Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Unlike anyone in the blogosphere, I watch and enjoy the new football anime, Inazuma Eleven. It’s for kids of course, and the football makes the horrid Captain Tsubasa as realistic as a real match on TV. But there’s a certain charm that comes with such intentionally-overpowered sports anime, which makes me laugh with heart-warming sincerity.

The likes of Prince of Tennis are shit because they are full of stupid female-males with unrealistic moves. But the Inazuma Eleven is awesome because it is full of cartoony characters, pun-filled names and super power moves. It’s like Shaolin soccer! The art style is similar to that of Eyeshield 21 and the animation is quite good.

Anime is good for sports that score often and are more psychological, such as baseball. That’s why we see so many great baseball shows, like the recent One Outs, Ookiku Furikabutte, Major, H2 etc. Basketball has lots of scores too so it isn’t too difficult to make a basketball anime. Football (note I mean soccer for the American Beckham lovers) has few goals in the 90 minutes, and there are far more misses than goals. In anime, misses are only due to the goal keeper being god like or the striker having an injury, kidnapped sister or some other emergency.

Hence we get shows like Captain Tsubasa, which tries to be realistic to some degree and entertaining, but fails terribly, instead becoming a laughing stock. Hungry Heart as well, was hilarious in the 10 minute hangtime, where two star players would jump into the air, HEAD THE SAME BALL, and chat with each other spouting manly lines while their heads were still connected to the ball, IN THE AIR. Then the one with the better lines would win, knock the other guy down, and still head a bullet header into goal/out of the danger area.

Inazuma 11 is awesome because it throws realism out the window and just goes for the comedy and super powers. We have the Delta Attack from FF10 (Magnus Sisters Style), Flame Tornado Shoot, Super Dragon Shot, goal keeper force fields, goal keeper giant energy golden hands and even movement-restricting spells which bind feet together. It’s like making Gatekeepers play football! In fact, if you don’t have a move, you can’t score! You need some mythical flying reptile to bite onto your ball and fly into goal to beat the super goalkeeper. And also, its against the rules to shoot anywhere except into the goal keeper. Your shot has to have enough power to smash the keeper into the goal!

The villains are also so over-the-top they are funny. The main evil is the Empire Team, which boasts all these tough ninja-like guys who ride around in a giant land tank.

This, in contrast with One Outs, really showcases the variety of styles anime can offer, even in a single genre.