Dear Internet,
The
final homestretch is here. Or should I
use an American football metaphor instead?
The longest yard? Forth
down? Within field goal range? No matter what you want to call it, I am
almost through "Eyeshield 21."
This batch of episodes can be split into two halves. The first is the buildup to the White Knight
game and the second half would be the White Knight game itself, which is not
over yet. Then again, a majority of the
series has been the buildup to this one game.
Every time Shin and the other White Knights made appearances through the
length of the show, it was weak foreshadowing that this match was to take
place. I say weak because it could not
be any more in your face about it. It
was less foreshadowing and more explicitly telling the audience that it was
going to happen. Which is one of the
fault of having the game against the White Knights not be for the Kantou
Championship but instead being a semi-final match.
"Eyeshield
21" made a gamble when it decided to have the tournament brackets as it
did. I do not know how the source
material handled it, if it was the same or not, so all I can do is ignore it
for now. What made it such a gamble was
having the Devil Bats play first the Nagas, then the White Knights, and then
either the Gunmen or the Hakushu Dinosaurs.
The Nagas match was well done in its approach, especially with Agon,
something that I wrote to you about last time.
Being pitted against the nine year champions is a great hurdle for our
rag tag group to overcome. It is better
than having the Nagas be built up as some unstoppable force only to be squashed
by a new previously unmentioned faction, and then have that group face the
Devil Bats. No matter what, the Devil
Bats would have had to face them or their successors. With the Devil Bats winning against them,
they must carry on the role of Naga slayers as they head up through the
tournament. Sadly, this point is
stressed little once the game is over.
The
match against the White Knights is another eventuality that does not need to be
discussed further than what I have said.
The concluding victory over the team is soon here, and let us not kid
ourselves, Internet. If the Devil Bats
do not win over the White Knights it would make for a bad story, especially for
its demographic. Instead, the final game
of the Kantou Tournament is where the show's gamble comes from. Either the Gunmen or the Dinosaurs would be
their opponents. Placing the Gunmen as
their opponents would be rather uninteresting to say the least. It has been about 60 episodes since the Devil
Bats played them, but only about four games ago not counting filler episodes like
the Cream Puff Cup and the Death Match games.
I do not count them not because they do not appear as such in the source
material but because of how matter of fact they were. The matches only took an episode or three max
to showcase and did not really test the Devil Bats more than they already had
been. If they are just taught the same lesson
again, it is not something new, but a refresher or a review. Not much has happened for the Gunmen since
their game with the Devil Bats except for Riku's Rodeo Drive Stampede, which at
this point just comes across as having more laser lights than his previous
running style. If a technique does not
include a factual reason for evolving then it is just power level
nonsense. That is what makes so many of
the "special moves" that the characters showcase to be
interesting. Whether it is adding a
juke, spin or truck to a run, it almost always feels like there is a real world
reason for why the technique works. A
match against the Gunmen would be pretty much the same as the last game except
for the advancements that the Devil Bats have made, which in my mind would be a
railroading match.
With
the case of the Dinosaurs winning the match against the Gunmen and then facing
the Devil Bats, there is not enough buildup to make that game exciding. Sure the Dinosaurs have the beast of a player
who injures players as if they were made of paper, but how far different is
that compared to Agon? The Dinosaur
player, Gaoh, is at least shown as having respect for his opponents, albeit a
certain negligence for their well being.
It trades him from being a villain into making him a beast, which I
admit can be as threatening had the show shown him for more than just two
episodes. Two episodes of him battling
against the Gunmen would double his exposure but unless he had a more elaborate
character showcase then he is another rung on a ladder that goes nowhere. In a show where people dislocate arms, lift
barbells of a hundred pounds with only two finger holds, and break out of iron
chains with just flexing their muscles, stopping a truck with one hand is the
next step. The matchup would be a
standard pure brawn verses refined skill contest. After a matchup against Shin, which centers
around a skill vs. skill challenge with a race thrown in the side, a match
against the Dinosaurs would be taking a few steps back, especially considering
that nearly every matchup has pointed out that Eyeshield is pretty weak
compared to most players. If the show
was just going to tack on the psychological problem of facing an opponent
stronger than oneself to the other Devil Bats players, then "Eyeshield
21" would be going in a circular track that it has made so often that the
grass under has turned brown.
This
all adds up to the gamble that the show makes.
How can it attempt to make the final game of the Kantou Tournament
better than the game against the White Knights?
In short, it cannot. The White Knights
game has had too much leading up to it to take second place to any match other
than the Christmas Bowl. Three years of
weekly episodes have led to this game. Nearly
every opening and closing credits has showcased Shin and Eyeshield's confrontation. Even Agon who disappeared for 100 episodes
was in the opening in one way or another as a constant reminder that he is
going to be important, eventually.
Everything after the White Knights game would be downhill due to a
complete lack of foreshadowing or forced interest upon the audience. This is one of the most glaring faults of the
show. Only the opponents for the next
match matters. Everyone after that does
not exist until the match is over. Only
with the Second half of the Tokyo Tournament does the show address this, but it
does so inadequately. It all feels too little,
too late to correct the problem, especially when it continues to err
introducing rivals and opponents just before a match.
 |
| From where? |
Internet,
there are only ten episodes left. So,
tomorrow will be my last entry covering the television version of "Eyeshield
21." I think I have covered the
biggest criticism I have of the show so far.
Unless something out of left field appears (or should I say blitzed out
of nowhere?), I will cover the few things here and there that I have
missed.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
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