Introduction to Ao Ashito Story Arc
A boy named Ashito Ao , living in the outskirts of the country far from the main cities and his mother is a single woman raised the character and his elder brother with very difficulty with very less money, sad life. Wait wait I was just messing around with you because this anime doesn’t need this emotional bullshit at all, instead what you will get is filled with the energy , coated with the laughs and dripped in the motivation and then served with the love , the love for football.
So without giving you much spoiler about an incredible journey of our main character Ashito Ao to becoming one of the greatest football legend of Japan or maybe in the world, let’s get into it.
Adopted from the Manga named same as anime is very much suited for the student type of audience but it is also very much apt for anyone who is pursuing a passion and wants a similar relatable partner to reflect their own story and keep moving forward no matter how much hardship comes on their road. The genre is sports mainly and we can see seinen category marks on the anime on MyAnimeList website.
Characters & Character Developments:
Well this anime is completely focused on one character and its journey but it also justify the surrounding characters as well in terms of development especially.
First lets discuss the development of our main character Aoi Ashito, an overconfident and sometimes overmouth Aoi’s character does rides the highest slope of the slider because the story carry on the character keep on understanding the fact that how much less he knows about the game and need to improve a hell lot to achieve his goals. Not only that he time to time got hit hard professionally but choose not to lose focus from his dream and keep evolving according to the situations. Well to sum up this character one more thing to add is that this character wears a mask when it comes to emotional things be it the relationship with his mother and brother or with his school friends, kind of an Introvert in emotional terms. So without much spoilers this will be okay for this character 😜
Aoi Noriko & Shun, the mother and brother have very different characteristics towards Ao Ahito but again this is very much a classic relation representation of the real world example. Brother is very generous and supportive while on the other hand the mother is more like a father figure to the main character as she cares for the character but never shows it and the communication is somewhere very limited and pointed. The relation between the two characters remain very subtle till this part of the anime.
The next character will definitely be the Manager of the club and that is Fukuda who very impressed & invited Ao Ashito to the trails for the Esperion club. Now the character didn’t got developed as such but definitely the style or solidity of the character remains in a very positive way throughout the anime. Basically he was almost the most perfect character and all the coaches of the club also have same characteristics and were in the same wavelength as Fukuda.
Hana, the sister of club manager Fukuda who is very sweet and cute but also very blunt most of the time and she is also a future Nutritionist. Hana was involved from the starting days as she was able to convince Ao Ashito’s mother that she can afford to send him to the soccer school. Moreover she was the one who always took the first step in supporting Ao Ashito in every adverse situation, so I would also mark her character as a strong character throughout the anime. We can call her the next to the main character for the anime for sure.
Whether there will be any romantic turn of event with the main character or not that we may see in the coming up episodes but the tension is surely there from one side 😁
The teammates, yes a football game is an team sport and its impossible to tell the story without considering them. So let’s start the first 2 characters Ootomo and Tachibana, Ootomo has 2 shades of his characteristics before and after a soccer game itself, with this he also possess a characteristic of a desperate teenager who is looking for girl attention for sure. On the other hand Tachibana is very much same on and off the field and has characteristic of very composed guy with good communication skills. Then the roommate of the main character, Togashi, has one of the characters who is a little muscular and cares not enough to barge in any situation until it’s not very much necessary. Doesn’t speak much but definitely a character of full of rigidness and rowdy type.
The other characters like Asari and Kuroda are also very important part of the story because how you grow around your same circle is not the tough part but how you grow within the new circle also reflects the solidity of a character, which in case here will be Aoi Ashito.
Another character which is somewhere pushing our main character to unfavorable and fearful situations is Akutsu the senior of the Aoi Ashito in the club, till now he is playing that seniority card and bullying card but I would really like to see how they both come in the similar ground and carry on a mutual respect for each other.
The Post Production
Produced by Production I.G the anime quality is just the best for a sports theme like this. The main selling point for me in the anime is definitely the story but the direction of the scenes are also beautiful. I think a sports anime is difficult to direct as there are thousands of things going on the field of play and capturing the attention of the audience on the main events happening without distracting them is the one thing they have curated amazingly.
Could have been even better with exaggerated vfx but things look very real and relatable so its best for what it is and I will rate 8/10 for the post production part for sure.
Conclusion
So finally whether you are thinking to watch it or not it totally depends if you like sports anime or on the mood sometimes also, If you are too going through a rough patched journey like our main character then it’s very much likely that you will end up munching all the episodes for sure.
The overall experience of this anime is really wholesome and every demographic audience will definitely enjoy it.
Thank you for reading and Happy Weebing
