Japanese title: アイシールド21
Number of episodes: 145
Some info:
1) ANN
2) Wiki
3) Official Site (Japanese)
I’m actually half surprised that the anime series has recently ended. It suffered the same fate as its predecessor (in terms of original airing time slot), Prince of Tennis. I guess it’s due to a similar reason, that the anime is fast catching up with the manga. I think the ES21 manga is only like a couple of matches ahead (didn’t bother confirming). Though each match can potentially last quite a few months (in terms of anime airing), I guess it’s quite hard to sustain. Perhaps it’ll follow PoT and come up with OVAs (PoT has 2 OVAs since its TV series liao) as and when it is suitable to do so, though I’m not so sure, seeing the ending of the ES21 anime series. Maybe they could make it as flashbacks or something. Haha. Ah wells.
Anyway, I remember that this anime first started airing back when I was still in BMT. Yeah, like how long ago liao (145 eps lehz. u say leh?). Actually I read (gasp!) the manga volume 1 from my bunkmate who happened to have quite a bit of manga collection and I found it quite interesting (thank goodness got a bit of time to read manga during my 6 month BMT. haha). Well, discounting the fact that sports manga/anime are usually quite exaggerated, it’s actually quite a fun and interesting one. At least this team of American Football players isn’t the usual pwnzor type. They actually are quite amateurish in terms of experience etc, but manage to overcome quite a few obstacles through hard work, determination and some “cheap tricks”. Haha.
There are a few prominent players in the team though, besides the eyeshield himself. Hiruma, the team’s main strategist is actually quite scheming on many occasions but that’s what give Devil Bats (the team name) a chance in beating teams that are supposed to be better than them in terms of experience and overall (expected) team performance. There’s also quite a fair bit of humour and lame scenes intertwined with the normal storyline and plot, which really adds to the entertainment value. =)
However, the downside is that sometimes 1 match takes really, really long to finish, and each episode by itself isn’t very long, if you exclude opening and credits, and possibly some recap during the show (to emphasise more on the emotions and stuff). Well, not all that surprising, coming from a sports type of anime.
Overall, it was quite a fun experience watching ES21 these 3 years or so. I shall see if OVAs for this title will come out sometime in the future. =D
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