Dear Internet,
I have
some good news and some bad news. The
good news is that "Eyeshield 21"came up in the Backlog. The bad news is that there are 145 episodes,
so you better get comfortable as we go through this. For the plot: Sena Kobayakawa is a weakling
entering high school who is scouted for the American football team due to his
near highly able running ability that he honed for years because he was so
often bullied into being the group gofer.
Today I got through episodes 1-14, so we will just deal with those for
now.
"Eyeshield
21" goes through all the usual tropes and plot points for a typical shonen
sports show. There is the childhood
female friend, the gentle giant, the maniac genius, the explanation of the game's
rules and so on. All these are here but
they do not feel very tired out because so far, the show knows how to balance
comedy with the serious elements of the story.
Yoichi Hiruma, the team quarterback and captain, will often threaten, bribe,
or blackmail his way throughout the show to get pretty much near anything. His tactics include using Uzis, bazookas, scandalous
pictures, insider information, and other things that would put modern spy organizations
to shame. Yet for the most part, he does
all this for the football team that he leads or for the people on it. It just so happens that sometimes the people
he threatens are the same group. The
cartoonish manner that he does all this is so over the top that it melts away
any tension in a second.
This
comedy does not get in the way of the various hurdles that Sena has to overcome,
which are mostly mental. When Monta, the
wide receiver for the team, continues to get heavily tackled due to Sena's
inability to overcome his own fear of being tackled he realizes that unless he
does so his friend will become heavily injured.
There are a number of times that Sena becomes too frightened to properly
play the game, but that is due to him being a rookie and will hopefully occur
less as the show continues. This is not
to say that his timidness has becomes irksome to the degree of other shonen shows
like "Naruto" where the heroes need a pep talk or a flashback every
episode. No, Sena has to find the myriad
reasons that come forth when one plays American football, which is needed in
all aspects of life. He has to fight for
himself, his teammates and friends. He
has to overcome the fear of pain, both physical and mental. "Eyeshield 21"goes through the various
life lessons that all shonen shows go through.
Maybe it is because it has American football, but I doubt it is that
simple.
There
is one problem that comes about within the first 6-7 episodes because it is
American football. The show attempts to
explain the sport at first rather badly.
There are entire gaps of information about a certain aspect sometimes
for a few episodes at a time. For
example, when the show tells about how a team scores points in a game there is
only the mention of touchdows at first.
About an episode later, someone explains after touchdown extra points
and two point conversions as well as field goals. So far, I am 14 episodes in and there has yet
to be a mention of safeties. It is
common in sports shows to withhold information like this in an attempt to
prevent information overload, but for those that have a working knowledge of
the rules, it feels like someone forgot a common aspect. At the same time, the show contains
commercial break Q&A that help provide a direct to the audience explanation
about the rules and regulations, like how many players are needed for a team or
what is the name for a specific position.
It reminds me of the old "Who's that Pokemon?" segments which
got me to the point of being able to list the original 151 in sequential
order. Although sometimes the wording of
the questions in these breaks could be better worded. For example, one time they ask how long is
one game. The technical answer is one
hour since that is how much play time is allotted, but setting aside only an
hour to watch or play a game is like cheap microwavable dinners saying they
only take five minutes to make but on the back tell you to wait one minute after
the five minutes it takes to nuke.
Either way it's going to take longer that what's on the label.
I'll
stop here for now, Internet. There are a
few more things that I want to say about this show but with the number of episodes
still to go, I will have quite some time to write to you about them.
Yours in Digital,
BeepBoop
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