Never have been a fan of the genre and I don't think i ever will be. its just one of those genre's that consist of powerlevel rising again and again. Even so, i stumbled upon the series one day when i was bored and was looking for something new to read. The artstyle looked unique, thought why not and gave it a shot.
Tsunamata seems to have put together just the right things from various series and has made the best of them. The act of Giant Killing in football isn't exactly a new one, and it is done regularly. Combining this with the amount of suspense that gets played through rarely throughout sports anime, it works fantastically. What's better than a series that concentrates on what makes sports series good? The main club, ETU is notorious for being a low ranked team, they only have few skilled players however with the help of the infamous manager Takeshi Tatsumi, they are able to beat one of the strongest teams in the league.
The main thing i liked about this series was that its explained to you that these guys aren't miracle workers. You're told the limits of their abilities from the start, there's none of this "i'm so skilled i learnt this in a week" or phenomenal growth spurts as players. There is also a large focus on building the team, how ETU as a team grow and progress is shown throughout.
While the series had started animation while the manga is stil ongoing, it covered enough to not have any material made up with the exception of the last episode. which i found to be pointless, but a fun enough watch in the end. Its a series i'd recommend to anyone, its good, nothing great. but absolutely worth a watch.
