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Now in Japan
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Written by maehara
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Thursday, 28 April 2005 12:22 |
 Confession: I hate sports anime. I've yet to find one
that I've liked, so I was half tempted not to even bother checking Eyeshield 21
out - it couldn't do sports anime differently enough from everything
that's gone before it to make me pay attention, could it? On the
basis of these first two episodes, it seems that perhaps it can...
1 - The Man with the Speed of Light Feet
No sooner has Sena been accepted into highschool than he's approached
by two members of the American football team, looking to recruit any
new suckers.. er, students onto the team. His childhood friend
Mamori soon chases them off, warning Sena that he really doesn't want
to get involved with them, but team captain Hiruma's not about to let
his target get away so easily. When one of the team members saves
Sena from the school bullies, though, he goes against Mamori's advice
and signs up as the team manager - but Hiruma spots that Sena's talents
may be more suited to the field...
2 - Let's Play American Football!
Mamori's shocked when Sena tells her he's signed up with Hiruma's team,
but he's determined to stick with it. His insistence that he's
just going to be the manager falls on deaf ears, though, and he's soon
roped into game practice with Kurita and Hiruma. 40-yard-dash is
first up, and as Hiruma suspected, Sena's time is amazingly good - but
Hiruma thinks he can go faster. Enter Cerberos, his devil of a
dog, and a tasty snack down the back of Sena's shirt by way of an incentive. With Sena's
speed, the team may just stand a chance in the upcoming Spring
tournament - if only they can find another 8 players...
So far at least, Eyeshield 21 is really more comedy than sport -
although admittedly, we're still at the 'introducing the characters'
stage, and not into the real stuff yet. Hiruma & Kurita are
the comic highlights of the show - Hiruma's inate evilness &
Kurita's role as all-around-nice-guy play well off each other.
On the downside, I'm hoping that Sena's group of bullies will soon lose
some of their prominence - I'm never overly keen about 'pick on the
little guy' scenes, and they could get tired very quickly.
Otherwise, so far so good. I'm not even a fan of American Football, so it's not the sport that's attracting me to Eyeshield 21,
but rather a group of mostly interesting characters and some good
humour. I'm not entirely convinced they can keep it up yet, but
so far, so good.
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