Running time: 27 minutes
Episode titles: 94 ~so far~
Vintage: 2005-04-06 (Japanese Airdate)
Age rating: ???
Genres: Comedy, Shounen, Sports
Animation Production: Studio Gallop
Production: NAS, Shueisha, TV Tokyo
Source: Anime News Network
The Good: The one trick pony really sucks you in at the beginning.
The Bad: As the popularity of the show increased, the surprises wear thin and the allure is lost.
Status: Dropped
My impressions and review:
Eyeshield 21 is a good way for japanese children and teens to get familiar with American football and its whacky almost derrogative depiction of football makes it a hit. Like most other shounen sports shows, it tries to teach the viewers aspects of the real sport while also doing the whole exaggerated anime thing.
When I started watching this show early last year the first episode really clicked with me. Eyeshield 21, an unknown football player, starts running so fast it’s amazing how he gets through the opposing team’s linemen. The visual cue is an arrow and Eyeshield 21 methodically finds the shortest path twisting and turning through the defenses and ultimately scores a touchdown. Even the crowd reacts accordingly and makes you very curious about how crazy this show will be. It was clear to me that Eyeshield 21 would be a badass, but then it all came crumbling down when the truth was revealed. Eyeshield 21 went from masked badass to short skinny wimp in a flash, but the early stages of the anime made me look past that and I enjoyed it.
I won’t lie that when Eyeshield 21 did his thing, it was geniunely cool and a pleasure to watch, but it soon got overplayed. Once the spotlight shifts from Deimon’s football team building its strength to more whacky football players and techniques on other teams, the show loses its main appeal, Eyeshield 21, and the filler content just isn’t as strong.
Like most popular shounen anime this will likely have a very long life until all the kids in japan are done with it, but this anime will neither make you a football fan nor expand on innovative storytelling or character development. Once it runs out of gas early on it’s a typical cash in until the franchise dies. Casually watchable but in no way memorable is the best way to describe it, thus it’s not really necessary to digest all of it.
I dunno, it might just be cuz i played highschool football all 4 years, but i really liked this…..the only reason i stopped watching is cuz the fansubbers are fucking lame and take like 3 months to sub one episode, which is complete bullshit no matter what excuses they can churn out. And im not one of those people who cares that ‘atleast your getting it at all!’ cuz if your gonna provide something, dont be shitty about it.
Anyway, i got sidetracked, my bad. Point is, its probably just cuz i love the sport, but i never really got tired of it or bored of it even during the fillers. Which, for me with a show of this length, is a big deal. Its actually the only shitty-jump manga/anime ive ever enjoyed.
It was an instant hit here in our country, and it died almost as fast…
I’m not saying that its bad overall (I did not watch it even during its hightime here where everyone around me are all self-proclaimed geeks).
So I guess you’re right about the bad thing. It’s confimed over here.