Area no Kishi: 2nd Impression/Re-cap/Catch-up/blah blah

So after all the filehosting dilema’s & SOPA/PIPA nonsense I’ve finally found some time to sit and write about my favorite anime of the season. 4 episodes have passed so I’ve got quite a bit to talk about, not exactly what I expected but I’m not complaining.

In my First Impressions post I said that that episode was quite a packed episode and had a lot of content in it, 3 episodes later and… OMG! Totally different playing field, so much has happened!

Episode 1 end off with the selection match about to start with the Aizawa brothers playing together for the first time in years after Suguru had guilted Kakeru into playing. Now lets just put this into perspective quickly, Suguru is the Japan u15 national team ace and has been playing for regularly for like ever. Kakeru used to be good but hasn’t played in ages, this is his first game back, its understandable that he was going to be a little bit rusty.

Now he plays well, certainly better than most of the players but he is not up to the standard of his older brother this leads to another fallout between the two but not really, it was more like some really harsh constructive critism.

The has really kept things moving along and by the end of episode 2 we already don’t care abut what happened in the selection match (they made up for what its worth) as Japan’s notriously crap truck drivers strike again! And yet another cliffhanger forces us to wait another week to see what the outcome is…

Shock! Preparing for the worst didn’t even help as we found out that Suguru Aizawa didn’t survive the accident and Kakeru only survived thanks to a last minute heart transplant, no seriously it caught me by surprise, this is a sport anime FFS! Worst case scenario I thought he would be crippled or something not dead. 😥

The episode continues to get progressively heavier as Kakeru & Seven discuss life, soccer, death and why stuff that happens happens, sh!t gets even heavier when they eventually break the news of Suguru’s death to him. Not to mention the introduction of one of the creepiest/most inappropiate female psychologist’s in anime who at one point I’m sure was contemplating hitting on Seven.

Then right at the end as if the rest of episode was just filler for the last 5 minutes Seven finds out that the heart that Kakeru got from the heart transplant was non other than Suguru’s heart! 0.O

The big reveal of episode 4 was that we finally found out who the mysterious alien footballer is… and no surprises here, it was Seven (CALLED IT!). Wierd thing though is that she confesses that it was a promise she made with Suguru… more than a year ago, no real opinion here, I just found it wierd.

Thankfully they eventually begin to reel everything back in to why we’re all really here – soccer by introducing one of Suguru’s brazillian friends/on-field opponents who challenges Kakeru to prove true Suguru’s prophecy about the fabled Knight in the area. Kakeru takes the bait.

Am I impressed?

Yes! And not just because its a sporting anime, I’m thankful for that but Area no Kishi has really impressed me. Its covering more than just sport (soccer in this case) and not like Cross Game which was actually romance cunningly disguised as sport anime – the soccer that has been included has been pretty good too and still remains the focal point.

I’m really interested to see where this goes now with the newly rejuvenated, Suguru inspired Kakeru and what role will Seven play?