English Dub Review: Shoot! Goal to the Future “Useless”

Overview:

Hideto Tsuji used to be a great soccer player, but he’s lost his touch and his love for the sport. he attends Kakegawa High School, which used to have one of the top soccer teams in the country. Now, their team is close to being disbanded. Hideto inadvertently insults one of the team’s members, Jou Kazama, who wants to make Hideto understand how hard soccer really is.

Our Take:

It’s common for sports stories to follow the life of a washed up athlete who used to be at the top of their game and then it all went downhill. We’re getting that here with Hideto Tsuji. He used to enjoy soccer and he was good at it, but that’s all in the past. It’s clear that one of his teammates has something to do with what happened, but we don’t get the whole story in this episode.

Hideto attends Kakegawa High School, which went from having a fantastic soccer team to having it be on the verge of disbanding. Hideto accidentally insults Jou Kazama, one of the team members. He gets challenged to a soccer game, but initially refuses because he never wants to play soccer again.

He eventually accepts and beats Kazama in a penalty kick challenge. Hideto’s skills catch the eyes of not only the entire team, but their new coach and former member: Atsushi Kamiya. Kamiya tells the team if he sees no value in them he’ll quit and that will be the end of the soccer team. He also doesn’t appreciate Hideto’s hatred for the sport despite his skill.

I’m not familiar with the manga or original anime series, but I’m gathering that this is a different take on the story. Going off of this first episode alone, I’m not completely sold.

The story here isn’t bad. It’s pretty run of the mill for a sports story, but it’s fine. I would like to know why Hideto hates soccer so much. We get little glimpses of why that is, but we don’t know a whole lot yet. That wouldn’t be a big deal except the episode is bogged down with so much useless melodrama. Hideto is angry and irritable for this whole episode and most of the time, it’s not even believable. He grows physically ill and can barely walk at one point after just talking about soccer. If his experience was traumatic, that’s one thing. Otherwise, that’s just excessive.

I don’t have a lot to go off of about the characters. I don’t care much for Hideto’s angsty personality at the moment. Kazama is passionate about soccer, which I can respect, but he’s also overbearing. Kamiya is intriguing, but I don’t know much about him right now. Hideto’s mother was enjoyable for the short glimpse we got of her in this episode, so that’s a bright spot.

This episode doesn’t do a bad job of introducing the plot and characters, but I really hope the rest of the show isn’t bogged down with this much melodrama. I’m fine with melodrama, but it has to be balanced out and it really wasn’t in this episode. Here’s hoping that balance will improve throughout more episodes.