Muneyuki Kaneshiro

In the aftermath of a devastating World Cup defeat, Japan's team struggles to regroup. The question is, what's missing? A proper ace striker. To develop a striker who hungers for goals and thirsts for victory, the Football Union creates Blue Lock, a rigorous training ground for 300 of Japan's best and brightest youth players. He must outmuscle and out-ego every opponent to survive this battle royale!

It's soccer but to the death! Probably not, but reading it makes me feel that way. The story show more goes that Japan lost the World Cup again. There seems to be only one path to the World Cup: traumatizing 300 high school students in an elaborate death game designed to produce the world's best sociopath.

The book begins with our hero, Isagi, discovering that there should probably be an "i" in the team and continues to his grim realizations about himself. The death game is a game in which students lose their careers if they lose it. The students are crammed into a ridiculously convoluted facility, the Blue Lock (they could have purchased a soccer team for how much this thing must have cost), and forced to fight to be the best striker out of 300 applicants.

The story is outrageous, from the disturbingly long-necked bowl cut coach Ego to the high-tech facility and the fact that the press barely pushes back against these lunatics destroying 299 lives to get ONE good player (the press taking the lazy way out of the situation is probably the most depressingly accurate part of the story).

Art is okay - action is easy to follow. Characters are interesting - I suppose we should root for Isagi, although it's hard to imagine that turning a teenager into an egomaniacal little turd won't take much.

If you enjoy sports stories with ridiculous trials to overcome, you might find something here. There is no doubt in my mind that I did. Despite the poor overall message of the story, it's hard not to get caught up in all the competition.

The trials and tribulations faced by the characters are intense, but they also highlight the determination and skill required to succeed in such a high-stakes environment. While the premise might seem absurd, it effectively captures the competitive nature of sports and the sacrifices made to achieve greatness.

In conclusion, Blue Lock is a thrilling sports story with an outrageous premise and engaging characters, making it worth a read despite its problematic themes.

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The entire premise of this book strains credulity. Two guys who have never played soccer before form a club and then obliterate a winning team in their very first game? Yeah, right. And then they're both recruited to a secret training program to create the world's greatest, most egotistical striker? BS, and it seems counterintuitive to put all your focus on one position of a team sport. I won't be reading further volumes.

Received via NetGalley.

I recieved a digital copy of this ARC thanks to NetGalley and Kodansha Comics. All opinions below are honest and entirely my own.

If you really enjoy sports, or people being far too obsessed with winning, you'll like this story. I found the art to be done well and the premise was interesting. However, I found this omnibus to be a very slow start and I was rather bored throughout.

It still feels so cut-throat for me, I almost feel like I can't relate because I couldn't survive in this world of ego. But then, I guess in the end it is about reaching for your dream. 🤔