Eyeshield 21

At first glance, many thought that American football is all about muscle and killing intent. As a child, I watched NFL games and saw players hurt, injured, worst; crushed, suffer fractures and other accidents that led them to disability. As a sportsman(once a varsity basketball player), I hate games runned by power and skill alone. Ya-HA! Enters Eyeshield 21 that features a with unorthodox players such as shorty, porky and a Demon. The plot is very simple, about an errand boy who became a superstar in a game played by monsters and his team, the Devil Bats journey to National Championships, the Christmas Bowl. It highlights therivalry of the main character, light speed runningback Kobayakawa Sena known as Eyeshield 21 and Linebacker Shin Seijurou who is considered as the perfect player. Like other shounen stories, the protagonist grows strong stronger as he faced stronger opponents until the final decesive battle against his rival. What everyone loved in this anime is its character development and as a sports themed anime, ES21 expressed the importance of teamwork better. ES21 can be a manual itself and gradually showed the rules of the American football. This sports unlike any other team sports is a game of specialties and choosing a position is very vital to he outcome of the team. In the Devil bats case, the team is composed usually of inexperienced guys (and some are weaklings) relying only on their lifestyle, natural talents, hard work and rushed training. Here are their ligitimate line-up: QB- H. Youichi - the devilish trickster and master of psychological warfares. RB/TB- K. Sena- former errand boy with lightspeed legs RB/FB- Ishimaru - helper from the track & field club WR- R. Tarou - dedicated follower of a Baseball catching superstar WR- Yukimitsu- his life was spent on academics C- K. Ryoukan- a guy who knows nothing but power G- Y. Daikichi - a loyal apprentice of Kurita G- Ha -thugs T- Ha -same- T- Brothers -same- Considering these data, thechances of playing forthe national championship was estimated 0.1% but saccording to their Leader, Hiruma-sama, as long as its not completely zero, winning is still inevitable. Compared with other sports anime, I'd say Eyeshield 21 is the smartest of them all. This anime proves that winning isn't only a matter of skills, athleticism, work ethic and determination, it takes some deep tactics, calculations and brainstorming to outwit the opposing team and to stand on the battlefield. After watching this anime, surely you'll never doubt that David really toppled Goliath. Ya-ha!

Well, Eyeshield 21, I have to say, I held off on reading/watching the manga/anime, specially because it's a manga/anime about sports, and that doesn'g sound very exciting. But I decided to give it a try anyway, and find out wha the anime really was, and what it was, is awesome. Plot: Well, the story follows student Kobayakawa Sena, who just got accepted to Deimon High School, Sena is pretty much a whimpy kid who gets bullied around by others, while running away from some bullies, a Senior Student, Hiruma Youichi, the captain of the Football club notices that Sena is really fast, and wants him tojoin, and after a rather strange series of events, he ends up joining the Football Team( or Amefuto, as they call it, yeah, idk). So basically, there's a team, team has a dream, going to the Christmal Bowl (Highschool Football Tournament in Japan), but they have to do it that year, since Hiruma and his fellow student Kurita Ryoukan are graduating that year, they must train, and beat the other rival teams, from which the most recurring ones are the Oujou White Knights and the Shinryuuji Naga. It's 145 episodes for the anime (and 333 for the manga) and even though it sounds long, it's very entertaining and worth the time, the matches between teams are great and really entertaining. Besides the football matches, there's also a lot of comedy in this series, most which is absurd, which makes it even better, although most of the time, it is delivered by Hiruma, which makes it even better! Characters: To put it simply, there is no boring character in Eyeshield 21, not even Yukimitsu is boring. The authors of Eyeshield 21 did an outstanding job in making all of the characters, they are all equally entertaining and amazing, Sena's rivalry with Shin isn't anything cliche or whatever, instead it's done really well and you wanna see Sena beat Shin in a match. All the other characters also get their own stories, from Jumonji and Taki to Agon and Panther, they are all done so well, that it feels like there are no supporting characters, they all feel like main characters, and that also makes it very exciting, not even the matches focus on the main characters, all the supporting characters have their own rivals they have to beat, and it makes it even more exciting than it already is, sure, some characters are flawed in a way, they can't all be perfect, can they? Sound/Animation: Well, the music was great, all 5 OPs are great, and it's Eyeshield 21 that has the BEST ending theme ever (Blaze Away). Some of the BGM was great too, like Be Survivor, and the animation, well, it's really good, the OPs are done great, and the scenes with special moves like Sena's Devil Bat Ghost or Shin's Trident Tackle, they are all done very well, and all I have to say, is that it looks great. Teams: Well, obviously there's the Deimon Devil Bats, but there's also the rival teams like the Oujou White Knights, the Kyoshin Poseidon, the Bando Spiders and the Hakushu Dinosaurs, each one of these teams have their own characters and special plays, and I liked all of them, all of the teams are equally amazing, and of course the matches are really entertaining, but I did feel kinda let down that the Teikoku Alexanders aren't in the anime, specially since the match between them and Deimon is definetly the best in the series. Replay Value: This anime is really worth watching again, I wouldn't mind it, really, it's a shame that most people pass on it because it's a Sports Anime, like I did, but I'm sure people would like it if they watch it, now, I've really come to love this series, but I have to say that it's better to read the manga because the anime just stops after the final rematch with Oujou, and it didn't show the matches agains Hakushu, Teikoku and the World Cup, which I would've loved to see, but anyway, it's a great anime and it's really underrated, so go watch it, or Hiruma will take you to hell, YA-HA! Rating: Flawless

I have played football for 5 years all throughout highschool. I did not know there was an anime about football untill June of 2009. I normally would stay away from sports anime's as they are boring and dense but I watched an Amv on eyeshield 21 and fell in love. Everything is real in the anime, well the tournaments and the attitudes the titles of best running back or linemen, and even the plays. Yes the plays in the show are exaggerated as green beams of light cant come from behind you as you run and all that stuff but in football we do thoseplays which makes it exciting to watch and its always a grudge match in eyeshield which alot of football is like! The characters have their own personalities which rocks! They develop and get better through the whole series. Though every region like canada and america and japan all play football diffrently as the show explained. The art was great and the voice acting was outstanding and it pumps you up to play football. Only complaint was when there was a moment happening in the game the people would talk to eachother wich doesnt happen in football or you would get crushed. None the less it was great to watch and best sports anime out there it recks King of tennis thats for sure! Watch it and enjoy it! YA-HA!!

Eyeshield 21 is an essay in 145 episodes about... American Football! A game that I don't know, like or understand, portrayed in anime! A game that we always believed that was only played in America... In anime! Conclusion: Must Watch. The story is as simple as "sports anime": a team and its players, represented by the Speed-Light Running Back Kobayakawa Sena as main character, must overcome stronger teams and players by evoluting physically and spiritually in way to get to the ultimate victory (participating in the Christmas Bowl). However, this team is not like your average! They are below the average! In the end, this isthe fight of an underdog team composed by untalented members that had to generate their talent through train and hard work. Very heart warming for people that, like me, don't have talent and have to do everything through hard work. Adding to this, the characters are pretty much... Brilliant. Each character design is a caricature from the corresponding personality. With this fashion, characters that had not much of a content, turned into people that you are willing to support and even identify with. You find all the stereotypes, but you also discover that they are real and have their reasons. The animation is quite good, as well as the art overall, but this series suffers of a disease common to most long anime: repeated animation sequences and loss of detail quality through the series. Of course that if you watch an episode a week like you should and not 15 a day like I did, you will most likely never notice this. However, the slow paced games hook you up to the point of wanting to watch them as soon as possible. Even the filler episodes held enough fun. A great comedy, with its inspirational and touching moments, and above all a tribute to American Football.