Blue Lock animator sheds light on “bad” Season 2 animation

It’s a best-selling manga and well-watched anime, Blue Lock Season 2’s animation has been widely criticized, and animator Martin Reyes has addressed the complaints.

Blue Lock Season 2 is adapting Chapters 109-151 (the Blue Lock vs Japan U-20 match) and will also conclude the Third Selection Arc from the previous season. After making fans wait a year for a second season, viewers have been left disappointed.

However, the manga itself is incredibly popular, so it’s surprising that the anime has turned out this way; some frames look great, but other scenes appear to be motionless.

Reyes, one of the show’s animators who worked in Season 2 Episode 2, has opened up about the unfair treatment in Studio 8bit. He also claimed that the studio removed all the movements and described the animation as a “disaster.”

According to a Reddit translation of Reyes’ TikTok, he said, “I worked on the second episode of Blue Lock and I’ll tell you why its animation was so bad. Months ago I started working on the second season of Blue Lock. One in which I would work not only on one episode… but rather five episodes.

“I started working on the second episode in which I had to take care of 20 cuts, basically animating the scenes from 0… but, curiously, the problems hadn’t started at this point. I’m sure that not only I, but also all the animators who worked on this episode, didn’t do the job that ended up being published.

“Despite the low pay and negligible time, we did the best we could… basically, they eliminated all the movement, some frames or they just made them differently.

“But the fault doesn’t lie in the one that came after me, since they probably did all they could with the little time they had. These problems, just like in JJK in the past or in the vast majority of animes, are a result of the production committee of certain animes that take projects simply thinking about the money and not the condition of its workers.

“And it’s because of this that I didn’t work on any other episode of Blue Lock. Once I finished working on the second episode I decided to get out and just like I thought the final result ended up being a disaster. This made me feel like this is a job that I’m not proud to upload. I got permission to publish one of my 22 cuts.”

Blue Lock Season 2 will air 14 episodes, with four of them already being released (as of November 1, 2024). So, it’s very unlikely the studio will improve the animation mid-season.

Since the Summer 2024 anime season is finally over, check out our list of the best upcoming anime. Also, have a look at our guides to Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, Oshi no Ko Season 3, and One Punch Man Season 3 for other shows on their way back.