Ao Ashi

ENG Ao Ashi tells an inspiring story through the eyes of Ashito, a passionate young football player chasing his dream. The matches are intense and often come down to the wire, which keeps the excitement alive. The animation is solid, and the art style gives off a vibe similar to My Hero Academia.

Ashito's character development is one of the anime's strongest points. Watching him grow from a reckless, solo-minded player into a more strategic and team-focused one is satisfying. However, one major flaw is how almost every character seems overly fixated on Ashito, which hurts the depth and realism of the supporting cast.

Overall, it's an enjoyable and motivating sports anime, though it struggles with balance at times.

Rating: 8/10.

Aoashi is one of the best sports anime that is beginning to air in Spring 2022 and is similar to Blue Lock and Captain Tsubasa. The animation even looks professional because it is based on true manga stories. It describes how the youth of candidates becomes a beautiful kid in Japan. The casts of the characters sound perfect.

As people tend to watch a lot of sports anime, some of the story become as cliché as it can get. They follow the same route like many others such as, a kid, with or without any special abilities, meet friends, training, enter competition and the story end with a high note (usually the team that MC plays for win the competition).

But, Ao Ashi, while it seems to follow the generic road, it does not lead to the same conclusion, the story itself is about a kid from Ehime, enter a youth team for an existing club (in the anime not real life) and began to know what soccer is all about. His brain and knowledge on the game change from a Sunday League IQ into a professional player mind during the course of the story, The story itself is just a summary of how a kid enter a youth team in order to become a professional. While there are few exaggerate element , this is the most real as it can get.

There is no super power like Captain Tsubasa or Inazuma Eleven or there is no illogical skills which can be seen in Blue Lock. All the training and tactics seems to be more lean towards realism and while others soccer storyline have either a broken MC who superb all the way from the start to finish or a weak MC who gradually become the best, Ao Ashi tend to push for a different route. The MC have major flaws that cannot be changes(physical) and he only have his tenacity to learn and his inborn talent of bird eye view.

For people who want a fast bombastic and crazy stunt, this anime is not for you. The anime is very slow pace in term of character development. Hence, while it does have a good storyline, the anime might not be your cup of tea if you don't like anime with slow build up.

I sometimes don't watch anime in dubbed because they often choose the wrong English voice for some specific characters, it just doesn't fit sometimes.. but with this one they did excellent 👍 everyone's voice fits them perfectly!

This show doesn't stray from your typical anime sports show where the MC is the underdog but he must work his way up, but with this one the story feels a lot more genuine, thanks to the drama and the emotions expressed very well in the animation

However my one problem is the movement, while they're actually playing the game, (and all the other sports anime I've seen are victims of this too beside like 2), moments that should be intense are watered down due to the slow movement and choppy scenes like it's a flip book! Times like this should be greeted my fast paced fluent actions like a fighting scene in other shows

Overall it's a great show and the drama revolving around the MC and his own personal issues is what makes this great 👍

Btw there's also a love triangle going on, it's settle but its there, and it's a lot to build on if they choose to, that would take this anime to the next level.

I don't often go out of my way to rate things or publicly share my thoughts on things, but this anime is incredible and if we don't get a season 2, I might start a riot. The characters are well crafted and feel unique. They sometimes fit some preexisting anime stereotypes, but the characters also feel fresh and worthy of investment. The in-game action/player development/power level creep is exciting to watch and the episodes end on cliffhangers that draw you in. They do such a good job of creating tension with on and off the field obstacles in Aoi's life. It's also wonderful to see a love story developing that isn't based on fan service. The art style and actual animation is really high quality and for 24 episodes, they've done a beautiful job of making sure the cuts/transitions flow well. Intro and outro songs are playlist adds, absolute fire. I can't say enough good things about this anime, please check it out for yourself and help get a season 2! I don't normally watch shows as they come out, but this show had me in front of my TV or computer every Saturday, y'all are lucky and get to watch the first season in one swoop.