Review of Giant Killing

I checked the recommendations for One Outs after I finished it and saw this show in the list. Never heard of it before, but it definitely surprised in a positive way. ETU is a football (soccer) club that has gone through a number of different coaches, none of which produced any good results, in fact it was one disaster after another. ETU went from a storied team at its height, to a fringe club barely keeping up in the league play with its all around defensive play. One of the new managers decides to hunt down one of ETU's last star players in England basedon some rumors he had heard about his coaching prowess. It turned out that the former player, Tatsumi, was indeed a force in England. After an invitation to return to his old team, the story of the ETU Giant Killing begins.

From the title, you should be able to tell this is an underdog story of a small club on the verge of total collapse being hoisted up to its former glory. Although, it isn't nearly as dramatic a turn as One Outs, the team is slowly brought together throughout the 26 episodes to places that seemed hard to fathom early on.

Tatsumi, the new head coach, is a bit of an eccentric, perhaps even a genius. But no one really knows what he's thinking, and it doesn't necessarily become obvious. The charm of the show is in seeing how the Tatsumi deals with all the challenges he faces. And its definitely not easy.

The story is solid, even realistic in its approach, any real fans of soccer will most likely appreciate the inner workings of the struggling football club. They really do face off with giants in the football world, and while it often doesn't go to plan, the ride it takes you on is no less interesting.

The characters were the highlight, in fact, i would say this is mainly a character driven plot. so many of the team have their personal battles they wage on the pitch and that's what keeps you engaged.

The art was different, although not bad, it can be a little jarring to someone not used to the character designs. It grows on you, but the animation doesn't do much to back it up. It's not sloppy or weak, its rather consistent, but its nothing special.

The negatives here is the pacing, its all over the pace, sometimes games last half an episode, other times they span multiple episodes and i'm not sure that was done out of importance. The schemes that Tatsumi comes up with aren't really highlighted well, so its not as if you're glued to your seat watiing to see what comes next. The similarities to One Outs are there, but they are nothing alike. Tatsumi isn't really mysterious so much as he is eccentric; and he loves going all in on things even though alot of it is calculated, the realism doesn't allow for it to play out in ETU's favor as often as you'd think.

I really did enjoy the show, the things they did right outweigh the negatives by a large margin, although i'm not sure this is a show for everyone. You have to try it and see if it fits