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

Overview:

Kakegawa plays their first qualifying game.

Our Take:

Now it’s really time for the Kakegawa team to prove themselves. It’s their first qualifying game and they’re up against a formidable team. They’re constantly changing their strategy, but they all rely on one person to give them commands. Once Tsuji figures out who it is, he leads the team to victory.

It’s nice to finally see the team acting like a team and actually winning a game. Sure, they only win because of the post-game penalty kicks. The game still feels clunky. They do win, but they don’t get a definitive victory. They’re still struggling as a team. Regardless, a win is a win.

There is a little bit of tension. Kurokawa realizes he can’t keep up with Tsuji, but Kazama helps him when it counts. Sonoda gets a red card and he’s removed from the game. He does it to help Amagi, so that’s at least admirable. Kokubo watches the game and he doesn’t show much emotion. I would think he’d be happy to see Tsuji win, but that’s not the case.

One thing that stands out to me is for most of the penalty kicks, the goalie clearly moves out of the way instead of trying to block it. That’s not true for the last two, but it just continues the show’s trend of cheap animation. Speaking of, they can’t even animate important parts of the game. They just put recycled animation of the video game Tsuji plays over it.

I’m conflicted on this episode, but since the team finally got a win here, I’ll say it’s okay. Not as good as the last episode, but it’s serviceable enough.