If you rely upon the Anivision season previews to see what great new shows are coming out, you might wonder what’s up with this soccer show. Area no Kishi slipped under our radar. This is a sports anime about Kakeru Aizawa, who has plans of supporting his big brother Suguru who has become a soccer sensation at his young age. Kakeru’s not too bad himself at the game, but refuses to play and would rather be the equipment manager and getting towels and waters. The main problem that seems to effect him as a player is his inability to go left. As a sports guy who watches hours of sports, scouting reports will pick every nook and crannie of a player before they even throw a pitch in the majors. If you’re predictable, your chances for success are incredibly slim. That’s why you practice, to improve and eventually develop unpredictability, but Kakeru seems to not want to. Main sports characters are pretty generic by nature, but when you see Kakeru as he is, it’s difficult to root for him at all.
We’ve seen most recently in Chihayafuru where main girl Chihaya originally dreamed of following her sister, but found Karuta as a thing she can enjoy and be her own person. The same can be said for Ippo from Hajime no Ippo after getting saved by Takamura, which got him to discover the sweet science of boxing. Characters that have drive are fun to root for, even if Mihashi Ren’s shyness is his most dominant display of personality. Kakeru however falls into stereotypical hell for a lead character as he has a talent for soccer, but refuses to admit even to himself that he wants to play. Suguru puts a lot of effort this episode into forcing that ability out of him, which leads to Kakeru taking part in a game by the end of the episode. There’s also a scene with an alien that, quite frankly, I wish that it was a real alien instead of being so upfront about the fact that the mystery person knows he can’t go left.
Everything else is super generic as well. The love interest, the friend that claims he can legally sexually harass her, and the hard-ass brother. Nobody so far has displayed either likable or unique traits about them that I can be engaged by. I am a soccer fan to some extent, but I could be playing FIFA 12 instead of watching this.
KPICASA_GALLERY(TheKnightInTheAreaTV1)