English Dub Season Review: Shoot! Goal to the Future Season One

Overview:

Hideto Tsuji used to love soccer, but now he’s become distant and jaded. He attends Kakegawa High School and their soccer team is in danger of disbanding. The team gets a new coach and Tsuji agrees to join the team. Over time, he becomes close with his teammates and he slowly regains his love for soccer.

Our Take:

I’m not familiar with the original Blue Legend Shoot!, so I’m looking at this show as its own entity. I do know it introduces a lot of new characters, but features some of the ones from the original series as well. This is made clear when Atsushi Kamiya becomes the new coach for the team. It’s explained that he used to be on the team, which makes sense. I give this show props for making simple connections to the original. It makes it easier for someone who’s not familiar with the original to follow.

There is a genuinely good episode and some of the games are convincing. I’m not a soccer fan, but I don’t mind watching some of these games. Kamiya is a solid coach and probably the best character in the show. There are some other decent characters, but they don’t get a lot of screen time. Unfortunately, those are the only positive points I have on Shoot! Goal to the Future. Now we get into the fun stuff.

There are so many insufferable characters in this show. Tsuji is gloomy all the time for a fairly superfluous reason. Him losing his love for soccer is one thing, but the story as to how that happens is underwhelming. There’s also the loud and thick-headed Jou Kazama, the whiny and possessive Subaru Kurokawa, and then there’s my least favorite of the bunch. Tsuji’s old friend and the most annoying character in the whole show: Kouhei Kokubo. I get agitated every time I see that idiot on screen. I can’t think of anything redeeming about him whatsoever. Then again, I can say that for most of the characters. This is a show where you should want to root for the underdogs, but I don’t. I don’t like theses characters, so I don’t want to see them succeed.

It’s not just the characters’ attitude that bug me. It’s also the fact that the show has this overly melodramatic tone to it and it doesn’t make any sense. Everybody makes a deal out of everything and it seems like nobody can be happy in this show. Characters lash out at one another over the silliest things and there’s so much unnecessary crying. It’s not even bad in a laughable way. It’s irritating and makes these episodes a chore to sit through. I understanding wanting to add more intrigue to a sports anime, but this is not the way to go.

The visuals are downright awful. I don’t like most of the character designs. They look a little off, like their heads are smaller than their necks. As for the animation, there’s so much terrible CGI during the games and just scenes where people are walking. It’s all noticeable and the quality never improves as the show goes on. Some scenes are animated better than others, but the quality is still sub-par overall.

I’m not sure how fans of the original feel about this show, but I can say that it doesn’t make me interested in checking out the original. Granted, I’m not the biggest fan of sports anime. Even so, if the characters were at least tolerable and they turned the melodrama down a notch, I could see myself thinking this is at least a decent show. Unfortunately, these are big problems and it drags the show down. If you’re a fan of meaningless melodrama, you might enjoy it. Otherwise, I can’t recommend Shoot! Goal to the Future.