun, because the whole time there was legit no details, especially for Shido. The character models were super noticeable, but the second thing is that this episode felt very blocky in my opinion. And I think a lot of people can agree on that. It was just not fluid at all. And it makes sense considering they use still images or actual moving PNGs instead of animations to move the characters. I don't want to be too big of a Debbie Downer, but it was genuinely surprising the amount of times they used PNGs instead of actual animation. They even use PNGs for goals like Shido's first on-screen goal. By the way, the number two player who's been hyped up since the end of last season was an actual PNG. We didn't see any movement. This came down to almost everything, from the running, to the defending, to scoring, to 1v1s, every single thing used still images at least once. Honestly, I don't mind it sometimes. Everyone cuts corners and I understand that animation is hard. You can't spend every single moment making little things perfect, but the sheer amount of just PNGs, you can't ignore it. It's like someone keeps serving you the exact same thing over and over constantly. Eventually, you're going to get sick of it no matter how much you like it. For a football anime where you are moving constantly, removing the animation or motion and replacing it with still images is a diabolical thing to do because it really doesn't make any sense. Mangas use still images, PowerPoints use still images, why are we using still images? The thing is, I still enjoy the anime and even though I have my opinions, I will still watch it. I don't care. My personal thoughts, as long as you can enjoy it, that's what really matters and you shouldn't care. Blue Locks still has amazing plot and hype moments, but it's just delusional to say that the animation is good, which does suck considering Blue Locks' achievements. They were the best-selling manga of 2023 and considering the anime ended all the way back in March, they had to outplace big series like Jujutsu Kaisen and One Piece, so a lot of fans are frustrated that it's not getting the treatment it deserves. I've seen some people say the manga has more motion than the anime, that is a crazy statement to make and to be honest, I can't even defend it at this point. We'll get into more of the community reaction and everyone else's thoughts later on though, let's get into some of the best or good parts of this episode. This episode had really high highs and very low lows. There was a few very good parts that stuck out though, compared to the animation problems that we had. The actual art and effects for this episode was beautiful. I think we're taking a step in the right direction when it comes towards that because it was way different than Season 1, it's way more dynamic, you got more color and more effects. It absolutely delivers in that sense and just makes the scenes that much better. Like the lighting in some scenes just went stupid, you got Shido's pink aura and then his aura lighting affects the rest of the field, Atoya's green aura was also done amazingly, it definitely improves from last season. The actual still frames, like the pictures that are actually supposed to be still, not moving, are actually really really good. The glowing effects, lighting, and colors just add more detail that the manga doesn't have, so it's definitely a plus for people watching the anime. You can feel the hype and emotions for those scenes, and that is what we want as fans! Granted we barely get any of those, but it's definitely the best part of this episode. Honestly, it felt like they had two buckets, one was animation and the second was art, and instead of dividing it into both, they decided to pour everything into the art. Quick highlight of Chigiri's running scene, that was really hype and probably my favorite specific moment in this episode, and there wasn't anything ruining it besides a few still frames for the actual goal itself, and just some of his closeups. But we can't talk about the good parts without talking about the worst part. Even if we're not talking about the animations, I think the pacing for this episode wasn't the best, like we'd cut from a dialogue to Isagi, and then 5 seconds of playing really really quickly, and if you blinked you genuinely missed a goal being scored. It was just super fast and choppy and kind of hard to keep up with, so when it comes down to the plot ignoring all other factors like animation, they somehow managed to mess that up too, which concerns me because I feel like season 1 didn't have that problem. But animation wise, it obviously has to be the fact that they used moving PNGs for every single goal except Rin's, Atoya is actually a cardboard cutout here. But we already went over the still frames or moving PNGs, so I want to talk about something else that relates to it, and that is the budget for this season. Now there is a lot of talk about how they are saving the budget for the main U20 game. Of course I'm hyped considering the U20 is Bluelock's best arc in my opinion. They truly could be saving the animation for that match since it's so important. So if they are making that game good, it's sort of understandable that they are making this first insignificant game bad. Even if you haven't read the manga, you know how action-packed the U20 is gonna be, and since this is an anime-only discussion, I won't talk about the match, but I will say I hope that it's not the same as what they've done in the past. With the U20 specifically, they NEED to take a different approach because it's not JUST the good parts they need to focus on. Yeah, the good parts are amazing, but this time around, they need to have it overall be good, rather than just the good parts. So switching it up and being consistent this time around, even at the cost of the good moments being slightly worse, I think would have a better outcome for them. I mean look at today's episode, they focused on animating the good parts, and people really only cared about the bad moments. But how can you blame them for the moments they slacked off on when it's just constantly in our face? Everyone was really focusing on that animation. Which brings me to our last segment, what is everyone else's thoughts, on episode 2. This episode really started a WAR on every single social media platform, I'm pretty sure there were more people talking about this episode than the last one, which was the first episode of the season. So with so much talk, people had a few choice words to say about the animation, and if you thought I was being harsh on the animation, wow, people were eating up this episode like there was no tomorrow. People were comparing the animation to a slideshow, and considering they used a PAGE TURN TRANSITION, they might be right on the money. I heard people gave BLUELOCK some new names, just to name a few, PNGLOCK, FRAMELOCK, NOT SO BLUELOCK. I saw a few comments in the comment section talking about how they dropped the anime. Which is crazy to me, I still think it's pretty hype at the end of the day. But that's just telling you the community reaction for episode 2, people were actually willing to drop the anime for it. I will say though, there is a consensus for mostly everyone, that the U20 is really what matters, and that we should wait for that to accurately judge the second season. Even though there is mostly hate on the animation right now, there are still some out there who praise the good parts and just enjoy it. Obviously the good parts do get drowned out from the sheer amount of people talking bad about the animation and the episode. Again, I think that is the most important part. As long as you can personally enjoy it, who really cares, there's plenty of people who just watch it for the plot, but I do understand everyone's frustration about the animation. I see both sides. Alright, that is everything you need to know about Blue Lock's newest episode. From my thoughts, to the animation, to the community's reaction, again, I'm just trying to get this video as quick as possible out to y'all, so you can catch up with all this info. We still got a lot left to go, and of course, I'm gonna be here for the ride, good or bad. Make sure to let me know what you think of episode 2 or just the season as well in the comment section, and I'll see y'all in the next one.