For a while, I've always considered this film to be extremely underrated. Despite what many fans will lead you to believe, Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker is a solid movie with more good points than bad. In my review, I'll do my best to give my reasons for why I consider this movie to be a good movie. One of the first complaints has to do with soccer being a prominent theme, which people claim comes across as shallow pandering. While it's true that this movie does heavily feature Japanese Soccer League players, what people forget is that Conan is a big soccer fan. It'd belike bashing Phantom of Baker Street just because it panders too much to Sherlock fans. Even if the movie was J-league fan service, that doesn't change the fact that the movie still makes use of the soccer themes and characters in the main story.

Another complaint has to do with how this movie copies the story of another movie in the series, specifically the Time-Bombed Skyscraper. While that movie is fun, I did think that there were some places it could improve on. For instance, the lack of mystery surrounding the main culprit. Here, they at least tried to complicate things with extra suspects and other elements to help engage the audience in figuring out whodunit. The soccer references, refined art style and epic cinematography help give it its own unique shine while polishing out the kinks in the original framework.

In terms of legitimate criticism, there are some things I do consider to be slight nitpicks. While the music is serviceable, it can sometimes sound very "Rugrats-like", with the exception of the song that plays when everything explodes (that song is awesome). The resolution at the end is very cheesy, but it's still really satisfying ("the eleventh striker was you after all"). While the J-league does have a purpose in the main plot, it would've been nice to see them after the criminal was caught. Would've given them some nice closure, ya know?

Overall, this movie is too good to be getting all of this undeserved flak. A good Detective Conan movie doesn't need Kaito Kid or the Black Organization to be good (that in itself is its own form of pandering). As long as the movie stays true to what Detective Conan is, it doesn't matter how much soccer fan service there is. Of all the movies that I've reviewed so far, Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker is, indeed, faithful to what Detective Conan is.