Alright, full disclosure time. Last time, when I said I wanted to get a bit more digital, I originally wanted to review the fifth Digimon season, Digimon Savers. I did watch about half of it, but then something happened. Something that happens just about every year to me, finals. When ever those accursed tests roll around, I usually have to temporarily shelve whatever show I am currently watching. And after I finish those finals, I usually just can’t get back into whatever show I shelved. I try, but I just don’t want to watch it anymore, which is very unfortunate. Savers was a good show, it’s over all plot was interesting, and I liked how the main character would punch Digimon, who are a couple stories high, right in the face without even thinking about it. But for now, the show is dropped. And instead, I decided to watch a soccer anime. A soccer anime that completely changed the way I look at sports anime, a show that had me cheering in my seat, a show that was just… well I might be a getting a bit ahead of myself. This is Giant Killing.
Sports anime is a genre of anime that I have never been really into until recently. The most I had ever seen before was Prince of Tennis, and I don’t really consider Prince of Tennis to be a sports anime, it is more of a shonen battle anime, with tennis as the fighting style. But no real sports anime really spoke to me. At a friends insistence, I started watching Knight in the Area, and I have to admit, it was that shows really good story telling and interesting characters that made me decide to start watching more sports anime, and this lead to Giant Killing.
Giant Killing is a 26 episode soccer anime. It follows the national team, East Tokyo United, a team that was once one top of the world until it’s star player decided to leave one day, causing the team to fall. After continues coach changes, the loss of many fans, and the team becoming stagnate, the current CEO of ETU decides they need a change, and goes to find a new coach that will bring ETU back to its former glory. Enter Takeshi Tatsumi, the player who once left ETU, and the player many blame for their current predicament. He went off to England, and became a coach of a smaller team, making a small village’s football club into a legitimate contender for one of England’s biggest soccer tournament. Now he comes back to bring ETU back to its former glory, by making them giant killers.
The term giant killing refers to when a smaller, weaker team defeats a larger, more experienced, just plain better team, or taking out the giant. It is the core concept for this show, to make ETU, a team that is on the bottom, into giant killers, taking out every other major soccer club in Japan, until they are the champions. This is usually what makes any sports series interesting, the underdog coming from behind and winning, it is what makes it interesting. But the concept has become a bit cliché, and has become more and more difficult to do. This is especially true in an anime with a tradition single elimination tournament. It is hard to make it seem like the main character’s team is the underdog when they are winning every match. But Giant Killing seems to avoid this by having the tournament be more of a round robin type tournament. I honestly don’t know how round robin works, but I know that you can lose a few and still come out on top. And ETU loses. A lot. Like four times in a row, and when they are not losing, they are plying to a draw. This is perfect. It shows that the team is still bad, that the reason they were losing before is still there, and that their problems can’t be fixed over night. And when they win, or even when they score a single goal, you feel it. You feel the elation of watching your home team win, score, and play a good game.
I believe that is the key to the success to Giant Killing. The show doesn’t feel like watching an anime, it feels like I am watching a real team, a real soccer match. When they score, it is exciting and pulse pounding. I want them to win, not just because EUT is the protagonist, but because I actually root for them. They are more then just the main characters, they are my team. Let me compare this to basically the only other soccer anime I have ever really watched, Knight in the Area. Knight in the Area is not a bad show in my opinion. But it is worse then Giant Killing. It is worse because I am not as attached to the characters as I am in Giant Killing. There is no pressure in the matches that happen in Knight in the Area. I know they are going to win every match, and that a draw will almost never happen. But every match is uncertain in Giant Killing. Even in the match they had to win, the match that the whole series was leading up to, and if they lost would seem like a great betrayal to the audience, still felt like a high pressure game and as if it was real. I cannot say that about any single match that has happened so far in Knight in the Area.
For me thought that is only half of the success of Giant Killing. Again, this series to me is great because of the great characters that inhabit this world. The team that make up ETU are not just a couple of players who we know by name, and then a bunch of guys who you don’t really care about. Every position in the field is a character who you get to know. From the beleaguered captain Murokoshi who has to learn to adapt to the strange coach, to the arrogant yet skillful Prince. To the idiot player who has to learn what it means to be a forward Natsuki, to the character I felt deserved score every game, Sera. To the defense men, Kuroda and Sugie, to the goalkeeper Dori. Every single member of this team, including some I never mentioned, adds something to the team, making them more then just the sum of their parts. And then there is Tsubaki. Next to Tatsumi, I would say Tsubaki is the closest thing to a main character this series has. Tsubaki is clumsy, yet passionate about soccer. He is young and naive, and always seems to mess up. Except for that one time. That one time, that simple moment, the one out of ten times Tsubaki has the ball, something magical happens. Tsubaki is the boiled down representation of that moment you see in every sports anime, when they are up against the wall, but that one play saves the day and brings them to victory, that they have just about every single match. Except Tsubaki doesn’t always save the day. He messes up, he fouls, he even lets the other team score. He is believable. And when he does succeed, when he does score, when he is the one who takes the ball across the entire field, past the defenders, and puts that ball into the goal, it is all the more believable.
If I was forced to boil down Giant killing into one word, I think I would choose “believable.” and that is what I love about it. While other anime go for the over the top, the unbelievable or the classic shonen, which in itself isn’t bad, Giant Killing sticks to reality. Every action in the show is believable, as if a team could actually bring it around and go from last place to top of the pile. Giant Killing is probably one of the best sports anime I have ever seen, or in the very least it has become my favorite. I would recommend Giant Killing to any sports anime fans in a heartbeat, and also for anyone who doesn’t like more traditional sports anime, because it is nothing like the usual. So until next time, have fun watching.
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