I appreciate your research but there is logic flaw in your video that is assuming that, if 2 things share similar/equal aspects they are similar/equal. That's like saying that if I'm wearing a blue shirt and the sky is blue, I'm wearing the sky. Ego is shitty person whose values would not fit irl, but he is not fascist. Although he wants to get the world cup, he is not a nationalist at all: - In the manga, it's clear he does not value Japan history when he says even the top Japanese players (Honda and Kagawa) are shit because they never won any World Cup - Ego cares and value way more other countries soccer: he frequently mentions other soccer players as examples being followed and even bring players from other countries (top 5 players) to serve as inspiration for the winners of the 2nd selection. It's unreasonable to consider that a Asian fascist would pay someone like Dada Silva, a black latino person to work as reference in any aspect. - [manga spoilers] The Neo Egoist League is all about bringing and learning from the culture/experience from 5 other top soccer leagues around the world. To sum up, Ego wants an world cup not because he values Japan, or believe that Japanese are some sort master race (like they did in WW2), he wants because of his egocentrism, he believes he is a genius and therefore deserves/needs it. Fascism has several variations around history, but I can't think of a single experience who sees value in learning for not one or two, but several other cultures more than it's own.
Other stuff, like being highly masculine and performance-oriented are not exclusive from fascism. Just think of super heroes, blockbusters and even other shonen anime that you see that is too common in contemporary media. Those sorts of individualism are related to fascism but also to liberalism
5:03 also, Ego's view on the idealized past where everyone was a striker is not tied to any nation or race, which is an essential part of the mythical past of fascist experiences. Italy had the Roman Empire, Japan had the yamato race and Germany had the arian race. Ego is just nostalgic about tactics.
@@Kronem725 I'd add that it wasn't even "idealized past". Ego doesn't claim that this is how football is supposed to be played, he is saying that students should start from scratch to experience the sport in its most simple and/or essential form ("forget everything you think you know" kind of exercise).
@@Kronem725 These too have been accused of carrying fascistic undertones -- "the inherent qualities of one group gives them authority and privilege over others within society". Even when shonen makes itself about "hard work", there is the innate talent of shonen heroes that makes their hard work better than that of other characters. YMMV.
So the flaw in your counter argument is that nationalism itself is not a necessary ingredient in being fascistic. To pull from Umberto Eco's seminal essay 'Ur-Fascism' (rather than Explanation Points Jason Stanley citation), there are 14 properties that commonly appear amongst fascistic political movements, *however,* not all fourteen properties are present in every movement. To pull a specific quote from the essay: "Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola. But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it." So Fascism without Nationalism... is still Fascist. And for the record, just based on what Exclamation point described, Blue Lock checks off 1) the cult of tradition, 2) the rejection of modernism (forget common sense) 3) the cult of action for action's sake, 4) disagreement is treason (don't think for yourself about the contradictions) 5) fear of difference, 6) appeal to a frustrated middle class (fear of the lower class), 9) life is permanent warfare, 10) contempt for the weak, and 11) everybody is educated to become a hero So it's batting a 0.64 (to mix which sport we're talking about) in 'has fascist qualities'
Imagine if blue lock ends with the winner joining the Japanese pro team and absolutely embarrassing himself because he’s completely unable to work with a team.
@@RandomVex teaching everyone to prioritize their own glory over winning, not to worry about positioning or passing, and to play a team game like an individual sport. Basically, everything they’re currently doing
@@Noo584 the show is more so about trancending all of those things I think. If you still need to worry about positioning, team game and winning, then you are probably not strong enough to overcome those things Only those above the top can make a team sport into individual sport
One small correction: the higher ranked players getting to do stamina training instead of doing the first selection was a lie. The initial rankings were bullshit, and everyone was told they were near the bottom (which further enhances the point about motivation through fear)
Isn't that what is talked about at 19:50? The actual truth doesn't matter for that original point. The food is still structured so that the good get better and the poor get crap. The lie that there is greater extremes beyond that doesn't make it better, it only serves to normalise the comparatively small inequality within their own building.
@@oofink467but there is still a difference between team v and team z, even if ego wants even team v to feel as if the world is against them, when they are actually the top of the food chain
@@Seloliva1015 i mean yeah, but then again, there is inequality everywhere in life, and most of the time it is just a matter of someone else being better than you. People who work hard get more benefits, fair enough. beneficial inequality exists for a reason, if doctors were being paid the same the janitor, the receptionist and all the other jobs in a hospital, there would be no demand for doctor's, since the job is significantly more difficult and the reward you get out of it is exactly the same. This is the reason why ideologies like communism doesn't work
I just find it hysterical that literally a month before the manga got published, France won the 2018 World Cup and their starting striker Olivier Giroud didn't score a single goal in the tournament. At a quick glance you could criticize his performance, but everyone who analyzed the games knew how important he was to the team's offensive and defensive gameplan. Real life just completely destroyed the whole opening premise of Blue Lock in the cruelest way possible.
I think the series Blue Lock would agree with you if you read past season 1, or even if you analyze season 1 a little deeper and catch the foreshadowing.
@@bubbachildsupport4535The core theology remains tho. "Good strikers only pass so they can set up their own goals." It's nudging the proverbial goalposts but the point is the same. "Team exists for me to win."
@@JacksonJinnsuper late for this but anyone whose read literally the next arc of blue lock could tell you that you’re just wrong. I don’t wanna get into spoiler territory, but you misinterpreted the show if you thought EGO equated to never working with or through anyone else to win.
This manga is basically "The 1980s Netherlands Soccer Team Experience": 1) The striker is all that matters (Van Basten) and all the team should pass to him and him alone. The striker is king, he's more important than even the trainer himself. 2) The more strikers you have, the better. 3) Everyone defends, everyone strikes. Results? A strong team that will never amount to anything when it really matters, and will melt to the first team that can exploit the "everyone strikes" mentality with a strong midfield and defense, breaking the team's will to play and causing hilarious infights in the showers during the intermission.
Indeed. There's a lot of people out there who will say, "You can never watch morally/ethically problematic media, because you engaging with it is morally wrong." But not only is that not true, but with an aware mind, you can deconstruct themes and patterns in that media - just like was done here - to show broader concepts. It's neat, but it does require a "brain-on" mentality when watching media.
I'm on the fence about it. On one hand, media does often contain messages, especially if it's written by people who care about thinking and stuff. Stories with a good vs evil narrative well naturally have to have some idea of what those words actually mean. And if nothing else, what better source of thought experiments then the vast array of stories that have built up over the centuries. On the other hand, it sounds dangerously close to "everything is political", an idea/motto that is very clearly and n@k#dly a way to force people to constantly think about whatever ideology they want them to be 100% dedicated to, and always think about, and dedicate near-literally every single action towards. kind of like [people mentioned in video].
@@heychrisfox I think a lot of people think that you can't like a piece of fiction for its entertainment value and acknowledge that its take on certain themes are wrong at the same time.
This whole show is so funny from a Brazilian perspective. There are serious ass essays about how soccer games to Brazil are pretty much akin to Ancient Rome's "Panem et circenses", as in that we spend so much time thinking about games that it's supposedly the whole ass reason why we're still "underdeveloped" as a country. During World Cup, you gotta accept all schools and workplaces and government buildings are closing down so everyone can go watch every single match Brazil's in. I kid you not, we treat it like a holiday. And I honestly don't think you can find a single person over the age of 9 in this continent that sincerely thinks an entire team of strikers has a chance of working out. Every infant finds out the hard way that the entire match is a shit show if everyone tries to be the team's specialest little star, no matter how good you are. It's an easy way to tell someone just learned how to play whenever you watch a kids match: it's not even about morality, it's just that if you have played enough, it becomes obvious pretty soon that it's a shit strategy. I kinda started watching the anime because the thought of a concept so obvious being taken seriously and desconstructed in this medium would be a fun experience with like. An unholy amount of edibles. Because what else could you even do with such a basic concept. And the edginess of it all IS hilarious for the first 10 episodes or so, but then the weed kinda wears off and you realize that... oh. The author is for real. The narrative IS deadset on making a case about how soccer's equivalent of potty training is actually WRONG and DUMB because..... [vague hand motions]. The fascism-like ideology sincerely flew over my head because I was too busy trying to wrap my head around how absurd it is to produce an entire show about... Idk, metaphorically shitting your pants in game
I'd say that you don't even need to have played a game to know this. Just even half-heartedly watching a match on TV should make it obvious that having a whole team that only knows how to strike, and each individual player wants to be THE striker, is a team destined to lose virtually all matches. Or just google "top 10 goals in history" and see how many are the result of team effort.
which essays are these that you talked about in the start of your comment? as a brazilian who has always had a profound discomfort with how football is treated and the role it plays in our society I'm very curious because I've never been able to quite put it into words, most of the time I just say I'm a football hater but it's not that simple lmao
The first match and the 0 to 1 ideology are exactly about how an entire team of strikers doesn't work. They're forcefully shown that if every team tries to be a striker it just leads to chaos, I feel like Isagi directly even says this. The entire first selection becomes about all of the players figuring out which striker has the most effective strategy to score. I think this video has excellent points in particular about how Ego is using nationalism and fascist practices to raise soccer prodigies and there's some real dialogue about Isagi only being able to succeed in this kind of environment that should be criticized. The characters who are kind and friendly usually get shoved out while the ones who are hyperindividualistic move on and they are rewarded by other players adhering to their vision. Blue Lock positions itself as a meritocracy which is pretty much right down the road from fascism (SMT games and their chaos endings are usually like this and they all pitch the same myth of progress through fascism). Blue Lock just argues that once you find the most effective way of scoring goals everyone else should fall in line in a way that best helps that person score goals. Worded differently, by the end of Blue Lock we will absolutely have 11 players who all play different positions but are capable of scoring if they have a chance. We can see this start to happen in 3rd and 4th selection where characters like Gagamaru have moved from striker to a defensive position. I dont say any of this to disagree with the overall point that the manga does glorify fascist ideology, I just want to point out that the manga agrees with you in that it's very obvious 11 strikers don't work. It just has to show the characters that as Blue Lock pretends Isagi has never played soccer in his life.
Blue Lock is more about the athletes who play soccer than it is about the game itself. Still, the author does recognise that players other than strikers are valuable and important (although only much later into the manga, when the original lessons have been beaten into you, is when Kaneshiro feels comfortable adding some nuance), and even that your 'ego' can be about things other than becoming the world's greatest striker. Like Reo, who wants to be the best playmaker and push Nagi to the position of world's greatest striker. Still, the point of the manga is about making the best striker, and that's because Japan doesn't (supposedly) have any good strikers, not because strikers are just better than other players and a team made up of strikers would be better off. Hell, the manga itself proves how horrible a team of strikes would be with Team Z. The point of telling them they're all strikers is to see who would step forward as the best striker, like what happened with Barou's team.
Let me catch you up with the current manga. The current team has a few strikers, a few playmakers, a few defenders, wingers, and a great goalkeeper. In no means is the team “only strikers.”
@@tehy123The saying "you didn't notice it, but your brain did" exists for a reason, mate. We are subconsciously influenced by everything we spend enough time interacting with, in one way or another. And if you let something sink into you without giving it a critical thought, it very much can plant an idea into you. That's scientifically proven by social studies.
@@tehy123It's just like with cult brainwashing. The more you think you're too cool to be affected and refuse to give it a second thought, the more susceptible you actually are, so. Be careful, friend.
The funny thing is that eventually, even the strikers integrate into a team, not as strikers, but as parts of a whole. Meaning the premise of Blue Lock itself becomes more wrong. It is pretty neat to see everybody become hyperspecialized.
This video honestly has me speechless with how good it is. We truly need more of these types of discussions in the anime space(honestly nerdy spaces in general). Fantastic job !
Absolutely need more of this in nerdy spaces. I feel like people who spread fascist ideas often lurk in those spaces, and pick off those of us who are most vulnerable.
@@flutterpaws Unfortunately, media literacy is not the same as media consumption. I do think it'd be neat if colleges provided free classes on this or something though! Like, just a short, free, recurring media literacy and critical thinking class that teaches you how to approach what you watch and read.
@@gido9467I think that's insane. Given that even Mother's Basement had a joke about how every video essay is about "Capitalism." If there's a dangerous totalitarian ideology responsible for genocide infecting nerdy spaces, it's not fascism. It's the other one.
I’d like to point out another thing with Blue Lock: It’s touched on more in the manga, but there very much are people that coast purely on talent. Without saying too much, Ego doesn’t like Nagi since he thinks he doesn’t try hard enough, and doesn’t like any of the goals he makes since he doesn’t consider them anything more than miracles lmao.
Many actually suspect a Nagi arc is coming up because of his fake volley shot and his newest failure with Rin. Add to That the Yukimiya rant Ego has about the difference between Confidence and Delusion I think the change from the first to second bluelock system has changed some of the points made here.
@@Powersd451Nagi was on fraudwatch the moment he showed up in the series. After watching enough Shonen, you can spot characters like him a mile away: hypertalented people that use godly skills purely on instinct rather than through having trained it. He was my favourite character from the start, but Ego calling it out immediately(especially in the spinoff manga for him) made me know I'm either in for a beautiful tragedy or a monstrous reawakening of a talented person actually putting in work
Eh it the way people without talent work, imagine a talaneted person that doesn't work hard, when in the real world those that reach the top are all talaneted people who work hard
@@newil_yovac As someone with ADHD who's talented in physical sports, it's true, but it hurts 😭 I've participated in several sports where I've done well in the beginning based purely on talent and instinct, but I don't manage to put in the work and hardly improve. It was pretty interesting to see Nagi improvise his own plays, only for him to abandon it again. I'm really excited to see where his character is going.
Real life football had that first scene occur where Ronaldo caught a pass and was taken up to an academy and the young man that passed the ball faded to obscurity however Ronaldo did buy him a house and didn't forget that key moment in his life
And remember that guy from Messi's youth camp that literally made him look like an average run of the mill player? Injuries plagued him and now he's just been coasting by in some mid tier league, if not already retired. Football is brutal
Víctor Vázquez@@deepakpoddar-vi5rs he was better than Messi and competed each other very often to see who scored more goals but Vazquez would always win.
As a huge blue lock fan this as such an informative video. At first I was I was like “damn dude chill it’s just a soccer anime” but over time you made some really valid points. Kudos to you for putting in work in expressing such a unique perspective that on something that seemed so obvious but no one talks about. I’ll definitely will still be reading/watching blue lock but will be taking its messages with a grain of salt haha
I would actually love it, if Bluelock was intentionally depicting facist manipulation the way it is, just to pull the rug out from under the viewer in the final episode(s), revealing what kind of twisted mindset we've been cheering for. Kind of like "The Wave" by Todd Strasser/Morton Rhue.
@@gilroyscopa Unfortunately I don't think it's that kind of story 😅every character that's still in the manga has benefited from Ego's ethos and will probably continue to
Anime fans in general seem very resistant to media critique. Personally I think it’s weird to spend so much time convincing others that the medium of anime is just as valid as other media, then the moment anyone takes it seriously in critique be like “bro it’s just a cartoon”
@@feelingveryattackedrn5750I hate that you're kinda right. I love anime and like all media I enjoy, I criticize it. But God, the way some anime fans defend their shows to their last breath... like, it's ok if something you love has problems and it's ok to talk about what you don't like in it. It's not an attack against you as a person or the creator, but tell that to some anime fans.
I would be so interested to see how other anime stack up to this kind of analysis. Zom100 seems like a perfect contrast, and fits right in with the observation that a lot of people make about isekai... which is that a lot of people hate their lives as struggling adults living in a homogenized capitalist system, so escaping from that kind of life gets built right into the story's premise. Zom100 just takes it a step further... instead of pulling the individual out of the society they know, and dropping them into a world where none of that exists, Zom100 keeps the characters right where they are, and just destroys everything around them. the fact that an apocalyptic scenario can literally be framed as preferable to living in the world as it currently is, is actually a pretty damning critique. or take Chainsaw Man for example. we start with Denji and Pochita... a devil, who is empowered by fear, and an impoverished child, who managed to forge a contract with a devil, and now fights devils in order to earn enough money to pay his late father's debts. already, this is so loaded. people in poverty have a lot more to be afraid of than most other people, so devils are probably a bigger threat to them... they have less resources with which to protect themselves, and are easier to manipulate into situations where they will face devils, due to the pay incentives offered for fighting them. Denji is willing to put himself into dangerous situations for money, and eventually, he desensitizes himself to a whole host of fears that become mundane in his lifestyle. this is especially threatening to devils, because humans who don't fear them become a major existential threat, especially for the weaker ones. a kid like Denji isn't very strong, but he can still kill a devil that isn't very scary. so the world is set up to pit the lower class of each group against each other... weak devils are vulnerable, just like poor humans, and those two groups are the ones who have to fight and try to tear each other apart. the rich can just offer money to the poor in order to get them to fight devils... and on the same token, the most powerful devils don't even have to try to be scary. everyone is scared of war, death, etc. so they don't have to try and menace anyone to make themselves look scarier. they're just powerful, no maintenance required. it's the underwhelming devils that have to try to gain power somehow, in order to defend themselves. and it's the poor humans who generate the most fear by being put in the most peril. there are probably even devils that are exclusive to people in poverty, which would all but disappear if society was willing to help the impoverished out of their dire circumstances... but instead we watch organizations like Public Service and the yakuza, trying to out-menace each other with grandstanding that is specifically meant to intimidate. it makes me wonder if there are devils for specific people or organizations... devils that represent the fear of a dictator, which gain power from those who live afraid under said dictator's regime... that sort of thing. in any case, becoming desensitized to fear seems pretty OP until you realize the human cost of burning out an entire emotion in someone's psyche. Denji has a very hard time connecting to other people, because he's learned never to get attached to anything... not enough that losing it will really hurt him. we see what happens to Himeno when she really cares about Aki. Denji has never had the luxury of wanting things that badly. if the people around him all dropped dead, he'd have to just be okay with it. Denji's problem is that his mind can't exit survival mode... things have been too bad for too long. he can't risk expecting things to get better, and ending up disappointed. Chainsaw Man is about the struggle between finding power through resilience, and finding genuine joy through vulnerability. there's a whole capitalistic system that would prefer to profit off of people being resilient, and half the time, they're the reason why the resilience is necessary in the first place. but choosing vulnerability is genuinely nerve wracking in a world where there's a lot to be afraid of... and for a long while, Denji is literally too poor to afford that. so yeah, I think there's a lot of really cool stuff that modern anime is trying to say about these themes... I'm grateful for videos like these.
Don't know if you're anime only or have read the manga and don't want to spoil it for the others, so i'll keep it vague just in case: -everyone fears war and death In the CSM universe, the last major conflict was WW1. No WW2, no cold war, no (presumably) vietnam, ecc. This is alluded to in the anime when you realize that it's 1997 and the Soviet Union still exists. As a result, war has become a thing of movies and videogames, which few people really fear. The War devil, who appears in part 2 of the manga, is afraid of being forgotten and is trying to find a way to become feared again. -devils that represent fear of a dictator That would be the Conquest/Control devil, one of the War devil's sisters. The ban on guns and governmental restrictions following the Gun devil's original attack made the Control devil stronger, as people started to be more conscious of the government's power.
@@outbreakperfected9374 I am an anime only, so I appreciate the ambiguity in what you mentioned... thank you. but yeah, the thing about war having kind of "ended" with WW1 is super interesting... in general, it raises a lot of questions about how devils would change politics, if the strengthening or weakening of devils had to be taken into consideration. it feels like the relationship between government and population would have to be handled a lot more carefully... or we'd just start seeing which devils manifest as a natural consequence, like what you said about the control devil forming from people's collective fear of government overreach. I do want to dig into the manga at some point... I fully expect that the author of Chainsaw Man is going to keep using the stuff he's built into this narrative in interesting ways. the premise is so full of potential, and even from just the anime, or from hearing about his reputation and other works, you can tell he's very willing to go off the rails with his ideas. regardless of when I get to the manga, I can't wait for the second season of the anime.
@@kamuyking551 your idea of devils affecting world politics is incredibly spot on; you'll see near the end of part 1 (so most likely at the end of season 2 of the anime, if they adapt the Bomb Girl arc as a movie). With nuclear weapons not existing, the arms race involves some powerful devils, so expect some fun revelations... The manga is pretty bonkers, and the anime pretty much only covered the "prologue". It still has to start getting crazy, and when it starts it only gets more and more bonkers. Also the story is full of christian symbolism, so watch out for that too if you like to speculate. You may have already noticed that the two devil siblings i mentioned in my previous comment, Conquest(or Control, apparently it's the same word in japanese) and War, share the names of the first two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This is no coincidence, but i'll avoid saying more to not spoil anything else.
i had scoffed at the title when i first saw it, but seeing as it came from this channel, i was still intrigued (i remember liking your previous analyses). walking away after watching it, i'm in awe at how good it is, not just as an analysis of this anime, but at how fascist ideology can manifest in a society that allows it to. well done on this video!
Was caught off guard to hear ableism referenced but it was very welcome. There’s a lot of real insidious rhetoric in uk politics right now as the government looks for another group to scapegoat and a lot of people forget that “people on benefits” include a substantial number of people *unable* to work at all. Plus given the sports theme it’s relevant to the show; anyone with any physical condition would be destroyed by the living conditions in the program. Allergic to something in the food? Based on what you said Ego’s response would be to tell them to “tough it out” or eat shit. Anyone with a mental condition is going to get worse and likely have it manipulated.
This is actually addressed in Bluelock, if you haven't seen it. There's a character who previously suffered an ACL tear and whose leg could basically completely blow out at any moment, leaving him unable to play soccer for the rest of his life. Bluelock (the show)'s response is for him to push himself to his absolute limits, knowing that someday his ACL is going to tear again. Because it's better to play your heart out on the soccer field for as long as you can than to "succumb to the limitations of injury" (read: take care of your body).
As a UK citizen this shit is also proof that media brainwashing works, bc there are so many people here who have no idea where their money is going (they might have an idea but it's never correct) and still complain about "scroungers."
When I watched Blue Lock for the first time, I could never shake this weird feeling that something was off about it. Then it hit me how weirdly nationalist it was. Everything about it just fed into this nationalist propaganda, this idea that they had to "bring glory and honor to their country"... by playing soccer. And it felt like nobody else noticed this. Seeing this video really vindicated those feelings, so thank you for bringing attention to this
Maybe it's different, but there's a lot nationalism IN soccer. Especially in countries that really give a shit about the sport-it's their countries versus yours. You wouldn't want to keep being shit, right? America lacks a national pride found in every other country (not saying it's without reason or undeserved), and that's unique to America. National Pride is not unique to Japan-the problem isn't with them, more like the problem is with our (or his and my) perspective as Americans. Failing that, honestly this show is so ridiculous that I don't even care. I love it.
@@JustAJauneArcTo suggest that Americans are somehow not weirdly nationalistic is a strange take, ngl. These people think its normal for kids to salute a flag on a daily basis, they very much are. That being said, yeah, when it comes to international sports, they dont really seem as invested as the rest of the world. From what I can tell most sports stuff the US actually cares about is stuff pretty much only they participate in. It took my euro ass a long time to figure out what a "super bowl" was.
@@JustAJauneArc Just gonna hop on this train real quick, the US is way worse with this shit than wherever you're coming from unless you live in Poland or the occupied West Bank. To Speep's point, most of our sports-related tribalism is tied up in local regional stuff, in no small part because the country is so stupidly massive and the United States is so culturally xenophobic, but children in the US are conditioned to nationalism explicitly from day 1 of primary school until graduation. It's FUCKING horrifying.
@TheSpeep Gonna be honest with you, from what I've grasped with other first world countries? It's about halfsies. The Brits salute the flag, and the Queen, the Japanese, are VERY about national pride (hence their isolationism and aversion to open borders) even if they aren't loud about it? The other members of the EU don't really, but I guess having borders with countries that are equally as powerful as you still has-luckily only friendly-rivalries. Having other nations to compete with generally sees people becoming more nationalistic. Because you wanna win. You want your country to be the one kicking ass. You think your country's #1, and you want the whole damn world to know it. The way I see it, this show is all about Extreme Sports Machismo lmao
The funniest thing about Bluelock to me is that it's premise of finding the best striker is just sorta flawed? Like I have never even *ONCE* fucking thought "Man, if only Japan had a good striker. This is what's stopping them from taking it all. They'd be world class then."
@@fly.1 I do watch football. A lack of a good striker just isn't what has held Japan back lmao. They're just weaker in general (At least the men's team. The women's team rules.)
I semi-disagree, after the most recent world cup I can confidently say one of the things holding Japan back is having a dominant goal scorer, specifically a physically imposing striker. The wingers are talented, the midfielders have good experience, and the backline plays well together and has a lot of talent. I think the struggles are mainly matching up size wise with some of the other top countries, and having a tall, powerful striker is part of that. Obviously it’s not like Japan can just produce a big, strong guy who’s really good at soccer out of the blue, nor will that win them the world cup on its own. But I do think it’s at least accurate to say a really good striker would be a big step forward.
I am SO glad that this video exists. I'm not as into soccer as I once was, but I played from early middle school to the last days of high school. My family- and I mean immediate family and extended family- LOVES soccer. I was a proud defender, specifically playing left full-back (AKA, I was the last line of defense before the goalie and I was the one on the left), and I've always had a little chip on my shoulder about the glory offensive players get, especially strikers. don't get me wrong, the famous strikers/upfielders absolutely deserve their recognition for their carefully cultivated skills, but it's easy to give credit to the person who puts the ball in the net because that's when the stadium erupts with cheers rather than all of the people who pull off quick caluclations about who to pass to and where to maneuver the ball to get it out of the other team's possession and into the feet of the person with the most opportunity to do something with it. Or even just the thrill you feel when you get to really *kick* the ball and feel the way it pushes against your foot before soaring across the field and how it feels like, for a brief moment, you're part of the ball ripping through the air. Or even the fun of when you do a proper headball, cause it looks like it hurts and it kinda does but it becomes a moment where you're just One with the ball that it really doesn't. And also the obligatory goalie-worship that seems to follow every team member, because a good goalie has taught themselves to not fear the collision and save the day. (any current or former goalies reading this, I love you and would take a red card to defend your honor) So when my friend told me about this really popular soccer sports anime, I felt elated. Soccer getting the Haikyuu treatment?? Sign me up!! I was jumping up and down to watch episodes where defenders and goalies learn to cross that line of, "Ooh, I'm too scared I'll get hit or collide with someone," to "Oh no you dON'T, GIMME THAT BALL!!!" and midfielders learning to really increase their awareness of everybody's positions on the field and the teamwork necessary. Passing the ball is critical to any success in the game, and my high school team briefly had a sort of Kageyama-Hinata duo where as long as one of them had the ball, we knew they'd start swapping it with the other in truly impressive ways, and it was GREAT!! And then I watch it and in the first episode this nerdy man in business attire gets up on stage and shits on every single position except for strikers and says that the goal to having a winning team is to have an egotistic striker. That you have to be selfish and that it's better to screw others over as long as the striker gets to be an egoist. And I literally had to pause the show to just be like ????????? I've had forwards who were selfish as shit and NOBOdY liked them because they would never pass the ball, try to do everything themselves, and act as if they constantly have something to prove. Like, on a soccer team, soccer very much matters, but to quote Superbad: "Calm down, Greg. It's soccer. It's soccer." Honestly, we're judging you for not working with the team and not taking the L. If you can't make the shot, give it to someone else and keep the ball in circulation, cause if you don't make it, you're just giving it to the other team for no reason. And apparently later in the show strikers who don't do well get relegated to other positions. This makes me laugh because you can't be selfish with the ball as a defender. Hell, as a defender, my job is to get the ball tf away from me!! The more time that ball spends on my side of the field, the more opportunity the opposing team has to steal it and score an embarrassing goal. A few times we'd try to play reverse soccer where all the defenders became forwards and vice versa and it was SO bad. I dropped the show after like, episode three, once it became obvious that they were just doing the weird thing of actively screwing over their players instead of helping them (missing food or getting crappy food for not doing well when EVERYONE should be getting good food, etc). Also, why aren't they playing with shoes?? You play with shoes. You'll hurt yourself kicking a raw ball and trying to slide-tackle with your grippers out for free. ...Anyway, this was very cathartic to watch. Explanation point my beloved.
So if you do want "Soccer to get the Haikyuu treatment", I highly recommend AoAshi instead. It aired just before Blue Lock and is an incredible soccer anime in my opinion that feels more like Haikyuu. It even manages to avoid the striker worship you talked about here. It can be a bit slow to start, but I think it's going to be what you wanted from Blue Lock
I played soccer for like three months when I was 8 and didn't really like it but yeah, we all LOVED our goalie. Having a good goalie is like... the ultimate morale booster. She drop kicked the ball into the opposing goal twice. I love u yvonne (I don't remember if that was her name actually lmao)
Wow, you sucked playing, your job has defence is not get the ball far from you, is to avoid shoots and recover the ball, and be good positioned to get a pass to redo a play if the midfield can't advance. All that in an 11 players field, if you played in an smaller field and you weren't allowed to attack your team hated you.
All this video and this comment tell me is that sometimes ignorance is bliss. I don't know a single thing about soccer and that allowed me to immensely enjoy the show.
SPOILERS FOR THE MANGA -------------------- This reading of Ego gets even more nefarious once you hit the Neo-Egoist League. Meeting Noel Noa and realizing he’s a completely normal guy that doesn’t fit Ego’s ideology at all is total whiplash and then finding out Ego and Noa used to be rivals and now Ego is obsessed with creating the best striker in the world just makes it all come together. Like many fascist leaders Ego cares mot for the people he’s rallying or even the cause he’s rallying them for(the evolution of Japanese soccer), he’s obsessed about making his mark and cares only for his accomplishments spreading the Blue Lock ideology world wide to try and take credit from when the next Best Striker in the world is born.
ya but in the manga eventually teamwok comes into the picture with the u 20 arcs and the clubs like ubers working in systems and isagi assisting to yukimiya and hiyori deciding to become a midfielder not a striker. Obvioulsy strikers are still glorified like rin , kaiser , isgai and barou but that happens in the real world too like cr7 and messi having the most marketability than any other position.
Ego isn't a Fascist leader lmao. Most players question and berate him all the time, and don't care about him. They do team work, find "ego" in other positions, and go against a lot of what he says and succeed
Yeah no. Spoilers When they were about to lose the U20 match, Ego pretty much gave up and told them to move on because only he will be erased, their careers will keep going, which contradicts the entire comment you said.
Noel Noa isn’t all that normal. In fact he’s a lot like Ego. Completely logical, pragmatic, and only cares about the end result and numbers. Plus he’s right about him Noel is an egotist himself. In fact he’s been proven right again and again. Characters have been shown to become better over and over when they get that drive and hunger to be the greatest. That’s what ego means in the series. And every time each character believes in themself, wants themself to become the main character, or become independent they become stronger. Nagi when he finally decided to put in effort, bachira when he finally stops looking for a friend, rin when he stops seeing himself as sae’s younger brother and became his own person. Plus he knows that’s it a hellish environment but he knows to get the best out of his players that’s what they need. Plus he’s not completely heartless he’s shown he does care. Having them learn languages to be pros, not caring about money to continue them honing their skills, and betting his own career in football to have blue lock continue on. Ego does care.
The scariest thing to me is that, judging by the comments on this very video, a significant majority of the audience doesn't understand that this is the point - that the ideology of Blue Lock is supposed to be messed up and not to be applied to real life. The other characters are constantly calling Ego out on his life-destroying bullshit and a huge chunk of viewers are still gonna think we're meant to root for his child abuse machine.
The show works pretty hard to make his takes sympathetic. Maybe the manga is better, I dunno, but the anime pretty explicitly positions him as some kind of all-knowing god.
@@alecwoodard9464 Yeah, to the people who benefit. Of course the participants in Blue Lock think he's a God, they're actually improving and seeing their lives become better while within this system. Of course the directors who are only after money and renown revere him, his plan is so ridiculous yet his competence makes it viable. Within the confines of Blue Lock, Ego isn't some kind of God, he *is* God. It's his creation, based around his ideals, structured to benefit those who are egotistical to a fault, or able to adapt to the high level of play. His detractors within the show see him as some genius gone mad who somehow still has the ear of enough people to fund this thing.
this is most certainly not the 'point' lol. at no point is Ego ever properly portrayed as a bad person, his takes always end up correct if anything. if there was a point if anything, it would be that fascism and is easy to implement
@@MegamanStarforce2010 There are plenty of times that we see characters who's lives have been completely ruined because they got kicked out of blue lock, the only reason Ego isn't viewed negatively, aka from their point of view, is because we're following a character who is growing because of what Ego has told him. If we followed some of the cast, we'd see that Ego is a total piece of sh*t. It's all a matter of perspective on this one. Although you're totally right, Ego isn't viewed negatively much.
Well, that's a bit unfair, you saw an Eintracht Match. Nobody in and around Frankfurt is sane, even the minorities there have fascist tendencies (like, holy fuck dude, like 2 out of 3 Turkish boys are horny for Erdogan, hate the LGBTQ, deny science, are verbally abusive to and requently degrade women, so many issues within that community)
There's one power bottom!! Rin's older brother Sae who appears later in the manga is a *midfielder* and is all like, "who's going to be the striker worthy to receive one of my passes?" all catty and stuff and then gets put on a team with a striker at least a foot taller than him who says stuff like "soccer is a biological imperative to me" and "give me your number if I make this goal!" Sae isn't that receptive to the dude, but like, still, the ✨vibes✨
Halfway through the video(i think) and all i can think of right now is that this manga can be a facinating case study as to how fascism and facist systems get built, work and continue to operate. I'm sure that Isayama recommending it has little to do with that lol
Good on him for recommending this. He usually has very good taste on what media he watches/reads(Breaking Bad, Vinland Saga, first few seasons of GoT). Still ticked off he rushed and botched the ending on his own work but wcyd. It is what it is.
Don't really have that much to add, your points were solid, so instead have a Fun Fact! One who plays Association Football was called a Soccer (short for Associationer). This eventually led to the whole sport being called Soccer, to differentiate it from Rugby football, which became just Football. Eventually it was switched, Association Football was Football and Rugby Football was Rugby. Countries who had broken off, like AUSTRALIA and the US didn't care and kept saying soccer. The UK then promptly forgot it had ever called it Soccer, and decided the US specifically must have made up a wrong word, ignoring to this day that Australia says Soccer as well. Despite thier offical team being the Socceroos. This is also the story of the vast majority of differences in US/UK words, at least older ones. The US prefers to use the word from the 17th or even 14th century, but at some point the UK changed and the general populace wasn't taught/didn't care, and decided it must be everyone else who changed instead. A reasonable logical leap, assuming the region that invented a language would suffer the slowest drift. But the UK was an exception due to specifically England's propensity for...travel. Oh, and it was shortened to Soccer because "first syllable+er" was a common way of describing someone who does a thing. If you do plumbing you're a plumber, if you like running you're a runner, if you play association you're an...Well, Ass-er wouldn't have worked for an official team nicknaming itself, so "Soc-er" was next.
Soccer here in New Zealand as well (with Rugby being called 'Rugby' or 'Footy' interchangeably, although Footy is a bit more of an anachronism these days)
This feels less like a youtube video about anime and more like a lecture class on facist history and the American system, I'm both shocked and impressed😭
I started your channel with the Made in Abyss video back when i was in high school, and I've since watched all of your other videos more than once, and every time I'm left dumbstruck by the depth of your analysis and just by how cleverly you put these videos together. I legit think this channel is one of my major inspirations for becoming a writer, and I had forgotten that until I watched this. You know a youtube channel is good when it leaves you inspired after watching. Thanks for helping people think critically 👍
Zom100 is an interesting example: what I got from it was that it very much promoted communalism over individualism, just a healthy, shonenized version of it where everyone collaborates to help each other achieve their hopes and dreams. Beastars promoted a weird sort of Noblesse Oblige mentality and was sort of all over the place about it. Shield hero is very much a product of contemporary Japanese culture, just has an enormous splash of chuuni added: everyone has to follow the enlightened one and the order they establish - it just so happens that the enlightened one here starts out as a misunderstood loser whom you're supposed to root for and identify with at the start. Then it goes into promoting "ethical" slavery and wife husbandry, both of which are still very much part of Japanese culture! Chainsaw man is a complete deconstruction: individualism is what makes everyone miserable and/or dead in the series. Every group in CSM is captained by some psychopath or another that puts the group at the service of that individual's goals. Everyone else is just a hapless loser - regardless of how powerful they may be -, and their only sources of joy come from the mundanity of spending time with each other: no one achieves their goals, ever, and your friends are the only ones that make things suck less (or more, when they inevitably get offed). Tatsuki Fujimoto's writing is not known for being super optimistic.
@@Deco1ze communalism is not communism, a church would be an example of a communalist society while a minecraft server with a ton of farms everyone can freely use would be communist
Zom100 is way more individualistic, a bucket list before you die doesnt seem very communalistic. I mean the show is about the MC being freed from his bad workplace and experiencing life for himself for the first time in years
It's hard for me to describe just how much I love this video. As an avid football fan, I can't help but feel like the main joy of football, the collective team spirit, is being overlooked more and more. I love how you managed to connect this topic with such a serious ideological matter. Thank you!
What people don’t realize is Fascism wasn’t invented by Hitler. It’s an ideology that promotes power through use of anger and/or fear. It’s not some mythical state of being that can only happen when the death camps pop up. Education is how you prevent Fascism from rising, and America is woefully negligent of its schools. Some places MUCH worse than others. Now, I’m not saying we live in a Fascist governance yet, but we are vulnerable to it, and it’s something that has to change. Vote for better leaders, not just for President, but House and Senate too people.
You don't know what "fascism" is. The only correct statement here is that Hitler co-opted it from Italian thinkers such as Giovanni Gentile and practitioners such as Mussolini. Nowhere does Gentile write "thou must use violent force to form the basis of your ideology". It's also disingenuous to imply that this is exclusive to fascism, when modern "democracies" do not hesitate to employ fear-mongering tactics and seemingly arbitrary uses of police violence to silence dissenters.
Shitler wasn’t even the first fascist dictator in interwar Europe. For that matter, Mussolini could be argued to not have invented fascism either but jumped onboard and grew his own movement as part of a greater trend towards fascism in post Great War Italy.
the build up from kunigami yelling biden is not president at 19:15 to Ego's nose gradually extending to hit that blond guy in the face at 20:24 has me absolutely DEAD
This is maybe your best video yet. Well done! I like how you acknowledge the difference between individualism in something like Zom 100 and individualism in something like Classroom of the Elite at the end.
the fact that you can then watch the show through that lens to see fascist rhetoric in practice rather than just in theory or in the broad strokes is an added bonus.
Idk about you guys, but Blue Lock is actually a way more accurate description of what being in a soccer team with people you hate feels like than whatever Captain Tsubasa has going on.
Also it's interesting how much the Facist ideology of Blue Lock ironically dresses itself as a pseudo-liberitarian ideology with it praising selfishness over the common good and the talk of great men rising above naturally. Both feel like they're diametrically opposed, but they are actually cut from the same cloth, aren't they?
I play for my local club its nothing like actual football. If all the strikers in the country were to train together to find out who is the best then they would all create bad strikers cause without thr best defenders their training is worthless
Right? Blue Lock spends about half of its time so far in what amounts to a sports training camp with an absurd coach before showing why said coach is a goddamn idiot and wrong. Meanwhile, Tsubasa is literally about some kind of soccer ubermench who can do no wrong and everyone wants to be and basically constantly fellates as if to go "this is what you should be to not be a failure of a person" and somehow Generic Training Camp is the fascist propaganda? I swear OP just saw that it was popular, spun a big wheel of bad things that get lots of clicks and decided to fit that round peg into the triangle hole by any means necessary lmao
@@Dragonatrix Captain Tsubasa never painted itself to be the realistic sport anime, far from it, it painted a naive but hopeful wish for Japanese football to finally match with the best nations of the world through the eyes of Tsubasa. Blue Block is moronic because it tried to make itself seriously by being inspired by the real world event (Japan being knocked out of WC quarterfinal) while understanding nothing of the sport or even why Japan national team got knocked out in the first place
Absolutely insane video. no music and no fx and yet xou manage to captivate me. At the same time FX would actually been annoying due to the amount of pngs you layer. I really love it. Quite inspirational to break conventions like this and I mean it.
I would argue that Classroom of the Elite actually speaks to how important it actually is to have people around you and to value them, but that would require the unspeakable to fully explain: reading the light novels. So I'll just say that.
As an anime only guy I think this is the way the show has to go, if the story wants to stand out. The MC has apparently been groomed by his father in this weirdly white lab to be kind of the king of egomaniacs and to use others as tools. The father didn't really seem like a caring person to me in season 2, so it would fit the tone. If Ayanokoji would achieve everything my the means of the teachings his father has given him, even if he overthrows him or something like that - the father still wins, because he created what he wanted to create: "a more cruel and successful heir". Therefore I think that Classroom of the Elite has to play it in the way that the MC has to leave this path that his father has layed out before him to actually beat his father at his own game: by proving him to be wrong. I also like how the series differentiates the classes and their working ethics in general. This is just a feeling on my part, which I think is an interesting idea to see it, but I think that the classes represent different political ruling ideologies. Class A seems to be a meritocracy. The gifted rule over the ungifted - those with skills are predestined to be rulers. Class B seems to be perhaps communist. The body is one - everyone is serving the greater good and have to offer themselves up to it. Class C seems to be authoritarian. A strong leader is going to emerge by power and virtue to lead all to glory. Class D would be anarchy. Everyone indulge in their own obsession without regards for the whole. Class D is interesting because I think that they are going to turn those individualistic people either into a socialist perspective ("everyone according to their needs and abilities") or reform it into a democratic structure as a whole, which makes a band of individualistic "outcasts" superior to the other systems, that either diminish the individuals or are only hyper focused on certain ones, thus abandoning those with potential. But yeah. Thanks for listening in to my TED talk I guess xD I'm generelly intrigued by stories that explore such things in such a detailed level and aren't afraid to do so. Those enable videos such as this one. It's just great, even if some stories are really uncomfortable in some cases. But stories aren't always only fluff and goodness. Sometimes a little bit of rough but fresh reality thesis is the right food for our mind to chew on.
classroom of the elite sounded stupid but I might actually go read it now lol I actually had to stop publishing a web novel I was writing because I realized I'd be taking up like twenty chapters that send a message the story is meant to tear apart, which sounds kinda like what might have happened with cote? but also edgy fiction turning wholesome somehow doesn't happen much anymore anyway serialization can really hurt narratives
As someone who played sports as a child in a "nationalist" training place Blue Lock is honestly unwatchable to me. People might think it's ridiculous and just edgy while for me it brings actual memories. My friend wanted me to read this after Haikyuu and I just laughed when the inspiration quotes on selfishness are from people who never even won worlds.
@@justine4581 how am i angry lmfao. do you realize you're literally replying under an OP who said the show was unwatchable because "muh childhood trauma"?
What's funny is that the manga/anime and it's characters repeatedly acknowledge that you need more than just strikers/one awesome striker in order to win and that everyone is prone to mistakes and that the way to deal with them is to embrace them and adapt accordingly. You can't win a team game without your team and everyone makes a mistake once in a while, duh. But then they always go back to wanting to "BE THE BESTEST STRICKER! THE SUPERIOR FOOTBALL BEING! FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION! RAHHH!" It's insane. It really is about ego, I guess. About how damn blind it can make you. Anyway, I'm not even interested in football. It's just so massively entertaining due to being just completely off the wall and over the top. It's dumb but I dig it. Also, the art can be pretty baller.
Sounds like a classic case of the creator pointing out the logical faults in the message he wants to send but sending it anyway, similar to My Hero Academia.
being the best striker, and not wanting to fail are not incompatible with: failure is necessary in order to grow and you can’t win with purely strikers and need a team
Ego is absolutely an evil man but god I love him haha. Great video with a great message at the end. The more you talked the more I was reminded of the time we are living in I'm afraid. Love your editing style btw
I found the first few episodes of Bluelock really interesting because the whole setup was so blatantly messed up and contrary to classic shonen theming. I didn't end up continuing, but I was pretty confident that the show would eventually have the players realize how they were being manipulated, team up, and prove that teamwork makes the dream work. i guess that doesn't happen, huh
It’s kind of odd honestly. There’s this whole “dog eats dog” philosophy going on, but underneath all that, all these guys are real friends and there’s even a couple chapters of the characters just hanging out in Tokyo and it’s super wholesome.
There is more focus on teamwork and some characters realizing they're more cut out for other positions than striker, but they don't let go of their egos
That's the thing though, teamwork doesn't always make the dream work. That's the whole point of the show, all the way from episode one. Isagi passes, goes for the safe play, and his team loses because of it. If he had relied on himself in that moment, they'd have won. There isn't a more clear-cut example than that. Is ego the only answer? Of course not, but this whole show is about inverting the traditional sports anime. Individual performance supporting teamwork is what your talking about, and it's why Isagi's team lost. Teamwork supporting individual performance is Blue Lock.
@@raijinwolf2248 That's not true either. Isagi just says that as cope. Maybe if Isagi shot, he would have missed because he hadn't been properly trained yet, he was still a mid soccer noobie. It was very possible his teammate could have scored but fucked up for whatever reason. That happens. Just like how Isagi might have missed had he taken the shot. It was logically the better play to pass to a teammate with a better shot, if you yourself haven't mastered shooting.
there is technically an era where you could say soccer was all strikers but that would only be as accurate as saying that the protosimians millions of years ago where technically humans. they would become human but way later. the best I can find is that there was a sport called Mob ball. 1 ball, 2 goals and teams. team generally consisted of "everybody". whole villages, including livestock, would be considered players. the field of play was where ever the ball was currently located and the only rule i think it had was "don't kill anyone on purpose".
RU-vid, would you please just start recommending me channels again. Seriously, I haven't found an upload of this guy for ages. And then all of a sudden, I find out there's a new video that's over 3 weeks old.
This is legitimately one of the most succinct and easily digestible videos about fascism and the importance of media literacy ever. It comes at a very important time and thank you for doing this so much you're doing God's work.
So about everyone becoming a striker as a soccer strategy. The Spanish national team barely won anything at all until the year 2008. Before that, it was know for the "Spanish Fury" which was basically being very aggressive and go on the offensive in lightning quick attacks. Of course, any team worth its salt had a good defense and was able to not get scored, and that offensive would always leave gaps in the defense if the attack didn't work. So, head coach Luis Aragonés and later Vicente del Bosque decided to switch to a more balanced approach based on good positioning, a lot of passing and having as much possession of the ball as possible. From 2008 to 2012, the team won The Euro Cup, the World Cup, and the Euro Cup again. So yeah, making everyone a striker is a stupid strategy that will leave holes all over their defense and the other teams will beat their ass.
The purpose of Blue Lock is not making everyone a striker, is reinforcing the striking capabilities os the japanese soccer team, because they lack in that.
i think the emphasis of the striker as solitary and the rest of the team as unimportant really only takes the anime's material into account because while emphasis is certainly placed on the striker as a central figure, the series as a whole actually makes it quite clear that a tyrannical playstyle like Barou's is fundamentally unsustainable. I also don't think Ego genuinely believes that positioning and strategy is actually bad, he's mostly just doing it as a means to get people to develop their skills in a certain way.
Yeah haha that's so clearly laid out in the opening premise of the story; it's not that pure striker focus is inherently superior, it's that current soccer standards already are so good at teamwork and strategy that they've refined it to a point of perfection but little progress and need a bit of recklessness and pride thrown in to shake things up and see what happens. Ego isn't trying to wholesale invent a new type of soccer to replace the old, he's trying to find a specific really good kind of salt for the wider soup of traditional soccer.
I already posted a comment but I just want to add to this video a bit. Another thing that is very Fascist about Ego is his tendency to act like his philosophy isn't being contradicted by the players when they succeed. Isagi (the main character) is a character who constantly finds success in the Blue Lock program by using teamwork better than others. in other words Ego has to make believe that Isagi's teamwork heavy style of play is something that fits into his ego based framework...even when it clearly doesn't. Fascists will typically pretend that everything that works, is something that works because of their system rather than in spite of it, they also love to take credit for and claim the work of others as "belonging" to them.
You continuously pointing out that you are not calling the Mangaka a fascist reminds me about Niccolo Machiavelli's critique about monarch power structures and the lengths nobles will go to keep their power in "The Prince" ended up with his name being attached to a personality disorder about complete manipulation.
Great video, I want to preface that I agree with most of you points, but the framework that the fascist ideal are being pushed on in Blue Lock is not society, it is competing soccer/football. I'm pretty sure that professional soccer is, like actually, a real hierarchy, not the made up one we used to win elections. I was a professional esports coach and was at a pretty high level for both martial arts and chess in my days. The truth was equality didn't matter. All that mattered was who was better. That's why things like always blaming yourself for a loss, no matter the circumstances, is a healthy way of improving because you only focus on the things you can control. The fear is real, because if my team lost a game, I lost my job. There is a genuinely huge difference between those with a competive mindset compared to average Joe's not because some made up mythical past, but because of how radically different their lives are compared to the cutthroat world of professional anything. Your final point, learning from media, made me pause for a second. I think this show has valuable lessons to give, even the fascist ones, but under the correct context. In an actual hierarchy, blue lock teaches how to gain a competive mindset that will allow yourself to make genuine steps to achieving your goals. But if those lessons are brought out to the political world, either you will fall into some bad groups that subscribe to more fascist ideals, or just look like a crazy person. Again, loved the video. Blue Lock is my favorite anime just because how resonant the themes were compared to my experiences. But fascist tactics is a pretty big no no, and I loved the critical perspective you brought to the show. Would have never made that comparison myself. Gives me lots to think about.
wow, it's amazing to see how you completely missed the point of the video sure, blaming yourself for everything that happens to you is soooo healthy and doesn't have any negative consequences for your mental health. let's continue blaming individual people instead of asking difficult questions like "is my behavior making the world a better place" if esports/chess/whatever else is structured in a way that "forces" you to have this kind of behavior, maybe ask yourself why you're participating in this activity in the first place instead of seeking employment in a nurturing, mentally healthy environment
@veram1545 I don't think you understand the point of the comment, critiquing yourself for only the things you can control is actually a very optimistic viewpoint. While the question isn't usually "Is my behavior making the world a better place" inside the competition a better question that would be asked is "How did the actions in my control lead to events I didn't want." This kind of mindset helps deture blaming things you have no control of like your team which does a lot to filter a lot of the toxicity that comes with competitions. I think the commenter fully understands the video the issue isn't that focusing on one's self to make changes is inherently toxic because it comes from a scenario where everyone has agreed on the rules and setting of the competition before hand, while in real life there is no choice in the matter and it is better to look at the structural environment.
I think it’s interesting how naturally the comparison to fascism occurs when translating certain shounen tropes like ‘power scaling’ and ‘special abilities’ to an ostensibly real-world setting. I’m aware this is absolutely not an original thought, but the idea of someone destined to be a savior or hero inherently serves the fascist myth of individually great men, whose abilities are irreplaceable as a result of some factor of their birth. In this setting, the characters don’t have any magical blessings to back that trope up, which is why I think it’s difficult to suspend your disbelief when it comes to Ego’s rhetoric implying that those ‘great men’ are real. At least, compared to someone like Satoru Gojo from JJK- separating him and his role in the plot from the real world is completely natural, given that he’s basically an alien who’s got the same power set as a little kid playing pretend during recess (i.e. ‘I’m immune to all your attacks and get through your shields!!’). Edit: This isn’t to dismiss your point that many anime coming out recently rely upon these ideas, and that this can be harmful. I’m mostly thinking about why it’s so much easier to notice in this instance, and why the writing has so many more direct parallels with fascism. Because I genuinely believe it’s unintentional, I feel like it’s a product of the writer’s worldbuilding to make the story function.
To be honest there's probably plenty of anime and media with similar themes that code be fascist coded that most people never pick up on. Personally, it's probably the nationalist theme of finding the next Japanese Soccer Hero combined with the manipulative rhetoric Ego feeds them priming audience members more familiar with how fascism works to pick up on it. It most definitly is unintentional as it really just looks like whoever wrote it wanted to combine a shounen tournament arc with Soccer in a more realistic setting to flip the typical sports anime trope of learning to work as a team on it's head.
Be careful about dismissing every single thing in fascism simply because it's fascism. Just because it's a fascist belief doesn't mean it's wrong. Hitler was against animal abuse, I hope you don't think we should start abusing animals. Likewise, there are people who are 'great' and had a profound effect on the world, without which history may not have gone the same way.
@@TheRedHaze3 I don’t honestly think there’s any real evidence to suggest that there are individuals who shaped history solely by virtue of their own abilities. Sure, there are people like Alan Turing or Nikola Tesla who genuinely did have exceptional, natural-born abilities that nobody else could replicate. However, their discoveries would have one day been discovered by someone else, perhaps a bit later. Sure, that would have altered the course of history, but in unpredictable and indirect ways- those individuals didn’t shape it with their efforts, that significance was an incidence of when. If they were born in a different time, their abilities would not have been so urgent and far reaching, either. Conversely, the individuals who we can say *did* shape history, such as emperors and conquerors, were rarely entirely irreplaceable in terms of their actual abilities as rulers. Rulers are most important as symbols of those subject to them, and while not everyone can be an effective one, there are too many humans to say nobody else could’ve done the job better given the chance. Likewise, each of them also had hundreds or thousands of people working under them, without which their empires could never have been run nor built. That isn’t to diminish their accomplishments. I’m mostly saying that people do not do great things for society as a whole purely on their own. They stand on the shoulders of giants, and their preoccupations, upbringing, and talents must coincide with certain contextual factors. There are a whole constellation of things that must occur for one to change the world, and even then it’s rarely done purely alone. In the case of this anime, it takes the inverse conclusion to its extreme- that soccer games are won purely on the back of the spearhead of the team, the striker, and that we don’t need to bother training people for other positions or roles. Ego is looking for the next Messi while ignoring the fact that a team full of Messis wouldn’t necessarily be optimal (by my understanding, at least- I know very little about soccer, and maybe that would be optimal. regardless, historical figures are different). He just looks the best because of his exceptional abilities. That’s a convenient belief for fascists to have when establishing the importance of hierarchy, so that they can maintain a ruling class via the process explained in this video, but it has no basis in reality. I am not calling this brand of individualism bad solely because a fascist happened to believe in it one time. I’m calling it bad because it’s far more complicated than that, and constructing social theory around this mythological archetype of ‘Ubermensch’ is harmful to that society in virtually every way.
@@mindfulselfindulgence Do you think Christianity or Islam would have appeared even without Jesus or Muhammad? Or even religions similar to them, that had similar effects on the regions they had influence in? (Europe and the Middle East respectively). There is no Hellenic king who could or would have conquered Persia, so without Alexander the Great we probably wouldn't see much, if any, hellenic influence in the Middle East. No Library of Alexandria, for example. I'm sure there's plenty of other examples, these are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head that aren't really debatable. As for the anime, it's not taking the position you're claiming. Even Ego isn't taking that position. He makes it clear that Japan is perfectly capable at teamwork and the defender and midfielder positions, and this is shown to be true in the manga when the Blue Lock team clashes with Japan's National U-20 team. That's why Blue Lock is about creating a world-class striker. His point is simply that you can't win without scoring goals. In the World Cup, even if you draw, you just go to penalty shootouts for who moves on to the next stage.
Personally, I like how many characters in Tokyo Ghoul don’t follow this format. Pardon me for forgetting all the terms, but I really liked how Amon and the rest of the “ghoul-hunting” squad were treated. They aren’t special, they don’t have four tentacles coming out their backs. You’d expect a series like Tokyo ghoul to treat ghoul powers as a step above everything else, and they often are, but the fact that the ghoul hunters are able to make solid progress and serve as a powerful force without any macguffin plot devices (except for their weapons, but those are highly limited so I don’t count them). One of my favorite quotes came from one of their members, who remarked that people like Amon may be so good it seems futile to try to match them, and maybe it is futile, but if a common person tries, they can become *good* and that’s all that really matters. Lowkey motivating.
Love this. Also, I really liked Blue Lock, until I tried reading Muneyuki Kaneshiro's other works like Jagaaan. Which uhhhhh was so bad it made Blue Lock retroactively bad. Like, now I get why Anri feels like literally the only woman in the series.
@@rommdan2716 Sure! It's about the deepest darkest desires of the human heart manifesting into physical powers. So of course one of the main protagonists, oh I'm sorry "antagonists", has the ability to graphically rape women for something like ~20 chapters. Meanwhile all of the women who get powers get them from uhhh *checks notes* wedding rage, "no baby" rage, having had sex with a more important male character and then being smooshed into a Cerberus rage, and getting raped rage. Oh, and being able to heal! How deep and dark and ugly, a real reflection of the human soul.
Oh, and as the Gods will was laughably bad. At least, the first iteration was, I didn't get into the second. All I remember was he killed off the girl the audience liked, so he tried to bring her "twin sister" in as a replacement. Like telenovela levels of bad.
I love that at the end you mentioned the themes of individualism in different anime. For someone with the barest understanding of media literacy it's easy to see how each has a perspective that one should seek out and be aware of rather than consuming mindlessly.
It's a little scary seeing how the term fascist has been nearly stripped of any deeper meaning and the actual warnings that come with its name, especially in the comments. How it's being forgotten and replaced with whatever vague feelings of it being some scary buzzword thrown around by people on TV, not sure if it's even a real thing. I say this because there are some comments that state some version of this idea of "I thought this video is some BS or overreaching, and I got to the end of the video and it's pretty accurate actually." That gives the idea that some people in the comments genuinely had no idea how fascism worked or functioned, or if they did learn what fascism is, could not identify aspects of it in media. It's not like I'm expecting regular people to have this whole dissertation like Explanation Point made here, but not even identifying some aspects of fascism and seeing how it was being portrayed in Bluelock is scary. Kudos to others though who saw Bluelock and had weird bad vibes watching it, but maybe couldn't fully express why they thought it has weird bad vibes. They now know why the vibes were bad.
Good point, it is a bit scary since that means fascism could easily slip into society by just changing its name. As I would argue has started happening in a lot of countries and most people don't really notice they are using the same rhetoric just because fascism has become this both offensive and joke word which means it's never taken seriously. Respecting the show, I always felt the odd authoritarian fascist regime vibes were very obvious and deliberate, that is why they all start putting mad eyes and speak in scary voices when they accept part of the rhetoric and all that, probably meant to reference old imperialist military japan with football instead of an actual military. I never got a feeling the show was somehow endorsing that way of doing things but hey maybe I am wrong
THIS. i spent so much time looking for this. and it’s funny that he mentions to “watch things wisely” in the sense of consuming media. i feel that Exclamation Point needs to, a) not only do more than read a paragraph about a sport that COUNTRIES have instilled in their cultures and IS THE TOPIC OF THE VIDEO, but b) TELL YOUR AUDIENCE WHAT A FASCIST IS. nice job in making Ego look like Hitler for the lols, but literally replace the world fascist and soccer with nationalist and the NFL and you got yourself the same argument and since we’re on the topic of learning new things, i suggest you look into Peter Callero’s “The Myth of Individualism” a sociology textbook that touches on individualism and the systems it can impacted/be impacted by. also the move mentioned at 8:11 is called (at least in spanish speaking countries) “el pase de la muérete” (the pass of death). literally any soccer fan that’s sees this happen knows what’s gonna go down…
as much as i like to claim i am intelligent, admittedly i do fall for a lot of things if they are flashy or seem really 'empowering' and as much as i love blue lock bcuz of how 'unique' it is as a sports shonen, i was quite ignorant in terms of the fascist coding in blue lock i don't think the intent of blue lock is about supporting fascism, but that said it is very easy to use blue lock to trip into hardcore rightwing movements
@@Solstice261 i think it is also worth noting that ego is unhinged, and at the very least the show acknowledges it in the manga, he is always shown to be quite an a-hole and almost every character acknowledges this perhaps the concering thing is that no one really opposes this aside from kira, because everyone else has something to benefit from this,
That actually reminds me of Ben-To (It's way older than the other show cited here, but it's obviously quite similar) So, in this place, people needs to fight to death to get their meals because of forced scarcity. Some people works together to secure and share their meal, and originally our hero joins them. Until he gets a change of heart and ends up betraying them. Except... They're framed as the bad guy, and him as doing the right thing. I don't remember everything because I watched it a long time ago, and I didn't have the same understanding of systemic oppression as I have nowadays, but it really rubbed me the wrong way at the time.
I watched like 10 minutes from a random episode at one of friend's house, i felt so uncomfortable having it in the background that i moved to watch it and focused to understand what's going on. Man this title is the best summary of that scene
This is very informative and great essay to teach what fascism has been or could be. Also I’m a big fan of video essays with visuals of one png image layering on top of another into a sloppy collage. Love to see it!
I thought that Blue Lock would end up being a criticism of facism and hyperindividualism because the head guy is so obviously evil and the system is so obviously messed up. I’ve only watched a few episodes but I thought that was where it was going
I haven't read the manga, but I've read some synopses of what's going on right now, and it doesn't seem like it's going in that direction. Ego is pretty clearly a bad guy, but I don't feel like it's going to do a moral heel turn, especially given what I've heard about Kaneshiro's other manga. Maybe it will, though! That'd be cool.
Having read the manga, I highly doubt it. If there would be a big moral shift towards the end, I'd expect at least some little hint at it throughout the story, but so far all I've seen is, "Big dog gets chewed by bigger dog" with the character's relinquishing any sense of traditional "sports manga teamwork" and only working with each other to achieve their own personal goals.
Most of what Ego says end up being bullshit in the manga. As he clearly was cultivating players and putting them in different positions that best suit their skill and talent. A player with a similar ability as Isagi, is becoming a godlike defender; Or the guy with crazy instinct and flexibility was made into a monster of a goalie. Don't get me wrong, Bluelock is still there to make 1 guy be The Guy (Clearly Isagi); Make the whole team revolve around him.
@@dankee7421 From what I have heard, yes and no. Everyone is in service of their higher ups, but this video already addresses that and uses hyper individualism in different context. Fascism usually comes with the belief that everything good or bad that happens to you, you deserve it. It's a big part of how it justifies its hatred towards those in worse positions. So it is individualistic in that sense. But yeah, that confusion is exactly why I am against using individualistic and collectivist without contest, something this video never does.
Hey! That's an interesting and bold video to make lmao. I will add a few cents where it is worth it, as someone who *is* also into soccer. I do not disagree with the notion that Ego is somewhat fascist in his methodology. However, if you stick solely to the Anime material - which I assume you are - there is a lot of later material that gives more depth to his philosophy and to the show's messages. Slight spoilers for manga arcs below. The thing about 11 Strikers and even the Striker-focused methodology of Blue Lock was a bluff. It was the hook he needed to make the project start, but it is becoming increasingly clear that Blue Lock was not solely about creating the Best Striker at the expense of the other kids, but providing to them, through failure, the means of finding new identities. It is, to a degree, a dog-eat-dog philosophy of "if you're not good enough to be the Number One striker, consider something else of perish", but the opening IS there. Many characters have transitioned into other roles, like defenders and even a goalkeeper, and current matches display those people as just as important as the strikers. As you said - truth is a weapon to Ego. He picked hundreds of kids that had the dream of being the best striker in the world, which, as a citizen of Brazil, I can attest is the dream of every kid that cares about soccer - and then put their dreams to the fire. And the simple reality of sports is that there is no room for 100 strikers in Japan's national team, and some people simply will never be as good as Isagi or Barou. But they got to, organically, through experimentation in the shadow of that failure, find new paths for themselves. In that sense, Isagi is the protagonist precisely because he is the one that is not allowing his dream of being The Striker fade even under the fires of harsh competition - despite the fact his skillset is much more suited for other positions truth be told, and he excels much more as a playmaker than as a striker up until the very last match of the manga, in which finally he seems to be becoming the pure striker he always wished to be with the chops to back it up. I will also point out - Fascist is a collectivist philosophy; not in the left-wing sense of collectivism, of course, as the collective good it seeks is the "collective" good of a small chunk of people, but within that chunk, it is not an ideology that promotes individualism or individual thinking. Ego, and Blue Lock, are fundamented in Individualism, as you pointed out. So while I agree Ego displays some signs of fascist methods at the outset, I am not sure I'd apply the label to him when taken as a whole with the material as it is now (not to mention what future revelations may bring - I'll be honest, I'm skeptical that the whole "folks eliminated from Blue Lock will never get to play again" thing is true). Another point in which I think the comparison fall apart is the fact that - yes, Fascism prepares youth for war and Ego is preparing youth for the "war" of football. But unlike real world, in which this is a mean to exploit these youth for political gain and the war would be entirely evitable otherwise, you cannot really avoid the realities of the challenges of professional football if you want to be a pro player - which all of those kids do want to. It *is* a meritocratic, dog-eat-dog world that they are entering out of their own desires. Ego wanted to create an ego-driven brand of football in Japan in which people evolve by trying to outperform their teammates just as much as their opponents; in which the player is at war with everyone in the field. It is crazy, but I genuinely do not think it is destructive for these kids. They're not being all fed to Isagi and, as of the most recent manga chapter, everyone that made it through the first round is starting to get international exposure and some even millionaire contracts. The one big ethics dilemna of it all is the ultimate faith of those eliminated from Blue Lock - of Ego's words of ending their careers is true, then it could ultimately be ethically impossible to justify. But considering how some of his lies have taken shape currently, as I said, I remain a bit skeptical.
I agree with all of these points and personally disliked the video as a result. While I think its an interesting thought, I dont think it actually holds any water and is more representative of what's needed for a good competitive mindset more than anything. Also some things definitely are twisted to try and make the analogy work. I thought a great example was when the video pointed out that ego pushed the players to blame everything on themselves. Of course he would as the only player you can control is yourself. It's a great mindset to have and one that helps to improve yourself and you see this mindset with anything team oriented. I am an anime only though so it sounds like this video gets worse and worse when accounting for the manga. Overall felt like the video was a very big reach
@@fiery1865 yeah... Like, I get the points, but to claim that Ego's philosophy is exploiting and hurting these kids is factually untrue with what has been presented in the text. Literally the most recent chapter a character has managed to surpass his childhood trauma of being raised to conform to his parents expectations by embracing Ego's individualist philosophy. It has even started to have positive impacts on the lives of people not involved in Blue Lock - Barou out-ego'd a professional player and managed to get him out of a slump caused by a very traumatic backstory event. Ego's philosophy lights a fire under everyone's asses. And yes, this is a philosophy that could be extremely destructive in a different context - but in the context of aspiring professional footballers, I do not think it is. I think ExPo went a bit too clickbaity with this and it muddled the strongest point in the entire video: that the anime industry and therefore the japanese cultural mindset as a whole is shifting from collectivism and individualism, and that philosophy can have either positive or negative impacts (just like collectivism can be positive or negative). I think he could have crafted something much more interesting by focusing on that thesis rather than just drawing half-valid analogies between Ego's methods and fascist methods - but "Blue Lock is an individualist anime" would have made much less clicks so I kinda get it lmao.
Btw even in an anime only context we can see the positive aspects of Ego fostering individualism in these kids - for example, Bacchira learning to surpass his loneliness by relying on himself (and the whole Nagi/Leo mess, although the core of their arc is still to come).
@@lucasrosa1108 yeah I didn't even think of that and now reading some other stuff along with my own thoughts this has to be my least favorite video of all time so far ngl. 100% because i romanticize competition probably to an unhealthy degree. I think what you said about Japan shifting from a more collectivist to individualistic society would have made for a much much better video that covers a more interesting topic than one that feels this superficial. This video was definitely taking something out of context and completely ignoring everything surrounding it to try and fit the analogy so i think one just focused on the cultural mindset shift would make for a better video. Plus you could do fun stuff like analyze trends and see if you find any additional stuff that could support that. I haven't seen any of ExPo's other work so I'm wondering what his better videos look like
@@fiery1865 it's a good channel. Do not let your opinions of this video dissisde you from checking the rest. His video on the changes that Frozen undergoes as the song Let it Go gets adapted in multiple languages to the point of completely shifting the themes of the work is genuinely incredible
Been trying to convince people Blue Lock isn't Sports Anime like Haikyuu or Ao Ashi. This is a great video essay I will use to further expand on that so I highly appreciate the effort of this channel and the creator for this great content. What I find great about Blue Lock isn't the athletic aspect but its protag, Isagi who subverts & overcomes the Fascist prison he finds himself albeit as it affects his character.
I love these videos where you go deep into subjects, where we learn through your creativity and humour. Like with DDLC and determinism, and Madoka Magica and hope. Fantastic as always
Its also interesting is that the whole structure of Ego's team doesn't really work that well. You mentioned how he quotes players to reinforce his goal even though a lot of those players never won a World Cup, there is also several examples of teams with amazing strikers getting bounced early or even failing to qualify entirely, like Norway with Holland at striker. Most of the deep run teams tend to be able to either play a counter attacking style to absorb attacks and brutally punish mistakes or have good passing and ball winning abilities to sustain pressure to crack a defense, not usually because some striker went one man army. Most times a striker tries to carry a team like Ego wants, the team usually gets bounced because its not a sustainable way to win (See Messi up until the last WC when Argentina finally had a squad to support and help him, or Renaldo's entire WC career) While teamwork does kinda get enforced later on, it still doesnt really outweigh the vast overtones that Ego is trying to create a team of hotheads that are me first and focus primarily on offense which is gonna backfire when they face a team that can weather the storm. Basically Ego's making the English national team
@@somik-i3x In the manga they actually go up against godly defense; And they actually end up winning. Someone with similar ability as the MC was put in defense, the guy who can copy people's moves at 90% accuracy was also in defense; And the tallest guy with crazy instinct and reflex was put as a goalie. Like what the video said, most of what Ego says is bullshit; Even the whole striker thing, he needs 1 guy that forces other players to play their hardest (Which most likely Isagi; As the manga goes on more people start hating him lol).
I like the ending where you make that clear distinction between Zom 100 message on individualism vs Classroom Of The Elite's individualism. Great video
Part of the "football (not soccer, murica) only had strikers" is true and that's because the beginning of football was just some people running around with a ball, the beginning there were no rules, no positions, nothing. If you watch kids playing football, you will notice how each one of them runs towards the ball so they can make a goal. All of them want to be the striker.
I was thinking about that too. I imagine that over time more effective strategies were formed, and the teams who established them started winning more, meaning other teams adopted them, then other teams improved on them, or countered previous strategies, which lead to new ones, and on and on. Like someone must have realized that leaving your goal open while everyone went on offense lead to getting scored on more, so they started holding people back to defend.
That's an assumption and a half. Before anyone taught me and my friends the rules, there were plenty of people who did not want to run to the ball, or let other people run first. Lot's of people let our best grab the ball, and became goalies or defenders. Even reallly young children know it's a stupid idea to charge into a bunch of kids also running at the same spot, at least someone will stay behind. The only way this could be true, is if somehow all children are stupid and immediately throw themselves out to grab the ball and shoot, even if they hit their heads against each other.
@@popopop984 Nobody said kids are stupid. They just want the ball. Every single one? No, obviously not. But I’ve been to enough of my kids’ soccer games to know that, even with coaching, most of the time they’re all charging right after the ball. The number one thing being yelled was always, “spread out! Don’t bunch up!”
wow i remember clicking on your first video on the BNHA subreddit all those years ago, it's great to see that you're still going and that you haven't changed your editing style And your penchant for great analysis as well! enjoyed the video
I have an old friend that's been going through some stuff for the past few years. He was always leaning more conservatively, but a few years ago he had a messy breakup after several years. He then started spiraling even more towards certain sentiments. More into dank memes & edgy humor; more into Peterson & Shapiro (and similar influencers); more acceptance of conspiracy theories; more suspicion of an undescribed "other"; more pro-gun sentiments, more Libertarian leanings; more interest in Bitcoin & NFTs; more distrust of post-modernism/feminism/progressivism; more anger at female-lead media & diverse casting; more MGTOW-sentiments; more hours in Elden Rings; more support of Eren Ieger; complete adoration of Elon Musk & immediate approval of his every move, and many other issues... You get the idea. (I know some of these things don't immediately mean something bad, but when all of them are combined, you start seeing a picture). At first I tried to talk with him, but when I saw the way he was set on this, I just gradually started seeing less of him... One time when I did see him, he suggested we see a show that completely changed him for the better - Blue Lock. He said that finally he found a shonen that shows how life REALLY is, instead of promoting those fake messages about "comradery". I was very hesitant, especially considering his gradual change in the last few years, but we ended up watching some episodes. So far, we've watched ~13 episodes, over several meetings. It's been a year & we're only at ep14, because I am more & more reluctant to meet him, as time goes on. First let me say this: It is a *very* well made show, in terms of presentation. The animation is amazing, the flow is swaying you all the time, the music builds up momentum & eagerness perfectly. The quality of its exterior is phenomenal - It's really wrapped perfectly. But WOW, that message is literally atrocious. Ever since I started seeing it, I've been waiting for someone to talk about how fucked up & fascist it is. Every time I'm at his place, half of me is unable to believe this thing actually exists. -The senseless speechs & actions of everyone around -The unresonable personal responsibility fetish -The fascist imagery & setting The setting! It's like Stephen King's The Long Walk, or Battle Royal - But it thinks those were GOOD things! Can we talk about that Ego speech from the beginning, where he claims that in order to create 1 super-striker, they will need to *sacrifice* the careers of 299 less-talented strikers? How they constantly return to sacrifice of the weak to promote the strong? How this show constantly sounds like it's promoting the Great Men theory? It's basically Battle Royal, but instead of actually dying, you just lose your ability to play professional Football for the rest of your life. Actually, I think this is even more sinister, because like this it can feel like high stakes, without viewers having to deal with the horrors of fascism & war, when they see the "others" lose to Isagi. There was a moment after a match, where they showed the game field like a warzone, with the opposing team crying about their loss. Isagi goes to the best player in that team, as they're usually supposed to help them up & say it was a good game. But instead, he just looks at the other miserable kid & thinks to himself how much JOY he's feeling, at watching that enemy completely obliterated at his feet. This happens, while there is imagery of an actual broken battlefield, with smoke, explosions & wounded soldiers lying around... I also called it "The Fascist-Football Anime", when I told other friends about it. I dunno if the creator of the show is really a fascist - But his show 100% is. Unless this show ends with a complete 180 of the ending proving how the message was all a lie (and even then, I'll still be skeptical - *ahm*AOT*ahm*), I don't think we can call it anything else. Sorry for this long message, thank you for this very interested (and well-made) video. I'm glad someone finally said something about this, I was losing my shit.
@@adventurer3288 By itself, it's not a bad thing. Just like enjoying dank memes, liking certain types of movies or having an edgy sense of humor - I know many people who are totally fine & enjoy Elden Rings. It's just that Elden Ring represents another small thing that this type of people usually enjoy, and he was (is?) downright obsessed with that franchise. If it was just someone liking a hard game, I wouldn't mention it - But it was the whole deal: A "Git Gud" mentality, claiming "If you're not playing on Hard mode, you aren't really a gamer", glorifying the DIY mentality, etc...
As someone who is outspokenly anti-fascist and loves and is currently obsessed with Blue Lock, this video is bloody fantastic. Great job. Notes: A game like soccer is one of the rare instances where several aspects of fascism naturally apply and can be helpful. Because the goal of the game by definition is to score more goals, it creates inherent value in dominating in physical competition (within soccer). Because there are only so few people who end up standing on the field in a national level, pooling all the resources towards those doing well, and using and discarding the other 99% of people is optimal. There is no use in improving all players, they only want a select elite. Because at todays level of competition requiring pros to strutcure their entire lives around soccer, spurring a focused ferver and egotistical passion helps keeping people motivated. Because ultimately, 1 single person scores the goal, this lends itself to the *narrative* of the hero who achieves victory, even if they obviously didn't do it all by themselves. And of course, it lends itself easily to nationalism, because nations are in direct competition to be #1 Precisely because Jinpachi Ego lies all the time, I doubt how much of his focus on strikers is sincere. I think the actual goal wasn't just to mold strikers, but a general mindset that helps raise up players. We've seen a handful of examples where players pursued their ego in a way that isnt about scoring goals. Niko enjoys being in the defence and shutting down enemy attacks. Reo mostly lets Nagi shoot goals, but still sees himself as the protagonist of his own story. And lastly, as a fellow ADHDer, glad to hear you're doing better. Your style of videos feels not just good to watch for my ADHD brain, I imagine just endlessly stacking relevant imagery also feels natural and enjoyable to create 💜
You make a compelling case, and I agree that the show overall has some really serious issues that need to be properly grappled with. That said, there was a moment in this show that actually did help me- when Isagi scores his first goal, his little speech about not wanting to be the sort of person who would pass when he could take his own shot hit me hard, because I was deeply depressed at the time, and felt like I wasn't worthy of having my own desires. Just the simple affirmation that self-interest is actually a worthy thing, and that you can believe in yourself, even in a harsh reality, was very helpful for helping me break that view. That feeling might be part of why the show was so popular, as I can see a similar mindset being a negative outcome of the collectivist Japanese culture. Self-interest shouldn't allow you to take steps to harm others' happiness, but everyone is worthy of taking their own needs and desires into account. It sounds like I could've gotten that lesson in a more positive overall package from Zom100, but I got it here.
The problem with this is that the "nationalist" motivation of Blue Lock is on the background. The players evolve for themselves, getting to play in the National Team is a consequence that most don't even give much of a comment about. No one says anything about giving glory to Japan or making the nation proud. Blue Lock is very individualistic(while Fascism is colectivist, undeniably) in its core, and even then, Isagi gets constantly praised for being able to coexist with everyone on the field no matter what. The players constantly question and berate Ego, some eventually learn to play other positions and find their "ego" in them. You can't take most of what ego says at face value because he lies, and a lot. Instead of just looking at what he says, look at what actually happens. The story recognizes that Isagi won against Naruhaya because he is talented and Naruhaya isn't, something out of his control. The story itself acknowledges Ego as a lunatic, as said by multiple characters, including the best striker in the world, Noel Noa. An obviously bad character does bad things which aren't(totally) endorsed by the story, who would've thought
As a French, I can confirm a live in a slum surrounded by crime and poverty. My only hope for survival is the ball, sadly I had to settle for an AI develloper certification since I'm not an Übermensch.
This is one of the best explanation of how fascim works and how it perpetuates itself, using a dumb soccer show as an example, and somehow you managed to make me understand something a teacher in college failed to.
Hilariously, the actual anime about American Football very quickly debunks the ideas in and around BlueLock. It get real weird about race, but it clearly tries to course correct (perhaps a bit late for my taste, but the effort is noted, and in the context of a Japanese show from Japan? Pretty good.)
no sport will be more american than monster trucks. fuck football. can any of those guys beat Grave Digger in a fight? DIDN'T THINK SO. MY earliest memory is of Bad To the Bone I BLEED red white and blue! USUSUSUSUS!
You really are one of the best out there! Been subbed back since, I think, before the SAO stuff and you're style of Video essay's is unique and engaging even for my own crippling ADHD. Good Job!
This is fantastic, I love Blue Lock, but yeah it did give me this off putting feeling once in a while, and this has helped me identify exactly what that is.
Ego's not wrong when it comes to improving at what you're skilled at, if you start from the beginning and "relearn" it from Zero to One But that's about it bro just mentally abuses his favorite twinks like a Helicopter Parent
13:44 Fun fact: In 300, pictured here, the spartan army fights a lot like the characters from Blue Lock, with each soldier seeking glory by personally killing the most enemies, and only regrouping when necessary. But not only the historical spartans NEVER broke formation, they also heavily criticized inidividualism in battle.
i strongly disagree with white men losing anything due to growing equality. it might be a perceived loss but the leveling of the field gives men support and freedom, emotionally and otherwise, and from my perspective leads to a much healthier life.
I enjoy blue lock because I think the morally corrupt setup is interesting, as well as the ideas behind what it takes to "win" regardless of the personal or ethical costs, but I REALLY do hope that no one uncritically consumes these ideas. The manga I think frames it as "It is a necessity to be a villain sometimes to be the very best of the best" and some exploration is given to the consequences of an all or nothing mentality (thinking, Mick from an arc not yet adapted in the anime), but because the focus isn't on what's "wrong" or "right", but rather "what functionally works", I can see it being rather easy to uncritically take everything as genuine life advice and essentially fall to Ego's ideology/manipulation. The animanga is about "how to become the best", but despite what a lot of popular media has to say, being the best is not necessarily coupled with being happy, stable, or a good person..
It really stinks because otherwise I actually quite enjoy the show, great world building and power system but the main character is such an unredeemable piece of garbage.
@@jeremiahbennett3004 But that's like one of the core points of the show lmao. He is meant to be a terrible individual, trying and failing to improve himself, even deep into the series he is quite a questionable man, but he does improve, and that's the point. People point at his assault on Eris as an example of "He is bad" like it's a gotcha moment and I am always amazed. Yeah people, not having explicit consent is bad, that's EXACTLY what the story is saying right there. That was the point, that scene was about how Rudeus was still absolutely ready to shut off his morality. I absolutely understand why people might not like a story like that, but it's a core feature. He does become a more moral person, and even before his improvment becomes explicit he is a guy that stands for his loved ones, tries to be helpful and supportive of others, even if he falls into terrible pits here and there. It's a story about improving from the lowest bottom, family and the humanity in all people.
@@lorenzomeulli750tbh, I feel like while the show is about someone irredeemable aiming for redemption, the show doesn't treat his perversion as a flaw that needs fixing. It's always treated as something funny or a minor character quirk. Maybe this changes later but so far this is the case
@@kumjumba1377he gets better just not anywhere near perfect. I’d say he’s pretty functional by the halfway mark. Tbh the novels are better than the anime for the actual character building but it’s also a pretty healthy amount of reading.
Lmao as someone who likes the series I agree with his ribbing. I enjoy the series and all but if I met someone like Rudy irl I’d have to try really really hard to keep myself from going to jail.
I should note the idea that fascism is individualistic is itself a form of propaganda. Think about it fascism preaches fanatic loyalty to the state, demands you fit into rigid social classifications and enforces a strict dominance hierarchy, I don't know about you but that doesn't sound very individualistic to me. There's a lot of reasons fascism claims to be individualistic but the biggest reason is this. Those at the top of the hierarchy want the most privilege for the least effort, in order to get that they need those below them to do the most work for the smallest rewards. The attitude of life as meritocracy is a great way to achieve that since it discourages people from collective active such as unionising for higher pay and campaigning for a social safety net and instead tells people that they should work like slaves, that the work life balance of a slave is desirable even. It gets you pledge fealty to your rulers without demanding anything in return. The social darwinist form of meritocracy is essentially a form of what Jason Stanley calls undermining propaganda which is propaganda that claims to support an ideal in the name of undermining it. This is why Fascism is such a dangerous Ideology it takes takes both the mob mentality of collectivism and the vulnerable position of individualism of nothing in return and we must emphasise that. Fascist ideology is everything it wants you to think it is not , it will enslave you under the guise of freeing you, it will oppress you under the guise of empowering you and it will leave no lie untold, no throat unslit, no atrocity uncommited until it has complete power over your life. Fascism is humanity at it's worst and if there is any good in us, we must defeat it.
Most Americans tend to just upcycle their right wing into fascism it's such a meme. Man doesnt even mention the Nazis racial community (Volksgemeinschaft) or imperial japan. Lad he read one book and thinks he can spew knowledge about this complicated subject, just another Dunning Kruger RU-vidr.
“It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own pride is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole; that pride and conceitedness, the feeling that the individual ... is superior, so far from being merely laughable, involve great dangers for the existence of the community that is a nation; that above all the unity of a nation’s spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and the will of an individual; and that the higher interests involved in the life of the whole must here set the limits and lay down the duties of interests of the individual. ... By this we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men. ” -AH
This is just my two cents as someone with some experiences with Japan and also with sports and the goofy “get points better perks.” The club for my sport has 2 practices a week for A&B teams and 1 day a week for C. The C players get half the practice and mostly play each other and they don’t have much of a coach therefore they don’t get good enough fast enough. In the 3-4 years it has been this way not 1 person has moved up to B team as it is just new people with past experience replacing those who leave the “rich get richer.” So in a collectivist culture like Japan you have a different problem that also leads to stagnation of those with potential so rather than the “rich get richer” where those who suck with unique potential don’t get created it becomes in Japan a system where those with unique potential can easily get silenced. Everyone progresses the same path and isn’t furthering their own abilities without doing random thing on their own and teaching themselves. Without individualism in learning a sport you end up with people who have the potential, fundamental skills, and time in the game but don’t fit the mold and only those who’s strengths align with the teaching style succeed. So Ego takes the extreme approach to even it out with 2 extremes. Extreme homogeny to extreme individualism. And having an ego can be your fuel and that is often different for everyone but ego is one that really just dies out once you are the best. Like it is hard to workout with heartbreak as a motivation when you are in a happy relationship so people don’t maintain specific resolve. So creating a selfish person for the most selfish position and fueling them with selfishness makes sense in this case as everyone there IS the same way. So the fascism is 100% there but I don’t think the system is as silly as some people seem to make it (other than the goofy tech and like trying to make some kind of death alternative if they lose). It makes sense as a way to try and move the mentality away from an extreme that is not functional for them with one that is for that exact kind of person and give them the kind of environment to find those things they can do that they never knew they could, although too much focus on those who are already good is problematic.
I love the other anime "cameos" that pop up throughout this as visual gags. (Particularly Luffy, who isn't just rubber...his whole thing is "gumming up the works" for authoritarian types! Also the 'Spice and Wolf' reference - 16:56 - because I would swear that show got rated 'mature' for the amount of talk of currency exchange and such!) It's a spoonful of sugar that makes an unpleasant but important topic go down easier.
One thing that concerns me with mainstream anime culture is the lack of discussion of Isekai anime and their undertones of wish fulfillment for hikimori/incels and their overlap with the men’s rights narrative. There must be discussions but I doubt the fans loving these shows run into those discussions
Oh for sure there definitely should be. I like the world building and character writing in Mushoku Tensei but I’m not some rose tinted glasses type enjoyer. I can see some rough ideas translated to the page and some character choices while impactful make me pretty uncomfortable. I think a lot of isekai is like what hunger stones are to drought when talking about the hikikomori/incel problem. These guys don’t see a future in this world so they project on the blank slates(not super applicable in a series like MT but some people still do🤢)and think the first step toward the harem of big tiddy anime women is suicide. That’s really bleak to me. And while I think mra people identify problems their solutions almost always seem to be the opposite of what should actually be done. Tl;dr as a fan of some of the genre I consistently see things that hurt to read or watch because some guy out there, instead of going out and trying to find someone and using this as just basic entertainment, wants to be the character that was killed and taken to another world which I’d say is a form of suicidal ideation or at least close. Idk there definitely is a lot to talk about and unpack here but I’m afraid that once we pull the string a big bad knot is gonna come undone.
Another part you didn't touch, is that, empirically speaking, this kind of environment has been shown to be more likely to decrease performance of an athletic team, (and not just for the obvious reason that all strikers is super dumb) as it creates bad practice habits and mentality issues In particular it tends to kill "growth mindset" and creates a more fixed one, as the super-focus on results over effort (or worse, assumption that results *are* effort) tends to make people who are underperforming with high effort feel like they are impossible to make better, and many on the top feel like they are just born talented and don't need to work as hard, as they've already created results It saps away at your sense of "self-efficacy" (we'll call this confidence) when you're laid low, which, as it turns out, is actually a predictor of performance in athletics. More so, the lack of interdependency that's promoted can sap away at teammate *created* sense of confidence, as that sign of a teammate trusting you can actually improve said confidence. like, the entire concept of "we are made stronger by this fear to improve" is bullshit, if anything things like telling all your students they're at the bottom in this big heirarchical system will create burnout and depressive death spirals
this true... when it comes to general development when it comes to individual development? not so much yes, this kind of environment will not benefit most of the athletes and some of them will be affected negatively but the ones that don't already are the best and they will grow a lot more due to being able to respond to the pressure in the correct way and how could they not? recovery, mentality, performance, focus, emotional stability, sports IQ, everything that makes you a better athlete helps you to recover/escape from the burnout/depression spirals a stronger more capable person needs harder challenges than the average, and I think that's the point of the blue lock project most of the 300 players don't matter, only less than 25 that will play in the selection kind of matter, from them only around 8 true strikers matter and only the one that wins will truly matter
@@NuwandaLunaDragon I think you missed the other part of the problem here: Not only will the bottom falling out create a lack of competition for those at the top, but also it's been shown that people who start to indulge in a "fixed mindset", and begin to believe that their success is just "being better" (a common result of a results-oriented style of coaching), that they tend to be *less* likely to take on more challenging tasks or do very much beyond their purview. Only doing the things they *know* they're good at, and avoiding things that they're not. Which clearly runs opposite to *actually improving* in these situations Not to mention, from what I can tell about the show is that *all* the players get told they're on the bottom. Which can't be good for building their confidence in themselves.
@@meiliyinhua7486 the bottom wasn't real competition for the top to begin with and I'm telling you this as an athlete, someone worse than you will give you nothing unless you actively put a handicap, what you want is people at least slightly below you and preferably slightly above your level you're right with the second point, people with that mindset are less likely to take the challenges required to progress, but here comes the most important part, the pursue of a better challenge. Both in blue lock and real life an athlete must move towards a bigger challenge, ego kept this idea in the player's head by making the best play against pro adult players and obviously get destroyed comfortability will never bring adaptation, that's why regardless of mindset both the athlete and the coach must never remain stagnant and then again with the last point, if you lose confidence in yourself for being ranked the lowest, how were you going to accept defeat against national selections? how are you going to train when you are alone and in a bad environment? how about a family tragedy? and not to talk about injuries Someone with the correct mentality will not let their confidence be affected by that, they will remain as a machine or even get excited from the expectations of better opponents And this is not only a way to separate the strong minded from the weak minded, it's also helpful the more you keep moving forward against obstacles, both physical and mental, the more obstacles you can overcome without sacrificing performance
@@NuwandaLunaDragon The bottom wasn't competition, but they fall out, then the people just above them, and just above them, etc. And while I understand the perspective of "resilient mentality overcoming", after prolonged experience with even your best efforts continually creating the *worst* results, you have to be a literal robot in order for that to not get to you at all.
Possibly your best video ever, really enjoyable and thoughtful to watch, clearly well researched and not missing any of your signature style that I subscribed for in the first place. 10/10 please make more
Hey dude I just stumbled upon your video after like. A pretty disasterous month of video essayists being pointed out for being uh. Silly. But your video made me feel pretty!! Good!! Between the choice of images you chose to stack, the use of citations and examples to break down the meaning of facism and the conclusion of "consume media wisely" was really sick. Idk man the effort and thought you put in for silly soccer anime was super cool and I hope to stumble across more of your vids!!
This, this shit right here is why I love Blue Lock, it takes a worn out overused concept, and makes it interesting. People are always making video essays on this show, and will be to the last chapter. It’s great.
