English Dub Review: Aoashi: “Tokyo Metropolis League Match 8 – Tokyo Musashino Football Club Youths”

Overview: Aoi (Ciaran Strange) and the gang learn the full might of Musashino, lying mostly on two key players in Kaneda (Cody Savoie) and Chiaki. 

Our Take: Esperion is a smart team so seeing what they come up with to take on Musashino’s aggressive playing style is fascinating in their approach, especially with how different they are. Using long passes as the strategy to beat their up close and personal tactics is smart but is ineffective in them not being able to score goals. It is heartening to see how Aoi learns from his teammates and continues to improve in various ways like perfecting the steps of a long ball. 

However, an exciting back and forth during the game is created in Musashino showing how they have more up their sleeve and how they are a direct antithesis in the skills they have in being the patient playmaker, Chiaki and the amazing scorer in Kaneda. So much so that Esperion is barely able to fend them off at first, really pushing them into a corner and making what they do to combat that all the more exhilarating. Aoi and the gang adapting, making shorter passes, shows how talented the entity of the team is as opposed to Musashino. Kanpei getting his head in the game, marking Kuroda and going head to head is a nail biter in it being a close face off. It is not quite enough to keep up with Kuroda and Chiaki, however, who are beasts on the field and score a goal. It is a heated bout that intensifies the conflict and question of if they have the upper hand and if Esperion can recover going into the next part of the game.