Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi Fails as a Blue Lock Anime Adaptation

Most of the time, theatrical anime outings mean more extravagant and detailed animation to showcase on a bigger screen. Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi had the potential to pull all that off. Unfortunately, Episode Nagi fails as an anime adaptation in terms of story and animation.

Episode Nagi Didn’t Do What It Set Out To

Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi is hit or miss when it comes to adapting the story of the spin-off manga. Offering a fresh perspective on the events of the first season of the main Blue Lock anime, Episode Nagi had the potential to be a truly captivating anime film. However, the animation held most of the story back from hitting as hard as it could have. Moreover, the film makes the odd creative choice to montage some of the matches that would have been interesting to see, instead choosing to recap well-known events from both Episode Nagi and the mainline Blue Lock manga. There are important matches, such as the one Nagi has against Team W, that the film chooses to skip over. The movie seems to want nothing more than to set up what’s to come in the upcoming second season.

The quality of the film’s animation is also hard to differentiate from that of a television production. There are some impressive sequences in the film, such as when characters’ “egos” kick in during a match, that are truly vibrant and make the stakes of the match feel real. However, for every well-animated ego scene, there are several poorly rendered 3D models of soccer players running on a field. Blue Lock isn’t the only anime movie to struggle with animation methods such as these, as even the well-received Blue Giant movie adaptation suffered from some odd 3D-modeled musicians.

Blue Lock Is About Team Interactions

Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi also misses out on a core aspect of what makes the original anime and manga so great. The interactions between the various teams and teammates help to provide a sense of depth and stakes to the story. The first season of Blue Lock was such a great adaptation because it was able to bring the backstories and personalities of Team Z to life in a captivating way. It was easy to root for them and become invested in their chemistry as a team, playing to their individual strengths and occasionally butting heads trying to take the spotlight.

Unfortunately, this is where Episode Nagi fails as a Blue Lock adaptation. Thankfully, the core relationship between Nagi and Reo remains somewhat intact. Reo discovers Nagi as a hidden soccer prodigy and teaches him to love the sport. However, much of Reo’s own characterization and motivations are mostly put to the side. Moreover, the team that Reo and Nagi end up being a part of (Team V) is hardly given any development as a group, especially when compared to Team Z in the original anime. It’s an unfortunate consequence of a theatrical runtime instead of its own series.

Related: How To Watch Blue Lock & Its Movies In Order

Blue Lock’s Team V Is Interesting Too

There are plenty of moments in the Episode – Nagi manga that could have been adapted into the Blue Lock movie so that it could succeed as an anime adaptation. One such thing is the amusing food auction that Reo does in the manga to unite the team. While this scene was in a special cut of the film released exclusively in Japan, U.S. audiences weren’t so lucky. The Blue Lock movie seems to be under the impression that audiences went to see the film for scenes involving Team Z and main character Yoichi Isagi. While it was fun to see Isagi’s journey from the lens of Nagi’s indifference, there’s so much more to the Episode Nagi manga that could’ve been put into this film.

Zantetsu Tsurugi, a key member of Team V known for his speed and surprising lack of intelligence, doesn’t get nearly as much time to shine as he should. The movie had the chance to flesh out the Blue Lock program even more than it already had in the first season of the anime. The new perspectives that the movie is able to provide are just a hint at the potential of this adaptation. Unfortunately, Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi doesn’t take advantage of its premium theatrical format or the rich manga material it derives from, making it fail as an anime adaptation.

Blue Lock is streaming now on Crunchyroll.