Look, I promised I’d write another blog post within the year. It’s November (not anymore I’m still writing this in December) but it’s still 2019. I’ve scrapped at least six posts and will NOT dwell on the past. It’s gonna be this, because it’s digestible for me. Writing is slap dash as always, you get what you pay for (this is FREE!!!!). I got back into Inazuma this year after a decade since I first got into it and I have a lot to say.
Earlier in the year I watched Ares, then stalled on the last three episodes because I just didn’t want to let go of Inakuni Raimon. I was HUGE on them. I was invested in it so much that I refused to finish it. When did I watch it, March? I downloaded the last three episodes of Ares to watch and the first two or three of Orion to watch late AUGUST, cause I had a 3 hour plane ride to sit through. I was hooked on Orion instantly, and caught up with it in three days (42 episodes!). The coming weeks were agonizing, because somehow the episodes after were an abject trainwreck. To be fair, Orion was rife with production problems from day 1 and started to show it within its second cour and especially after the Asia prelims, but the last few episodes were a genuine tragedy. NONE-THE-LESS, nonetheless, I still enjoyed Orion more than I’d like to admit and will defend a sizable chunk of its jank. I unironically want the BD releases mostly because the animation deserves to be fixed. The characters deserved better and the concepts and themes present had a lot of potential, but with the shadow of the Ares game looming over it and the anime’s studio hiccups probably got in the way. Allegedly — and I have no real source on this — Orion had about have the animation staff that Ares had due to obligations to another project or whatever kind of boring production stuff I can’t be bothered to remember. I’m probably the only sane Ichihoshi stan you’ll ever meet and I can confidently state this as fact. Like whatever, this paragraph is too long and has overstayed its welcome, let’s get moving.
I hesitated to watch Orion because of the team lineup, actually. At first I thought it had too many Inazuma “all stars”, eventually I came to see reason and realized that’s exactly what the original FFI arc did as well. It’s still different to me but eventually all I could think was FUCK IT. LET’S GO. It’s not like I don’t hold any grudges or am suddenly happy about the weird shoddy team lineup and the various snubs, but it’s done and over, the anime ended and I have to move on. The rating system will be split into two parts: (somewhat) objective and my own singular personal subjective rating that I pull out of my ass. The objective rating system goes like this:
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | Whether or not they deserved their spot in the first place. |
| Skill | How good a player is. This is hard to score but I’ll try to be as fair as possible. As a baseline, I have Gouenji as a 10 by default, and Hiura as a 5. |
| Plot importance | Mandated role in the anime overall. |
| Plot impact | If any of the shit they did mattered. This one is going to be a bit sad. |
| Overall tastefulness | Portrayal and writing, kind of. Basically how well a character was treated. |
| Final score (mean) | As it says. |
So that’s that. There’s not much else to say other than from this point on, I’ll be openly spoiling Orion’s plot.
1. Endou Mamoru (Captain/GK)
I don’t really have much to say about Endou, I liked his supportive role and anyone complaining about wank needs to go rewatch the original run. He’s definitely no longer the main character, serving the role of a figurehead and figurative “rock” for the team. Out of the four(!) goalkeepers, he’s obviously the most skilled given his prodigal status. It feels insanely unfair to even compare the others to him. A lot of people wanted him to step up more, but fuck that. I’m glad he never overshadowed the protagonists with his already towering presence. One nitpick I have is the fiasco that was the Australia match, where he let through five(!) goals to the same mid ass hissatsu because muh gimmick. That was whack. But Endou is okay.
As far as I’m concerned the less involved he was the better, but a part of me also hypocritically wishes that he was a little less inoffensive deep down.
PERSONAL RATING: 7/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 10 |
| Skill | 9 (docked for plot induced incompetence) |
| Plot importance | 6 |
| Plot impact | 5 |
| Overall tastefulness | 8 |
| Final score (mean) | 7.6 |
2. Sakanoue Noburu (DF/Libero)
Why was Sakanoue here? I’m not gonna make “SAKANOUE=GOD” jokes. Promise. I was excited to see his improvement, but he didn’t do anything. I don’t want to be unfair and just turn this into a joke. He definitely had some seeds sown in the beginning. He has killer eyesight and is always the person who sees people cheating when everyone else seems to be actually focusing on the match and he copied Koori no Ya seamlessly which might have meant he has good mimicry skill… but why aim for Hiura, the designated mid player and not any higher? Why in God’s name was he the libero? Whatever. I don’t care. ENDOU-SAN!
PERSONAL RATING: 2.5/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 1 |
| Skill | 3 |
| Plot importance | 2 |
| Plot impact | 1.5 |
| Overall tastefulness | 2 |
| Final score (mean) | 1.9 |
3. Fudou Akio (MF)
No. Not even worth giving a fair shot. You didn’t deserve a spot this time.
PERSONAL RATING: 5/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 3 |
| Skill | 4 |
| Plot importance | 4 |
| Plot impact | 3.5 |
| Overall tastefulness | 6.5 |
| Final score (mean) | 4.2 |
4. Fubuki Shirou (DF)
Fubuki with no trauma is fine. He’s fine. He kind of loses a lot in this incarnation, there’s no denying that, but he’s a capable player on his own with not much going for him plot-wise… which is why, in theory, him infiltrating Orion from the inside was perfect. It gave him something to do now that he didn’t have the backing of his Aliea arc development. Except Hino seemed to forget about it towards the end and it fizzled out at the last second. And… he was the only really visibly capable defender aside from Kazemaru, the second I realize this the entire thing just crumbles to bits. It really should have been Tatsuya instead, but I’ll leave that for his own section. I liked his bombastic lofty exit from the team, but having him banter with Atsuya would have made for something good.
PERSONAL RATING: 6/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 8 |
| Skill | 7.5 |
| Plot importance | 5 |
| Plot impact | 4 |
| Overall tastefulness | 6 |
| Final score (mean) | 6.1 |
5. Kidou Yuuto (MF)
Alright.
This is going to come off as a nuclear take: I think Kidou’s involvement level was more or less near perfect. To me, if he came back a bit earlier, it would have been perfect. I thought his role in the anime was probably one of the better executed ones, and everyone remembers how he went full feral on Ichihoshi as a universal highlight. I don’t have much to say. Obviously it could have been better, but this is Orion. Manage your expectations a bit.
PERSONAL RATING: 7.5/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 9 |
| Skill | 8 |
| Plot importance | 7 |
| Plot impact | 7 |
| Overall tastefulness | 7 |
| Final score (mean) | 7.6 |
6. Kazemaru Ichirouta (DF)
Did anyone actually expect Kazemaru to do anything of importance? He was the only other competent defender on the team (Mizukamiya came in too late to count). I don’t have much to say. I don’t get why he was a reinforcement member in Ares, even.
PERSONAL RATING: 6/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 6.5 |
| Skill | 7 |
| Plot importance | 4 |
| Plot impact | 3 |
| Overall tastefulness | 8 |
| Final score (mean) | 5.7 |
7. Hiura Kirina (MF)
If you’re wondering why I used Hiura as one of the baselines for the skill stat, it’s cause he’s the team’s balance player. See, in my mind, every protagonist team needs players that have no business being there, aces and almost aces. And then… there’s the mid player, the one that represents the net average skill of the team. Their skill levels vary wildly depending on the team, but they’re always present, and they’re usually positioned as a midfielder. When he was in Inakuni Raimon he was mid-high, with Hiyori filling in the “mid” spot. But Hiura is in the big leagues now, and he represents the current average. Nevermind the other incompetent players though…
Anyway, he’s the first new character worth actually talking about, so he gets a second paragraph. I… did not like Hiura in Ares. The elements that made him so likable in Orion were certainly present, but they weren’t visible enough to really matter. I thought he was a boring pretty boy, honestly. Which is what makes his characterization in Orion one of the most successful: the boy went full feral and let the full extent of his eccentricities shine through. It’s like being away from his grandma finally hit him 27 episodes later and he didn’t have to hold back anymore. He overindulges, accidentally insensitive, he forces people (Golem) to go along with his delusions of grandeur, doesn’t get sarcasm, can’t read the room. His small subplot with Li could have been executed better but it’s Orion. Manage your expectations.
PERSONAL RATING: 8/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 6 |
| Skill | 5 |
| Plot importance | 6 |
| Plot impact | 6 |
| Overall tastefulness | 8 |
| Final score (mean) | 6.2 |
8. Inamori Asuto (MF)
The wave of exhaustion that came over me when I realized I’d have to write about Asuto. Er… he gets a lot of hate for what he did (or rather didn’t do) in Orion. I feel incredibly tired just thinking about it, and the cringe fake dad subplot halfway gave me genuine REAL heartburn. Let’s not mince words here: our boy (he IS your boy whether you like it or not) Asuto was done FILTHY, I loved him to bits in Ares as I did with the other two protagonists. And then Orion happened and he fell off the map. Everyone knows what went wrong, I don’t want to dwell on it because it’s depressing. I will say one thing though, still about the fake dad subplot: I’m glad he was angry with his “dad” and chastised him, and that he treated it with skepticism even if he fell for it eventually. Orion had a few moments where Asuto felt like Asuto, like what I just mentioned, the kappa episode and when he suggested lowkey murdering Italy with Grid Omega. Otherwise he just kind of… yeah.
PERSONAL RATING: 6/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 9 |
| Skill | 6.5 |
| Plot importance | 8 |
| Plot impact | 6 |
| Overall tastefulness | 4 |
| Final score (mean) | 6.7 |
9. Kira Hiroto (FW)
Hiroto did his job. I don’t have much to comment on, other than kind of wishing he wasn’t so flanderized compared to his Ares counterpart. Kind of wish he got a new solo hissatsu. His moments in the show were very strong though, from the crowning “going mano a mano on Ichihoshi” moment to the amusement park sequence are incredibly memorable and fun. He played well with the characters he interacted with for the most part. He could have had more diverse interactions! Things could have been way better, but this is Orion. Manage your expectations.
PERSONAL RATING: 8/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 9 |
| Skill | 8 |
| Plot importance | 5 |
| Plot impact | 6 |
| Overall tastefulness | 6.5 |
| Final score (mean) | 6.9 (nice) |
10. Gouenji Shuuya (FW)
Why did he rejoin the team? Like whatever. Stay home and recover.
The absurdity of Gouenji’s injury doesn’t come from the fact that he was injured, I thought it was a great move to stop the team from relying on who arguably may be the strongest human player in the series. It comes from the cowardice to not commit to it.
That being said he should have spent the entire show with his leg in a cast. There was no point in him sticking around.
PERSONAL SCORE: 5/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 9 |
| Skill | 10 |
| Plot importance | 3 |
| Plot impact | 4 |
| Overall tastefulness | 5 |
| Final score (mean) | 6.2 |
11. Haizaki Ryouhei (FW)
Oh to be Haizaki and get completely shafted the second the team arrives in Russia. Now ain’t that nice? Haizaki was possibly the best character in Ares. His character arc was among the most successful in the series and was an absolute anguish conga line for viewers, but wasn’t overdone in that respect and was satisfyingly concluded. You see Haizaki’s situation and think, wow, this kid sure is heading to juvie if he got his revenge. But he didn’t! And gained friends through it. Even in the beginning of Orion, they followed through with his development. He still had some of his old habits, like hogging the ball and being quick to provoke. I like that! You can’t “solve” a person right away. He had some really good quips with Hiroto and tried to beat the shit out of Ichihoshi on numerous occasions. And then… nothing. Nothing!
Haizaki out of everyone is Orion’s greatest unlikely victim. Aside from when they pull him out for some quick comic relief, he completely disappears after Ichihoshi’s arc. He’s benched during the FFI final, despite supposedly being one of the four main characters. I don’t care for anyone being all “the team has six forwards” (why?!) to handwave it, and If this isn’t proof the writers either had their brains collectively exploded, were fired or were simply switched out halfway it’s this. What a loss. Haizaki, I love you. I’ll give you a subjective score that PAINS me and hope they let you do something in this timeline’s GO.
PERSONAL RATING: 6/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 9 |
| Skill | 8.5 |
| Plot importance | 4 |
| Plot impact | 2 |
| Overall tastefulness | 4 |
| Final score (mean) | 5.5 |
12. Goujin Tetsunosuke (FW)
Goujin is… surprisingly difficult for me to really decide on. Was he utilized properly in Orion? I love him to death and I was somewhat satisfied with how he was treated aside from feeling like he could have scored more. Fire Lemonade Rising seems to be almost infallible and its what he deserves, and he consistently got good character moments. If the team wasn’t so damn crowded he could have been the team’s beating heart. Instead he stood by whenever needed and his presence felt shaky at best. He was drowned out by the pure fluff of people who had no business being there. I will never forget him giving Ichihoshi a literal arm throw (is this the right wrestling term? I spent half an hour googling it and found no conclusive answer.) and yelling at him all, “gimme a hug man!”. LEGEND.
Was he underutilized? Yeah. Probably. It’s Orion. Manage your expectations.
PERSONAL SCORE: 9/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 8 |
| Skill | 6.75 |
| Plot importance | 5 |
| Plot impact | 6 |
| Overall tastefulness | 7 |
| Final score (mean) | 6.6 |
13. Ichihoshi Hikaru (MF)
Hooooooooooooo boy. HOOOO BOY.
Ichihoshi is a difficult, difficult topic to breach given his (or honestly just Orion’s) divisiveness, but I want to start by at least defending the derivative elements of his plotline. This will probably be the longest entry out of any of the players, given how Ichihoshi is the Fubuki/Fei/Matatagi/etc of this arc and how his presence is synonymous with Orion as a whole. Sadly considered its poster boy.
Yes, Hino gave us another character with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID henceforth). I’m not sure why he decided on this, especially given how well loved Fubuki is and how iconic his conflict was in the memory of fans. But… Ichihoshi’s DID is entirely different from Fubuki’s, and his inner conflict for the bulk of the arc was about whether or not it was right to doom an entire group of people just to save his brother who was, for all he knew, lying in a hospital bed dying. Orion Corporation’s manipulation of his dissociative disorder and them raising him as his dead brother was well executed and appropriately terrifying. Had he succeeded in crashing the bus, what happens to Mitsuru? What happens to Hikaru? After the dust settles, do they just kill him? Thinking about it alone is scary. Atsuya is a constant presence and source of conflict for Fubuki. For Ichihoshi, fronting as Mitsuru, he genuinely thought he had been either reminiscing or genuinely in the same room with Hikaru. They don’t even share memories, given how Hikaru had no idea who any of the Inajapan members were. Someone who actually has DID broke it down way better than I could ever hope to. It’s a good read.
As for being derivative of Tsurugi’s starting conflict in the beginning of Holy Road, eh. “Hikaru” didn’t feel analogous to Yuuichi and Tsurugi’s situation certainly wasn’t as dire or intense. The base is there I guess. No dice though. The implication of “Hikaru”‘s condition was that he was seriously ill, that if Ichihoshi were to fail in his mission it would spell nothing short of his death. Yuuichi was disabled (paralyzed the hip down) by the whole Tsurugi-falling-out-of-that-one-tree incident, and had no interest in any miracle surgery that would have him walking again. Tsurugi’s decision was born out of guilt, given he had metaphorically taken soccer away from his brother. Ichihoshi wasn’t exactly given a choice. Now I’m not sure why there was no consequence for him walking out on Orion Corporation because that shit made no sense given they were carting off failed disciples of Orion for MUCH less, but when Tsurugi walked out on Fifth Sector they had no plans of pursuing him. We were led to believe something bad would happen to both Ichihoshi brothers if “Mitsuru” decided to turn. That’s the thing. Even with that oversight, he was practically raised and provided for by Orion. Tsurugi still has his family and a home to go back to. Ichihoshi has none. The stakes were much worse for him. That’s just how it is, a situation engineered to keep him 100% obedient. If he didn’t somehow get soccer therapy for his DID, the end he would have met after the Saudi Arabia match could have been something unthinkable. That’s just it.
You can choose to read all this how you like, but these are the facts laid out. I can’t afford to be any less objective than this, and if it’s seen as biased then I don’t know what to tell you! At any rate, with that stuff out of the way, now begins my subjective evaluation.
No doubt about it, Ichihoshi Hikaru post-soccer therapy was yet another victim of Orion’s wandering direction. He certainly had a lot of screen time, yeah. Filled with nothing but dead air in my opinion. What does he do? Not much, even though he would be the number one person who’d want to do Orion Corporation in. He spends most of the time NOT demonstrating any of the on the spot (on the spot!) analytical skill he made use of in his big “it’s Hikaru!” moment during the Saudi Arabia match. Instead, he’s analyzing the other team off screen and Nosaka constantly bugs him about it. Ichihoshi-kun, is The General ready? IT’LL BE READY WHEN IT’S READY BRO. GOD. Which is a damn shame because The General is a cool God’s Baton type hissatsu tactic… that they forgot about in the last leg of the series. Go figure. Outside of matches he commits to the busywork of being present to facilitate local Russian idiot and best friend Froy’s (who I very much like by the way) flashbacks, infodumping, exposition (whatever he feels like that given moment dunno this kid is unpredictable) or just plain being Nosaka’s yesman. He doesn’t even get in on any of the shenanigans the others get into. I don’t know. He doesn’t even get his own shoot until the very last episode. The literally eleventh hour! He was done dirty, filthy even, but he was still my favorite walking out of this. I really don’t know.
That’s not to say his development is trash or that he didn’t do anything or that he had no good character moments. If anything, he is what most people come out of Orion remembering fondly. You know, even the people who wanted him to be Matatagi real bad. I wondered for a while like… why is he such a paradox? I came to the conclusion that he’s well developed… for a side character. Incredibly well developed had he not been slotted in as a main character. I think when bridging the gaps between those roles the writers absolutely dropped the ball by basically acting like their job was done after the kappa episode. Listen. I’ll admit it was derivative, but it was a good episode on its own. It was a good way to open the door between the team and Hikaru, who was way too apologetic about his previous behavior to really contribute much. And then they acted like one episode was enough to solve that baggage. The kappa episode is probably one of his best moments, but also his greatest undoing. God you deserved it be in a much more competent anime. The execution of the DID twist was brilliant and all the pieces were there for him to be HUGE. We still like him. It’s not fair. I know its Orion and I keep saying that… but I shouldn’t be managing my expectations with the main character. I’m sad guys. He’s too good for this.
PERSONAL RATING: 10/10 fuck you I love him
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 7 (Guesswork via Froy flashbacks. I don’t know how big he was in Russia.) |
| Skill | 8 (Honestly hard to gauge his skill… but I’m counting every penny.) |
| Plot importance | 9 |
| Plot impact | 8 |
| Overall tastefulness | 6.5 |
| Final score (mean) | 7.7 |
14. Nosaka Yuuma (MF)
I am not known for good takes. You’d have known this getting this far. You still haven’t closed the tab and that’s amazing! I cannot thank you enough. Nosaka was pretty good in Orion. At… the expense of everyone else apparently! It really seems like he got to have all the fun while Ichihoshi did……. not much, Asuto got stuck with le cringe fake dad subplot and Haizaki disappeared into the ether. Nosaka was living his best goddamn life and I am so happy for him*. It’s probably an issue having to do with the screen time being splintered unequally after the episode count got cut? I have no idea. Tsubamegaeshi is cool. On a more serious note, I really enjoyed how he had nothing to lose anymore so he became fully unhinged. Ironically, I wish he got up to more shenanigans.
*Can he link me his food vlogging channel? He must have gotten so much content out of Russia. I’m not happy, I’m actually very jealous.
PERSONAL RATING: 7/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 8 |
| Skill | 8.5 |
| Plot importance | 7.5 |
| Plot impact | 7 |
| Overall tastefulness | 7 |
| Final score (mean) | 7.6 |
15. Kiyama Tatsuya (DF)
This one… will be controversial. Or not? I don’t even know. Tatsuya is pretty popular, but also a point of contention. My opinion? Ehhhhhh… look, I wasn’t a Hiroto super fan way back so I can’t say he particularly offends me. I’m pretty cool with Fubuki with no PTSD. I can’t really pinpoint what I don’t like about Tatsuya in particular.
(Just so we’re clear, I’ll be talking about OG Hiroto, unless I say otherwise)
The thing is, Hiroto was a really, really fun and iconic character. I don’t think there are any characters like him to this day. So to make Tatsuya a huge square in this timeline feels… awkward. Ares/Orion Hiroto has a lot of personality, it really felt like Tatsuya was a side character NPC who was there to flesh out his backstory. Here’s what you will probably agree or disagree with: it should have stayed this way. Tatsuya has no real reason to qualify for Inazuma Japan, he’s just above average. In a more meta sense, he brings and has brought nothing to the table. His personality is dull, and quite frankly I can’t see him having any kind of subplot even if we got the 100 episodes Orion was slated to have even if he got Fubuki’s Orion infiltration subplot. I don’t particularly feel anything towards Tatsuya, he just exists. I’m just kind of bitter he took up space while there were characters who deserved it more.
PERSONAL RATING: 3/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 4 |
| Skill | 5.5 |
| Plot importance | 1 |
| Plot impact | 1 |
| Overall tastefulness | 3 |
| Final score (mean) | 2.9 |
16. Afuro “Aphrodi” Terumi (FW)
Let’s get this out of the way: Aphrodi should have been on the team from the start. I can’t call myself an Aphrodi stan at all, but he was snubbed the first time too. Hibiki didn’t think to pick him. Fire Dragon was cool! But this time he had a good shot at it. Ares pushed him hard since Outer Code, wanted to give him closure without his big Aliea arc moment. We are here for this! The teasing continued when we didn’t get to see the match between Inakuni Raimon and Zeus. That’s fair. He’s going to be in Inazuma Japan, right? Right???
He’s not. God fucking dammit.
The issue is that there’s no one on the starting roster of the team he could have easily swapped out with. We all know Orion has a huge forward problem. Haizaki, Hiroto and especially Gouenji are shoe-ins for position. Goujin is the team’s wild card. I want to be like “well add him to the team after Gouenji gets got!” but in the wake of Ichihoshi’s reign of terror, it might cheapen the impact and would be difficult to execute. I don’t have a solution… but I still feel so strongly about it. Position change? Eh… I don’t know. I just don’t know. Too many cooks in the kitchen already.
So how was he when Kidou decided to right the coach’s wrongs and ring him? Amazing. He had this real energy to him that disrupted the current humdrum of the team. It makes me wish he had been present earlier, his touch could have enhanced and brought together a lot of plot-y moments. Inazuma Japan has too many likeminded people honestly. He didn’t get to do much after his debut match and that seems to be how it is for all the other representatives aside from Kozoumaru, but what he did? Highlight of the series. The amusement park scene was a cultivation of exactly what we needed more of in Orion. More character interactions and them goofing off, characters who would never naturally interact interacting, more hissatsu training on screen, generally less stupid plot shit. They’re kids! I want to see them do fun things too. It’s still maybe in my top 3 moments of the show.
PERSONAL RATING: 8/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 9 |
| Skill | 8.5 |
| Plot importance | 6 |
| Plot impact | 5.75 |
| Overall tastefulness | 7 |
| Final score (mean) | 7.25 |
17. Iwato “Golem” Takashi (DF)
I’ll be frank. I tried really hard to like Golem. He’s a super nice guy. No, I don’t see him as a Kabeyama clone. He’s a big guy who does The Wall. So what? He has his own spin on it. I think it’s cute. I feel like they tried to do something with him with the whole Hikaru love letter thing, and I have no particular opinion on how well that worked. Hiura’s insistance on being insane and calling him Iwatson was very amusing. The amusement park scene gave him some much needed character moments… but it’s certainly not enough, and the impact is lost the second you realize they only got to do GGG Senjou no Aria once.
In a word, like, whatever.
PERSONAL RATING: 5/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 6 |
| Skill | 5.5 |
| Plot importance | 4 |
| Plot impact | 4 |
| Overall tastefulness | 7 |
| Final score (mean) | 5.3 |
18. Mansaku Yuuichirou (DF)
Spark Wind.
PERSONAL RATING: 4/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 6 |
| Skill | 5 |
| Plot importance | 1 |
| Plot impact | 1 |
| Overall tastefulness | 5 |
| Final score (mean) | 3.6 |
19. Saginuma Osamu (GK/MF)
Get out of my sight. NOW.
Alright, I can’t fathom doing two joke entries in a row. I’ll try to be constructive: a goalkeeper who let through four meme goals from local amateurs Inakuni Raimon has no business representing Japan. That’s just how it is. He’s just… not good. He wasn’t good in Eisei, he wasn’t good in Inajapan. A position change didn’t help him. The team had no business having three goalkeepers anyway, but if they really had to have a third goalkeeper it should have been Norika. YES! I AM that person! I WILL bring that into this.
PERSONAL RATING: 2/10 (Yup… the lowest score.)
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 2 |
| Skill | 2 |
| Plot importance | 1 |
| Plot impact | 1 |
| Overall tastefulness | 2 |
| Final score (mean) | 1.6 |
20. Nishikage Seiya (GK)
Nishikage lives in a shoujo manga and he’s losing. Hang in there, Nishikage! We’re cheering you on! At any rate, I was hoping he would make friends who aren’t Nosaka. No such luck. He’s a great character, one of my top favorites from Ares, with a lot of untapped potential on all fronts: development, hissatsu, little hashtag comedic moments. Yet we got nothing, he was just “the other competent goalkeeper” and “Nosaka’s cuck”. Man, I really wish the kappa episode had Nishikage hanging out with Ichihoshi instead of Asuto. I would sell my kidney for it. It’d be so funny and we’d get over the cuck running joke before it got beat down. No, seriously. I kind of wish they were friends. Also, Kamakura D… what’s up with that. How did they do that? Where is the training. Why didn’t Nishikage and da bros get to do it again? You’re making me so sad, Hino.
PERSONAL RATING: 7/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 7.5 |
| Skill | 7 |
| Plot importance | 6 |
| Plot impact | 4 |
| Overall tastefulness | 6.5 |
| Final score (mean) | 6.2 |
21. Kozoumaru Sasuke (FW)
Kozoumaru is kind of tough. I had a hard time articulating stuff in paragraph form. So bullet points:
- While the design itself isn’t bad, isolated from context it’s really great, but by making Kozoumaru Tall Coolguy and making him skinny he lost all novelty and a lot of charm.
- I liked super saiyan Kozoumaru. It’s absurd. I love it.
- Ichihoshi cucked Kozoumaru out of Last Resort. Why? This is the only thing I’ll agree with people on re:supposed Ichihoshi bullshit, he really should have gotten to score with Last Resort once. And then bring out the new shiny Last Resort.
- All in all, out of the five reinforcement members, he might have been the least satisfying. MIGHT.
PERSONAL RATING: 5/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 6.5 |
| Skill | 7 |
| Plot importance | 5 |
| Plot impact | 3 |
| Overall tastefulness | 4 |
| Final score (mean) | 5 |
22. Fubuki Atsuya (FW)
What is there to say about Atsuya? He’s a funny little meat head. He probably says slurs. Alright, I don’t know if I’m crazy, but didn’t they say Atsuya was coming in on a trainer at first right before he joined? I can’t be the only person who remembers that, right? Then he joins as a forward… again, too many cooks in the kitchen. He doesn’t do anything of note aside from give Fubuki a proper bombastic send-off. Why didn’t he get any goofy comic relief moments…? A cool new shot? Combo shoot with the other forwards? Wait, why did we only get two new FW combo shoots…?! Six forwards and 49 episodes…!
PERSONAL RATING: 5/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 6.5 |
| Skill | 7.5 |
| Plot importance | 5 |
| Plot impact | 4.5 |
| Overall tastefulness | 6 |
| Final score (mean) | 5.9 |
23. Umihara Norika (GK)
Norika got to do cool things in her debut match. REALLY cool things, like catching a ball with tear gas in her eyes. It’s difficult to talk about Norika without feeling the need to say this. That she’s good and has accomplishments. Ibuki literally exists. Sangoku exists. When an InaSD trailer dropped recently all the comments were like, “Sangoku-senpai stopped the ball!?”
But I digress. In Ares she went up against the series best. Of course she’d have trouble with it. I wish she had been on the team since day 1 instead of Saginuma… all that off screen training she did would have made for a good subplot to follow over the course of the anime. Then… she debuts Uzumaki the Hand! I wish. I also wish her rivalry with Gabriella actually got room to breathe… but you know.
PERSONAL RATING: 7.5/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 9 |
| Skill | 6.5 |
| Plot importance | 4 |
| Plot impact | 5.5 |
| Overall tastefulness | 6.5 |
| Final score (mean) | 6.3 |
24. Mizukamiya Seiryuu (DF)
I read Inapen recently. It’s really good! You know why this is important? Because honestly, it seems like out of all the picks, Mizukamiya was the most “for the fans” of the bunch. A lot of his actions were informed by how he was written in Inapen… one would still get the “I can’t call you captain here!” gag between him and Haizaki without reading it, but it’s a direct reference nonetheless. It’s not even half as funny without knowing the context. That being said… even though he’s great (and should have been in from the start honestly) he comes in way too late to feel like he’s a part of the team. It would have been nice to have him hang with Ichihoshi and Nosaka instead of seeing the whole “is The General ready yet” debacle unfold every match but you know. He’s a fun character… but he only got to have a few quips with Haizaki. Sigh.
PERSONAL RATING: 7/10
| Category | Rating |
| Worthiness | 7 |
| Skill | 6.5 |
| Plot importance | 3 |
| Plot impact | 3 |
| Overall tastefulness | 7.5 |
| Final score (mean) | 5.4 |
WordPress deleted the conclusion I wrote I’m not rewriting it fuck this website see you next year.
Grant me the light 