So, in a couple of days the summer 2010 anime season will get into action but before that I still have a few reviews to finish. This post is on the soccer anime Giant Killing. While I do not usually enjoy or watch sports anime in general, Giant Killing was among my favorite anime of the season. The basic story is about a failing professional soccer group called East Tokyo United or ETU for short that has been consistently doing badly for past seasons. To this end they try to employ Takeshi Tatsumi, a former star player of ETU, who has been in England managing a small town's soccer club. He manages to raise that small town's soccer club to be a formidable team and as such his former team tries to recruit him again as manager/coach to the ailing ETU. Rife with problems, he comes to ETU and immediately kicks up a storm, changing the major lineup and in doing so, dividing the team. In this way, the show deals with more than just the team members but also touches on things like the managing and coaching of the team and player to player interaction.
At the end of the 13th episode, the most current episode to date, ETU wins its first game of the season and the show seems to really get itself into gear. It seems unclear how long this anime will last but it seems to have gotten off to a good start at a good time, in sync with the World Cup. As a sports anime I have to say that I am impressed as the anime does not have ridiculous players and the main focus is not a single person. While Tatsumi is a very central character, other characters are fleshed out and explored almost more so than Tatsumi. I find it a good thing that it can be hard sometimes to tell that Tatsumi is a main character and feel that for this particular anime, this is perfect. Along with good things there are always bad. The art is a bit strange and perhaps old school, think triangle noses, and the animation could be better for a sports anime. The music is often nonexistent or so lacking in strength that it does not add to the power of the individual scenes. I also did not personally enjoy the OP/ED very much but they were not terrible. However, if those are what hold you back, that is not really a good reason.
Overall I thought that Giant Killing was a good, strong anime this season and if you like soccer a pretty decent watch. Next up, probably later today or tomorrow, is the comedy, slice of life anime Working!! followed by Arakawa Under the Bridge. Durarara!! is being delayed since I have not finished watching it yet.
Overall: 8.5/10
Amongst sports anime: 9/10
*Note: Giant Killing can be streamed legally from crunchyroll.com
--CsMiREK
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