The following contains spoilers for Episode 18 of Blue Lock, “The Stage for the Lead,” now streaming onCrunchyrollandNetflix.
This week inBlue Lock, it was really Barou’s time to shine. He has been heavily featured in the most recent episodes, but “The Stage for the Lead” actually gave him character. A glimpse at his backstory, a moment of weakness and understanding, and finally an amazing evolution all finally made Barou actually interesting! He stole the spotlight in the best way, and made us look forward to continuing to see him in the future - oh wait, is that the first spoiler already about how the episode ended?
The soccer fans must have spent the last week up-votingBlue Lockfor the Winter Anime Rankings according to MyAnimeList, because its gone back to the fifth position, and the score has raised to 8.28! Last week was definitely asoccer player’s dreamepisode, apparently enough to help the anime climb up the rankings a little bit for the first time in a few weeks. And this week, Episode 18 got back to a nice balance of great soccer action, and good character development, too.
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Barou, Defeated
At the start of Episode 18, we saw a small glimpse into Barou’s childhood. From an early age, he was already the King of the pitch, and the other children passed the ball to him, so he could score. He already knew his power as well, and was not working as part of a team. It is an interesting characterization, as it reallydoes not make him sympatheticto the viewer at all - he has always been mean and selfish, they aren’t traits that were developed because of some tragic event or something like that. It sets up Barou for what he becomes later.
Before he can have his transformation, though, Barou does something unimaginable for him. He passes the ball when Isagi commands him to, allowing himself to be part of another person’s goal! It was something that he had never done before, and it really hit him hard that he had been defeated, and in that moment Isagi was the better player. It was also a chance for Barou to learn about being a part of a team, but that was not the lesson he took away from it.
Barou, Reborn
Rather than using that moment to become a better team player, Barou uses his momentary defeat to have his own awakening on the pitch. He realizes that he can be, in fact, a villain! And he totally accepts the role. Rather than simply fall to the command of Isagi, and even to Nagi, Barou discovers a new, incredible move that he is able to do called “chop dribbling.” Using this new skill, he is able to score the winning goal that leads his team to Victory. And he makes Isagi take backcalling him a donkeyfor the past two episodes, too!
Barou’s awakening as the villain was some great soccer, but it was also some amazing animation. The visuals of him being held back by a dark future if he gave into his defeat and a flash-forward of himself watching Isagi on the TV while drinking a beer in a dark apartment were powerful. Then, his chop dribbling technique was shown like red lightning bolts all over the pitch. It was visually incredible, with great symbolism and excellent art. These kinds of moments really setBlue Lockapart from other similar anime, helping it truly shine.
A Tough Choice
Episode 18 ofBlue Lockended on another massive cliffhanger, arguably one of the biggest ones so far. We had been waiting for the past few episodes to see if theRed or White Teamwas going to be the winner, and then see who would be moving onto the next round and who would be left behind. Of course, if the Red Team had one, it was likely that Isagi would move forward as the main character of the show.
It becomes harder to predict now that the White Team was victorious, though. There are interesting points about Reo, Chigiri, and Kunigami, all of which would make it great to see them continuing to the next round. The last time we saw the White Team discussing who they would choose if they won, they all chose a different person. The episode ended with Nagi asking the big question - “Who do we choose?” And there was no answer.
Looks like we have the whole week to try to guess who is going to be going onto the next round, and casting our votes for our favorite! They all have their pros and cons, like we said above, and all would add something different to the alreadytense mix of personalitieson the White Team. Plus now that Barou has awakened as the villain, well. Anything could happen to him going forward, and we haven’t said goodbye to him quite yet.
