First aired in 2022, the Japanese soccer anime “Blue Lock” immediately took both the sports and anime worlds by storm. The show follows the soccer-obsessed protagonist Isagi Yoichi through an experimental project, known as Blue Lock, meant to create the world’s best striker who will revolutionize the Japanese soccer world. To do this, the visionary mind behind the project, a coach named Jinpachi Ego, brought together 300 young players and gave them a simple goal: destroy each other and do whatever it takes to come out on top. He urges the growth of each player’s ‘egoism,’ the singular individualistic drive to prove themselves as the best and ignore everything else, as the necessary factor in surviving Blue Lock and eventually making Japan a leader in international football.
As far as most sports anime go, this basic synopsis of the show is already incredibly antithetical to the typical tropes of the genre. It’s easy to see how different it is from the messages laid out in its predecessors like Haikyuu, Koruko’s Basketball or Ao Ashi, which primarily focused on teams of characters growing and solving problems together. The importance of this subversion of expectations is not to be taken lightly, as it’s worth noting how this represents real life cultural trends. Specifically, I will argue that the huge popularity of this show reflects growing right-wing sentiments both in the United States and Japan.
To understand the basis of “Blue Lock’s” extreme right-wing ideology, it’s necessary to take apart Jinpachi Ego’s project and how it conceptualizes success. For a more detailed analysis of Blue Lock’s philosophy, YouTuber Explanation Point has a great video diving deeper on the subject. The overview is that the central ideological message of Ego, as the main driver of the plot, is that success comes from extreme competition against and domination of all others. The show delves into extremes on this point in how it portrays this message. Ego demands complete obsession from all his players, pushing them to conceptualize success as life and losing as death. He makes frequent comparisons between each player and “warriors,” using the terminology of murder and violence to describe competition on the field. Those who lose the battles in Blue Lock, as well as those who exist in the “normal” soccer world, are described as being less than trash and meant to be discarded by the strong. The examples go on, but what they reveal is the intensity of the philosophy of the series and how it pervades into every aspect of it.
It’s also worth stating that this all could’ve been a very poignant message about the perversive nature of far-right leaders and their ability to corrupt, if only Ego was the villain. However, the series largely presents his vision as being “correct” and all the players gladly follow it. Even when characters are harmed by Blue Lock, like Rensuke Kunigami, whose entire personality was broken after losing and getting expelled from the project, this is largely painted as being a personal failure of his “ego.” He is only able to reenter the plot after undergoing reprogramming that rids his personality of all altruistic sentiments. This is presented as a “good thing” that makes him a better player.
As for what this says about culture, it’s time to address where this show comes from and the main audiences that it is meant for. “Blue Lock” is a shonen manga/anime, which means it is primarily meant for young male audiences. Although primarily a Japanese medium, it has taken up a large following across the world, owing in large part due to its association with the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which had its playoffs at the same time as the airing of “Blue Lock’s” first season. The United States has been no exception to this, with large swaths of the show’s fans of the anime being American teens.
The show’s ideology takes on an added significance given broader ideological trends and structural forces in these areas. It is exceptionally clear that the United States currently is undergoing a far-right, fascist takeover in the form of President Donald Trump. Japan, for its part, has seen prominent growths of nationalist politics in recent months as well. These two countries are also both hyper-capitalist economic powers, which heavily influences their cultural values. Capitalism, an inherently right-wing, individualistic cultural force, has similar idealistic messages about the nature of competition as those found in “Blue Lock.” It is an economic model based on hierarchy and beating out others on the way to the top. And it is inherently tied to the cultural products, such as ideology, politics and storytelling, that come out of a given place.
This results in an understanding of “Blue Lock” as a coercive force meant to imbue in young male audiences certain values based in far-right hyper-capitalist ideals. It is, in harsh terms, propaganda that promotes an extremely individualistic mindset where defeat is death, conquering others is the purpose of life and people are only meant to be used to serve an “Egoist’s” goals. It is a work that supports dominant ideologies and structures, bringing them subtly to youth through fiction.
An important caveat to this is that “Blue Lock” is not necessarily all these things because the author is a far-right fascist, or that everyone who enjoys the show is already on their way to becoming fascist. This is about its position within a broader structure that informs how people interact with media, ideals and culture. As far as that is concerned, it’s worth being able to critically analyze its message and the audience’s interaction with it. Although I firmly disagree with the message of “Blue Lock” and how it views the world, I still like it and will continue to read it. There is still value to its story and interacting with it despite whatever philosophy it may promote, because the meaning of a story is ultimately in the hands of the reader. In that sense, it is worth seeing what positive can come from a deeper understanding of the type of mindset that currently dominates our world. In all its raw fervor, intensity and destructive passion, “Blue Lock” is a ripe opportunity to do that.
Blue Lock is about Japan’s national team, not franchise soccer. The currency of national soccer is soft power, not capitalism (unless you’re the host country or an executive at FIFA lol). So Blue Lock’s critique could just as easily be made of the purest of socialist regimes, which invest heavily in national sports and, in extreme instances, have persecuted those who go fail to perform.
This was a great read especially when you consider how strategic Japan is with their media and the messages they convey. There are so many animes that can be dissected the same way.