Blue Lock season 2 episode 10 review: Shidou's Dragon Drive goal suggests 8bit's plans for the anime
Blue Lock season 2 episode 10, titled The Subs Take to the Stage, premiered on Sunday, December 8, 2024, at 12:30 am JST. While the anime has been subjected to poor production quality, the latest episode was quite an exception as it featured several praiseworthy moments.
Fans were excited to see Sae Itoshi and Ryusei Shidou's chemical reaction. Hence, fans were worried about how 8bit would treat their "Reflex X Reflex" scene. Fortunately, 8bit did justice to the scene, also making the animation studio's plans for the anime very evident.
Blue Lock season 2 episode 10 review: 8bit shows signs of high production quality with Shidou's goal scene
As seen in Blue Lock season 2 episode 10, the anime episode majorly focused on the three substitutes that took to the field - Ryusei Shidou, Hiori Yo, and Reo Mikage.
Out of the three players, the anime focused the most on Ryusei Shidou as his Dragon Drive goal scene became the episode's center of attention, possibly also becoming the most praise-worthy scene from the anime's second season.
The entire scene featured great line art, animation, and effects. In fact, the scene's production quality might even be better than Seishiro Nagi's "Nice to meet you, Japan" moment.
However, Sae and Shidou weren't the only characters who were animated well in the particular scene. 8bit also did justice to Hyoma Chigiri's final moments in the match. While the anime had failed at adapting Chigiri's run well in the previous episodes, the same looked incredible in the latest episode, be that from the front or side angle.
Speaking of Chigiri, Ikki Niko's big scene was also animated well in the episode. 8bit did well at depicting his determination to win and a newfound love for trampling forwards as a defender.
Following that, the anime also did justice to the two players who were subbed in for Chigiri and Niko, Hiori Yo and Reo Mikage.
Just as Hiori Yo received the ball, 8bit depicted him with an "ice-crystal-like" effect to compliment his light-blue color hair and composed nature as a calm technician. The lineart and the special effects for this scene looked spectacular.
Lastly, 8bit did justice to Reo Mikage's "Chameleon Defense" scene. Surprisingly, this scene did not indulge a lot in special effects but remained true to the manga with amazing production quality.
Evidently, the latest episode featured several praiseworthy scenes. That said, the question is whether the anime really adapted the scenes well, or have the fans been subjected to poor-quality scenes for so long that even decently animated scenes look good to them?
Nevertheless, like all episodes, the anime wasn't flawless as the episode was riddled with absurd CGI scenes. For some reason, 8bit refuses to 2D animate any scenes that show the players walking. This reluctance has seen the animation studio force CGI in any scene that features the characters walking. The same has been the case for the latest episode.
Final thoughts on Blue Lock season 2 episode 10
With Blue Lock season 2 episode 10, the anime has made it very clear that no matter how poorly the anime is produced overall, all the "big moments" from the match could be adapted well. With the match between Blue Lock XI and the U-20 Japan national team inching closer to its end, the anime's future episodes could feature better production quality.
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