An animator who worked on Blue Lock season 2 has offered insight into its animation woes.
In a new TikTok video, Martin Reyes – who says he worked on five episodes of the soccer anime – has revealed his account of behind-the-scenes turmoil on the project. Since release, fans have been less than pleased with the fluidity of Blue Lock’s soccer scenes – even comparing the notorious dip in the second episode to a 'PowerPoint presentation'.
"I worked on the second episode of Blue Lock, and I can tell you why its animation is so bad," Reyes began in the video, which you can see in its original Spanish below (H/T to ComicBook.com for the translation). "Months ago, I started working on Blue Lock season two where I worked not only on one episode… not even two or three but, rather, five episodes. I began working on episode two and had to do 20 cuts from start to finish."
That intense workload, much of which Reyes says "ended up not being released", was a result of a "short turnaround."
Reyes added, "We did the best we could. Many of my animations were [cut] in the final edit. Basically, all [the] movement was eliminated. I don’t blame the person who worked on my cuts after me. They probably did all they could with the time they were given."
"Once I finished working on episode two, I decided to leave, and the final result ended up a disaster – as I expected. I am not able to feel proud of the work that was uploaded."
The controversy surrounding Blue Lock’s animation comes just after the horror anime adaptation of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki was roundly criticized for its own poor quality animation. That led to executive producer Jason DeMarco addressing the situation in a series of now-deleted posts on social media platform Bluesky.
"It’s fine, we knew this would happen. I can’t talk about what went down but we were screwed over and the options were A) Not finish and air nothing and call it a loss, B) Just finish and air Ep 1 and leave it incomplete or C) Run all four, warts and all. Out of respect for the hard work, we chose C," DeMarco said.
For more, check out the new anime you still have to look forward to in the fall season. Then jump into all the latest on My Hero Academia season 8 and Jujutsu Kaisen season 3.
