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

Overview:

An Italian exchange student comes to play soccer, but the team doesn’t take kindly to his style.

Our Take:

Andrea Antonio is an Italian exchange student who comes to Kakegawa to check out the soccer team. Kamiya used to be his and his brother’s coach when he lived in Italy.

Andrea is an aggressive soccer player and hurts other team members. He gets a foul every now and then, but Kamiya doesn’t discipline him much beyond that. Not only that, but Kazama only seems to be the only team member who is actually annoyed by this.

Andrea is upset with Kamiya for leaving Italy. Kamiya blames himself for ending Andea’s brother Sergio’s soccer career. He told him to play rough, which got him injured. However, he’s fine with it after talking with Andrea and that conversation not having much of a resolution.

The ending of this episode doesn’t make any sense to me. Kamiya’s character is very inconsistent. He used to want players to play rough, but then he didn’t because one got injured. Now, he’s okay with it again because Sergio is studying to become an athletic trainer. He flip-flops on his stance and I don’t care for that.

I also don’t care for Andrea. He’s annoying with the way he talks, especially how he says everybody’s name wrong on purpose. If it’s supposed to be a joke, I’m not laughing. I also don’t like how nobody seems to be bother by his overly aggressive playing style for more than one scene, except for one character. I don’t want to see Andrea again honestly. He adds no substance to the cast whatsoever.

The animation in this show keeps looking cheaper with each episode. There are so many stilted movements and awkward frames in this episode, it’s not even funny. I don’t know how the animation quality can steadily decrease like this, but here we are.