Summary
Blue Lock challenges traditional sports anime by focusing on individuality over teamwork. The series combines elements of deathmatch games with soccer matches, creating high tension. Blue Lock's influence extends to real-life soccer, with the Japanese national team taking inspiration from the series' jerseys.
Green Lock is being hailed as one of the best sports anime of all time, and part of that is down to Ura Kazuki's portrayal of the main character, Yoichi Isagi. This revolutionary soccer anime and manga completely overturned traditional shonen sports stereotypes by emphasizing the player's selfish need to be motivated to win games.
Starting out as a manga by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura, Blue Lock focuses on a young man named Isagi who joins a mysterious Blue Lock program designed to help a Japanese soccer team win big. While the soccer matches in the series are certainly not fatal, the high stakes make each Blue Lock match feel like it belongs in a death game anime. The manga and anime have received widespread acclaim, with the series recently getting a feature film, Episode Nagi, in April.
Now that the series is bigger than ever, Screen Rant interviewed Isagi's Japanese voice actor, Ura Kazuki, to talk about what makes the series so special and why it's so relevant to modern audiences.
Screen Rant: With Blue Lock focusing on developing selfish people, do you think this movie is anti-teamwork or just does something different with teamwork than what most people expect?
Ura Kazuki: Individuality plays a huge role in the development of the characters in Blue Lock. However, that doesn't necessarily mean undermining teamwork. It's more like focusing and saying that polishing yourself and the team individually is important. So breaking down the traditional theories of street football, especially in Japan, that you always have to think as a team. As a striker, your job is to actually score goals.
So let's rethink what it takes and what it means for an individual to set goals for themselves and for a team. And the fact that it combines both the individual and the team. It's the same internal and external loop. So it's like coexisting, but it can start with the individual.
Why do you think the series is making such a big impact right now? Do you think the series is very timely?
Ura Kazuki: Simply put, I think the production team, the original manga creators, and everyone else who worked on the Blue Lock project are passionate about the series. Usually, when you work on projects like this, it depends on the individual and how invested they are in the final outcome of the series itself. But in the case of Blue Lock, I really felt that everyone on the team put their heart and soul into their work. And that passion seeps into the eyes of the audience and they can feel it. So the passion to continue creating and improving from the creators themselves is something that is conveyed to the audience.
How do you relate to Isagi? Is there anything about his character that really speaks to you on a personal level?
Ura Kazuki: So Isagi himself is very selfless and kind. At first, that was portrayed a lot in the anime. Then, through Blue Lock, he unlocked many versions of himself. I really sympathized with that when I first got to play Isagi, like acting out the scene where he cries and he's selfless and weak. But throughout the season and throughout the character development, I could really sympathize with Isagi because it revealed more about who he is and what he wants to become. All of that was possible through Isagi and his struggles throughout the series.
Blue Lock is making a big impact in the real world, with the Japanese soccer team even wearing jerseys inspired by the series. How has seeing things like that, as well as the passionate fan response, impacted you?
Ura Kazuki: So at first, I was surprised to be able to collaborate because, as you may know, at the beginning of the series, Blue Lock said that the Japanese team wasn't enough, right? Blue Lock called them out a little bit at the beginning. So the fact that they were actually open to that collaboration was very surprising.
But also, it was a very important moment not only for me but for the people who made Blue Lock to meet real people who were aiming for the top spot in football. So I think a lot of the players could relate to that story because they were real people who were aiming for the stars and really had the perseverance to make it in the world as a professional player. So being able to relate to the Blue Lock story inspired the whole team and allowed them to feed off each other, which had a huge impact on the series going forward.
Thanks to Ura Kazuki and Crunchyroll for participating in the interview. Green LockThe anime is now streaming on Crunchyroll!