The first thing you should know about Blue Lock: Episode Nagi is that it’s halfway between a recap movie and a side story. We've come a long way from the dozens of standalone, non-canon features based on popular anime like Dragon Ball and Naruto, but Episode Nagi isn't an essential next chapter in an ongoing series like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train or Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle. Instead, it's set before and during the events of the first season of Blue Lock, the popular, ludicrous, and thrilling soccer anime about a Squid Game-like competition/training program intended to create the world's best forward striker.
The focus is on the titular Seishiro Nagi, a standout character from Season 1, and his best friend, Reo Mikage. This means that Episode Nagi repeats a lot of the structure, and even plenty of scenes, from Season 1. But make no mistake: This is no mere recap or compilation film. It’s not even another Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - To the Hashira Training situation, providing a sneak peek at upcoming episodes following a whole lot of recap. Instead, it primarily consists of new material showing Nagi and Reo's first meeting and blossoming friendship in the lead-up to them joining the Blue Lock program, and their experience with the first couple of rounds of eliminations. What Tom Stoppard’s dark comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is to Hamlet, Episode Nagi is to Blue Lock, as we explore some of the events of Season 1 reframed from Nagi and Reo’s point of view – which reveals their own trials and tribulations.
Much like the recent Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle, the emotional crux of Episode Nagi is the protagonist's complete indifference toward sports, and the question of whether he'll be able to learn to love them. When we first meet Nagi, he only cares about video games. His life revolves around making the least amount of effort because otherwise everything is a hassle to him – like eating, which leads to brushing his teeth, which is a waste of time. The attitude could become rather annoying rather quickly, but voice actor Nobunaga Shimazaki gives Nagi enough of an innocent charm to make him funny and never irritating. Indeed, it's easy to root for Nagi – to relate when he tries to leave Blue Lock the moment they tell him he can't use his phone, or when he learns he'll spend all his time in the program training (and only training).
It’s also easy to root for him as he slowly opens up to Reo, who starts out as a rich kid pushing Nagi to be his soccer teammate and becomes a true friend. What was a mostly one-note character on the show now gets as much depth as the first season's main character, Yoichi Isagi. That alone makes Episode Nagi an essential addition to the overall Blue Lock experience.
Though there are times when the first season's wonky CGI rears its ugly head – particularly during previously seen scenes like the match between Team V and Team Z – Episode Nagi takes advantage of its bigger budget to deliver some thrilling 2D animation. The matches are fast-paced, detailed, and exhilarating, with a good blend of actual soccer skills and over-the-top superpowers. Particularly great is the visualization of the characters' auras as their egos awakens alongside their talent: Isagi's spatial awareness appearing as puzzle pieces falling into place, or Nagi's ability to kill a ball's momentum with one touch represented by a grim reaper.
Unfortunately, the feature-length format leads to some bizarre choices, like cramming all translations into two subtitle lines – meaning every time there’s text on screen, it’s translated alongside dialogue, which goes by so fast that it's easy to miss out on a lot of information. And despite devoting most of its runtime to new material , the last 10 of Episode Nagi nearly ruin what comes before. While a natural and effective climax arrives when Nagi teams up with Isagi, the film keeps going, condensing the remaining 12 episodes of Season 1 into a single montage that comes across as forced and clunky. It rushes past a face-off between Reo and Nagi, which runs counter to everything Episode Nagi has shown us up to that point. My advice: Leave the theater when the montage starts and rewatch the show on your own.
