Eyeshield 21 (TV Series 2005–2008) Poster

(2005–2008)

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9/10
Probably the best sports anime out there.
kouyamarino7 July 2015
I have watched sports anime before and this is nothing like it. Sports anime suffer from character clichés that you've seen before. It's boring. But this is different.

My friend suggested me this anime and I was skeptical. I was expecting nothing special from this anime. After 10 episodes I loved it immediately. The story is your typical underdog story. But what stands out in this anime are the CHARACTERS. MY GOD I just love them. They're freaking hilarious. It's like I knew them personally. Most of the characters in the football team were properly developed. Even the bullies in the first few episode, I loved them in later episode. I sympathize with them when they're going through harsh times and I felt happy when they succeeded.

People who know football really well might be off put with unrealistic football game-play but still it's worth a watch just for the characters. I really recommend this to people looking for well fleshed developed characters. This anime is amazing.
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6/10
Hilarious characters, lazy animation
ddangtruong232 February 2016
I admit that I had zero knowledge about American football before reading the manga that this series was based on. Yet it intrigued me almost immediately and helped me familiarize myself with the sport. The main factor that allows it to achieve this effect was the likable and hilarious characters. They're all weird, goofy, and funny, yet not annoying like many other manga characters. Seeing them interacting with each other is really cute and heart-warming. I also like how the teams all have fun an distinctive themes that they base their plays around, since it makes every game more memorable. These strong points are mostly retained in the anime, though I feel the Japanese voice-over is too tame for some of the larger-than-life characters (like Hiruma).

However, my main complaint is about the art quality. The original manga has its art done by Yusuke Murata (also known for One Punch Man), a manga artist that I personally think is the best currently, yet this series doesn't really show his brilliance. The characters seem much less expressive than they are in the manga and their movements are limited due to the low frame rate and constant animation recycling. Overall, the art in this anime just feels very lazy, which is especially bad for a series about sports.

Also, like its manga, the anime includes a few silly filler episodes that serve no real purpose and I personally think should have been left out.
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5/10
Flawed...but good
stanner-hawk28 February 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Eyeshield 21 is an overall o.k. anime, but it has many flaws which damages it from becoming a more popular anime.

Everyone (even when the characters visit America) speaks Japanese with no variation what-so-ever. Whether the person is a football coach or a punk biker on the back roads of Texas, they ALL speak Japanese. When eyeshield 21 runs the ball the background makes it seems he is moving a lot faster than he actually is (kind of like those old speed racer scenes). Eyeshield 21 seems to travel 50 yards, but in reality it was a 5 yard gain... Even though the anime is about football they do not seem to entirely understand the rules about the game itself, especially in the first (approximately) 20 episodes where calls were being made that made no sense. For example the quarterback is sacked and that leads to a turnover, even though the ball wasn't fumbled and it wasn't fourth down at the time. New rules seems to be created early on to improve the progress of the game, even though it was unnecessary.

Character development is somewhat impressive for an anime of this caliber, especially when about 15 characters need to be developed and show that they are different from everyone else. Backgrounds, personality, abilities are all drawn out well, even compared to more well known animes like Full Metal Alchemist and Naruto.

This may seem to have more flaws than what is good for an anime, but football lovers will enjoy this anime.

~Stanner Hawk
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