Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama-kun [Review]
“The handsome young soccer genius named Aoyama is a Japan representative. His play style is “cleanliness.” He doesn’t tackle and doesn’t head the ball. If he’s doing a throw-in, he’ll only do it if he’s wearing gloves.” – Manga
Hoping for another soccer anime, I jumped on this anime the moment I caught wind of it. Although Aoyama isn’t as soccer focused as Days, it was a still an entertaining show to watch!
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Story:
While soccer plays a big role in the story, the main focus is on the characters. Continuing off of that, even though Aoyama is our “main character” we don’t get any insight from him. The entire show is everyone else reacting to Aoyama. Each episode we get a different perspective from Aoyama’s classmates and colleagues, about Aoyama. For example, the team captain of the soccer team is in the Aoyama Fan Club only because his girlfriend is also a member. Then there’s a high school manga artist who creates a character based on Aoyama and that character ends up being more popular than the main character in the story. Although the non-soccer settings were funny, I still wish there were more scenes about the soccer matches and story development towards winning nationals.
Artwork & Animation:
The artwork, character designs, and color palette of the show were vibrant, lively, and CLEAN. The animation, however; had its ups and down. At some parts, it would be smooth but then there were other parts where it was choppy and rough. Some soccer matches were choppy and that bothered me. Maybe it was the cinematography and the angles weren’t right but it felt like the animators took the shortcut instead full animating the scene.
Character(s):
As mentioned earlier, while Aoyama appears to be the main character, he’s more of a mascot than anything. The characters around him get character development through interactions with him, thus also giving him a little bit of character development as well. The show has a lot of interesting characters, each one in a particular circumstance because of Aoyama.
Sound (OST & Voice Acting):
The soundtrack was so-so, following the cookie cutter cliche sound effects we’ve seen in so many anime. On the other hand, the opening theme is quite catchy and the ending was hilarious the way they imitated the style of a 90s anime.
Enjoyment:
I did enjoy the comedy a lot but it felt like the plot should’ve been a little more soccer focused.
Overall: Score 8
With great artwork and comedy, Aoyama is actually a good show, but that doesn’t make it a great show. Some bits of choppy animation and an imbalance of focus on the plot makes the show a little ambiguous.
KiritoNarukami 