Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 review: Poor Animation becomes a curse for 8bit's attempt to jazz up third selection scenes

By Gokul Chettiyar

Modified Oct 13, 2024 17:06 GMT

Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 review: 8bit — Yoichi Isagi as seen in Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 (Image via 8bit)

Blue Lock season 2 episode 2, titled The Assassin and the Ninja, premiered on Saturday, October 12, 2024, at 11:30 pm JST. While the anime's first episode looked relatively good, the series's second promotional video suggested some poorly animated scenes as part of the Third Selection Arc. Surprisingly, 8bit tried to enhance those scenes but it would be a stretch to say their attempt worked.

That aside, the anime episode also saw Eiji Mikami and Kakeru Hatano debut as Hiori Yo and Nanase Nijiro. With several such elements to analyze, let's take a deep dive into the Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 to analyze 8bit's attempt to jazz up the previously botched animated scenes, production quality, cast performances, and other elements.

Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 review: 8bit attempts to make PV scenes good with a splash of colors

Expand Tweet

As fans must remember from the second promotional video of Blue Lock season 2 anime, the anime was set to feature several botched scenes as part of the Third Selection Arc. One of the most atrocious amongst them was the Ryusei Shidou no-look backheel goal, which looked far worse than what was depicted in the manga.

Surprisingly, following fans' outcry online, 8bit seemingly noted such a drop in quality and attempted to fix it before the episode's release. This is because the animation studio made huge changes to the scenes by adding an extra splash of colors and effects to enhance the previously botched scenes as seen in the promotional video.

Did such adjustments necessarily fix the problem? No, but it was far better than anything shown as part of the promotional video. Nevertheless, it is difficult to praise the animation studio when they created the issues with poorly animated scenes in the first place.

Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 review: Production Quality and Cast Performances

Chigiri Hyouma as seen in Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 (Image via bit)

Analyzing the production quality of Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 is a bumpy road as there are a lot of ups and downs. Speaking of the downs, the 2D animation quality was very poor as there was next to no action in the episode. Most scenes simply saw the characters stay still and be panned across the screen to depict movement.

Even the transitions between the scenes looked like PowerPoint presentations as there was no seemlessness between them. This was especially evident from the above-mentioned Ryusei Shidou goal scene as it wasn't completely enhanced. Parts of the scene were full of color while others remained the same as the PV, making them seem like they were from different anime.

Expand Tweet

One could have still forgiven 8bit if the line art remained good in the entire episode. However, the animation studio failed to maintain that standard even after not having focused much on other production-related issues.

The only good part of the anime episode as far as animation was concerned was the CG animation. As one would know, in most cases, fans are against the use of CG animation and heavily criticize it. However, given the lack of any 2D animation, fans were left enchanted by the animation studio's work with CG.

Hiori Yo as seen in Blue Lock season 2 episode 2 (Image via 8bit)

Another good thing to mention about the anime episode was their use of background music. While the studio failed at creating any intensity with their animation, they did make some amends by their use of cool background music.

Lastly, speaking of cast performances, both Eiji Mikami and Kakeru Hatano did quite well. While Kakeru Hatano's voice for Nanase Ninjiro seemed decent, Eiji Mikami's voice for Hiori Yo seemed softer than expected. It is to be seen if both cast members will portray the voices differently in the future or choose to continue the same pattern.

Final thoughts on Blue Lock season 2 episode 2

Tabito Karasu as seen in Blue Lock season 2 episode 2. (Image via 8bit)

From what one can deduce from the anime episode, it seems like after 8bit released the promotional video, they tried to fix the botched scenes with colors and special effects. While such changes did jazz up the previously previewed poor-quality scenes, they did little to fix the harm done to the entire episode.

To make matters worse, the anime had not released any clip from the anime's future events as part of the promotional videos. Therefore, fans are set to go blind into the future episode as they can only hope 8bit puts their best step forward while adapting the U-20 Arc.