Review of Giant Killing

In the world of sports being the underdog can sometimes not be a bad thing. Because people do not expect that much of you, you can easily surprise them by putting in a very good performance. However this is not the case for many years for East Tokyo United football club. That is until the new young manager tatsumi takeshi begins his ETU managing career and they now look to regain their honor. Giant killing is a sports anime. Sports anime have giants such as kuroko no basket, Haikyuu and diamond no ace. Even within the soccer sub genre giant killing is still rarelymentioned among fans. However I did find giant killing and started watching it due to my fondness of soccer in real life. However after finally finishing it I came to the conclusion that giant killing is an anime that I enjoyed, however it had some crippling flaws that really held it back in terms of giving it a score.

The story of giant killing at first glance looks pretty basic. However when analyzed further it can definitely be seen that it is different than the average sports anime. The main characters if ETU are all adults. They aren't in high school where the stakes are low these people are real adults who are trying to make a living playing the sport they love. And for the most part I really like this. It gives more weight to the story and characters.

However a major problem with the story is that they seem to skip over several details of an actual soccer match which makes the pacing very poor. For example some of the league matches are just completely skipped over and we are given a result than they move on to the next event. This make several matches seem more insignificant than they actually are and it causes boredom. I will have to applaud that the last few episodes of giant killing were really good and I wish the rest of the series was like that. The ending to the series while nice, ,made the series very incomplete.

The characters of giant killing weren't actually half bad. All of the team members have good chemistry and work well together. They also enter many realistic and believable situations as both a team and individual players. They also grow and develop throughout the course of the story. This was very fun and entertaining to watch.

In particular some very good characters in this series were Murakoshi, Macchan, and finally the eccentric and wacky manager Tatsumi Takeshi. Tatsumi was a great character because he was able bring out the best and believe in his players. He also used several unusual methods that are doubted my many but end up working in the long run.

The art of giant killing was very disappointing. The character designs were way too angular for my taste and they made use of really terrible cgi at some points in the series. There was also unsuitable lighting which distracted from some important moments in the actual anime. The voice acting of giant killing was not bad at all and the voice actors portrayed their rolls very well. I also enjoyed much of the music present in the anime.

One personal enjoyment I had with giant killing was that the fans were very realistic in relation with the type of team ETU is. Some of the characters who were fans were very interesting and the spirit really shined through. This was also relatable to me in real life as I'm a spirited supporter of a small struggling soccer team in my vicinity.

In conclusion giant killing despite the score I gave it and the obvious incongruencies as far as the narrative goes, this was not a bad series. You will definitely enjoy it by I thought it could have been better. Because of the improbable season 2 I will have to read the manga to experience more of the story. But seriously if you like soccer this will be worth watching despite its set backs.