While everyone maybe talking about INCEPTION, I’ve been watching interceptions and football. Football in the summer? Yes. I’m hooked on a sports anime.
Time Warner is showing Eyeshield 21 on demand and I cannot get enough of this football soap opera. I was lucky enough to catch it from the first episode and I can’t wait til each new episode is released each Thursday.
The hook is that the main character, Sena Kobayakawa, has amazing speed, but signed on as the football manager. So we get the story of a reluctant manager turned player who hides under his eyeshield helmet to protect his identity. Sena’s speed is so important to the team that he will wind up playing every position where his speed is beneficial. His team captain is a gun crazy quarterback, Yoichi Hiruma, who recruited Sena after watching him run from bullies at school.
The next reason to love this sports anime is the way the Japanese go into great detail trying to explain the rules of each game. And to have an anime devoted to American football, they do quite an admiral job in covering the sport, even though some rules and terminology of football gets left out. (I’ve yet to hear them explain or use the term fumble in the seven episodes I’ve watched so far).
The final reason I’m addicted to Eyeshield 21 is that the cliffhangers are excrutiating. This week’s episode ended with the Deimon Devil Bats down like 49 – 6 with 4 minutes left in the game. The series is also single elimination, so I’m expecting a lot of last second comebacks.
If anime is your thing (it catches a lot of hell on the message boards), everything I’ve watched of Eyeshield 21 is pure entertainment. Do yourself a favor and check it out.