「#13」

GOAAALLL!!! E-T-U! Ra ra ra! E-T-U! Ra ra ra! … KIMATTA!!

Only in sports will you get this type and level of excitement. This may only be an anime, but with all the slow motion scenes, adrenaline pumping music, and the crowd going wild in support, I found myself completely caught up in the soccer match playing out before me. There was a brief scare when Itagaki put on the pressure and took shots at every opportunity, but some timely saves by Kuroda, Ishihama, and even Dori himself kept Nagoya off the scoreboard. Not only that, Ishihama’s clutch defensive play started Tsubaki off onto another counterattack where he was completely in the zone. Experience and confidence goes a hell of a long way and Tsubaki showed just that as he went flying down the field full steam and danced around Carlos with absolute ease. With the way he kept saying “I can see” (mieru), I was getting some serious Newtype vibes from him too, which other Gundam fans will know exactly how overpowered that is.

As that scene played out in slow motion for both Tsubaki and myself, I was totally taking in the crowd’s excitement just as much as he was. It all started when Murakoshi screamed at the top of his lungs telling Tsubaki to go for it, causing everyone to frantically try to figure out how the hell they’re supposed to stop him. The adrenaline pumping excitement didn’t diminish even when Tsubaki was stopped by Nagoya’s other defense, because there was clear indication that Gino was going to follow up like he did and put this game away. I just love how calm Gino is all the way too, which goes for his celebration as well. The team-wide celebrations turned out to be just as good after Nagoya pressed for some goals but ran out of time. Best of all, Tatsumi intimidated Fuwa with a bit of stare down before getting the last say after the latter tried to cast off the loss as no big deal.

Off field, it looks like Kudou and Katsura are pretty satisfied with the outcome as well, so hopefully this is the start of a huge momentum swing for ETU as a whole. The good thing is that it looks like Tatsumi’s not letting the win get to anyone’s head and going to make the team work on their game even harder than before. Story-wise, Tsubaki’s finally showing exactly why he’s the main character with respect to the players, as he earned the respect of the Brazilian trio for playing out of pure enjoyment for the game. It’s just too bad he can’t understand a word they’re saying and didn’t take them up on the tradition of swapping jerseys. Anyway, this has been one hell of a game and took four episodes to cover from start to finish, but I’m really looking forward to see where ETU goes from here after their first giant killing.

 

Preview

17 Comments

  1. Just overused cliches all the time… Go f*** yourself, this is not real soccer (or a real vision of the whole industry of football, even in the J-LEAGUE, like this series try to portray).
    This series pissed me off trying to be a seinen when in fact its a shonen undercovered.

    But the whole vision of the thing -badass japanese guy trying to break the actual japanese system that it is declining- pleases me much, it is the same kind of plot that other good mangas have like Team Medical Dragon or Sanctuary, but in the Giant Killing case they portray a subject a little more simple and smaller than these other two (but the direction of the thing is almost the same).

    In that case i have to say that Giant Killing its a good anime in the general vision (with the plot), but it kinda have your flaws when have to portray the solutions of the problems in the actual japanese football system (less cliches and more impact for the audience -in the sense of surprise the viewer- would be very good)…

    Anyway, its just my opinion…

    Matheus
    1. Greek played counter football in the european championship 2004 and won. they were underdogs, and played ugly defensive football. but they successfully pulled it off.

      Did you watch the match Germany vs. England? Did you not notice that the Germans lured out Gerard and Millner from their midfield positions to offensive? Klose then sometimes lured out Terry and voila that caused a big gap between england’s defense and midfield, enough room for Müller and Özil to run deep into england’s side and goal.

      Those were similar tactics like in this episode here. Now you will say Germany is no underdog, but look at Greece back in 2004. If you have luck on your side and are determined enough to do it, it can happen.

      guess what? anything can happen in football. even underdogs can win. if you’re not concentrated enough and look down upon your opponent, it might backfire on you. that is what makes football so interesting.

      podolski
  2. I enjoyed this game so much that I’m really scared how the producers will pump up the drama for the final game of the series. I wasn’t expecting that second goal at all. In fact I was expecting some dirty playing against ETU on those final minutes of the game. Maybe even hurting Kuro a long the way.
    Also kill FIFA referees !!!!! My god they messed up Germany and Argentina victories this weekend!!! Fifa should allow video reviews omg that was wrong! Maybe we will get hit by that in the anime too? NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo

    Island Esper
    1. Off topic.. FIFA referees are human, we can’t expect them to have sensors for goal lines in their brains 😀 But yeah, FIFA should allow video replays or sensors to stop all these ruckus in the future.

      I thought that overall Germany played better that match, so I’m tired of the uproar English fans are causing. That said, if I was an avid English fan I wouldn’t be so calm haha!

      moto
      1. Yes they are human I can give you that 🙂 so can we rough them up a bit instead.
        The team I wanted to win the cup is already gone I just watch the games for pleasure. But as you mention the uproar is bad and that’s what I wanted to highlight that the two victories are shadowed by the mistakes of the referees. Also I don’t want a video replay galore for the games I think each team should be allowed up to two video request per match (one per period).
        Yet I have seem videos that are on the wrong angle and they won’t eliminate the problems; but should reduce all the complaining.

        Island Esper
  3. Not sure how to explain it, but I was a very-little-bit disappointed at a couple of parts where they built up the hype/hinted direction so much that I knew it was go in the other direction (like in many other animes…) Eg, the moment Tsubaki started running towards the goal, they made it seem like he’s going to score the goal so much that I knew he’ll get cornered and Gino will end up scoring. Thus that took away some of the surprise of the goal.

    Anyway, that didn’t stop me from smiling ear to ear in this episode 😀 TSUBAKI! ETU! And the 3 Brazilians were really funny in the end LOL.

    moto
  4. Well… England America Japan and every african tema except ghana are out of the world cup! Therefore i have officially returned to a token interest i guess ill pick this up perhaps this super artificial sports programe will give me the fix of victory I need

    WingZeroZXT

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