„We Did Everything We Could.” Blue Lock Animator Reveals Reasons Behind Season 2's Quality Drop
Amid criticism of the new season of the Blue Lock anime, the animator of the highly anticipated shonen has revealed the reasons for the „disastrous” quality of the 2nd series.
The anime series Blue Lock, based on a bestselling manga, debuted in 2022, quickly becoming a hit. After it ended, fans were waiting for the release of a sequel, which, failed the fan expectations. Fans were hoping that after the success of the first season, the next one would be even better, but the reality turned out to be completely different, and the drop in quality is comparable to what happened with Uzumaki. Viewers joked that the second season of Blue Lock resembles a "PowerPoint slide show".
MartinKiings, an animator who worked on the second episode of Blue Lock's new season, decided to speak up on this matter. He shared his explanation of the situation on TikTok. The artist explained that despite the heavy workload, low wages, and tight schedule, he and other artists gave their all and initially, the work proceeded in a normal way. He claims, it was only the final version of the episode that introduced the changes that the viewers were so disappointed with.
"I worked on the second episode of Blue Lock and I'll tell you why its animation was so bad. A few months ago, I started working on the 2nd season of Blue Lock. I was supposed to work not only on one episode, two or three but rather on five episodes. I started working on episode 2, in which I had to deal with about 20 cuts, animating these scenes from scratch, that is from the layout.
But interestingly, the problems did not start then. I'm sure that not only me, but all the animators who worked on this episode were not the ones who did the work that made it into the final product. Despite the low salary and the short time we were given, we did everything in our power."
So it seems that the completion of the episode was handed over to different hands and the new animators had to simplify everything so that it could be finished on time. In further comments, MartinKiings explained that the changes that lowered the quality of the project were the result of the production committee's decision about cuts. Although the animators gave their all, a tighter schedule required simplification of the animation, which resulted in a significant reduction in quality, of which the animator is not the least bit proud.
"Problems arose after the production tightened its schedule and decided to remove many assets that were used for animation. Many of my animations were limited in the final version. They essentially eliminated all movement, and some frames, or just did them differently. But the blame does not lie with those animators who came after me, as they probably did everything they could in a short time.
These problems, just like in Jujutsu Kaisen in the past or in the vast majority of anime, are a result of the fact that the production committees of some anime, undertaking projects, only think about money, not about the condition of their employees. And that's exactly why I didn't work on the next episodes of Blue Lock. When I finished working on the second episode, I decided to back out and just as I thought, the end result was disastrous. This made me not proud of this work."
Simplifying animation under a tight schedule is a very common move in such projects - it enables the animators to save time and finish on time. However, such a solution may not work for every project and it certainly did not work for Blue Lock, where the movement dynamic, especially during matches, which are a key element of sports anime, should be the most important. It's like you'd reduce a fight in a shonen anime to a few still frames and the choreography of the duel was non-existent.
Below you can see a part of episode 2, from Blue Lock's second season, illustrating the problem that anime fans are drawing attention to.
