Blue Lock might not carry Haikyuu!!'s legacy and 8Bit studio is to blame

Modified Sep 28, 2024 12:37 GMT

Blue Lock might not carry Haikyuu — Hinata Shouyo and Yoichi Isagi as seen in Haikyuu!! and Blue Lock (Image via Production I.G and 8Bit)

With Blue Lock season 2 soon set to premiere in October 2024, the anime released its second promotional video to hype up fans for the upcoming season. However, instead of leaving the fans excited, the new promotional video left them dismayed at the work produced by 8bit Studio.

When the Blue Lock anime was first released, fans were left enthralled by what they witnessed as they finally had a football anime in their hands with the same intensity as that of any shonen battle anime. Hence, considering how popular those get, many fans believed that the football anime could surpass Haikyuu!! as a sports anime. Unfortunately, the latest promotional video dashed all hopes for the same.

8Bit studio may have dashed all hopes of Blue Lock surpassing Haikyuu!!

Hinata Shouyo as seen in Haikyuu!! (Image via Production I.G)

While there are many sports anime that have come out to date, not many sports anime managed to leave their mark as much as Production I.G's Haikyuu!! anime. This is because the anime did something not many anime could, i.e., to make fans obsessed with a not-so-popular sport.

While volleyball is a very famous sport worldwide, it is nowhere near in popularity to some of the other commonly played sports like football and basketball. Hence, most anime fans went into the series despite having minute information about the sport's rules and regulations. However, that was never a problem for Haikyuu!! as it seamlessly helped fans not only into the anime but also the sport.

Yoichi Isagi as seen in the anime (Image via 8Bit)

This was not a hurdle that Blue Lock had to face. Being a football anime, the anime never truly had to explain its rules to its fans or put in effort to make sure the fans understood the proceedings in the series. To make things even better, the anime became overly popular since its premiere itself.

Thus, considering that Haikyuu!! was inching towards its end with its final movies, and Blue Lock was touted to become the next big thing, fans believed that the football anime could effectively carry Haikyuu!!'s legacy and become the next best sports anime.

However, after 8Bit Studio unveiled the anime's second promotional video, fans lost hope for the football anime. The anime's first season was good but every manga fan of the series knew that the upcoming U-20 Arc was quite likely the best story arc in the series. With that in mind, many fans had high hopes for the upcoming Fall anime.

This hope was destroyed by the anime's latest promotional video, which featured events from the story arc prior to U-20 Arc, the Third Selection Arc. While parts of the video looked good, the ones that featured the most action, i.e., players playing football were poor. Several scenes had poor line art while others looked like they were straight out of a PlayStation 2 game.

Oliver Aiku as seen in the anime (Image via 8Bit)

With such animation quality issues set to persist in the Third Selection Arc, fans feared what would happen to the animation quality for the U-20 Arc. Given that the signs were all pointing at a possible poor adaptation, fans were left certain that 8Bit had failed the Blue Lock anime and could never fill the shoes once worn by Haikyuu!!