If you’d told me prior to October 2022 that I would get really into an anime about soccer, as someone who doesn’t consider myself a “sports anime person,” I might not have believed you. But that’s the beauty of Blue Lock.
Blue Lock is what you would get if you took the premise of Squid Game, narrowed the contestant pool down to high school boys, changed the goal from a jackpot to becoming Japan’s number one striker, and made it only fatal to the losers’ careers. Because the stakes of Blue Lock are indeed that those who are kicked out of the compound can no longer pursue soccer professionally in Japan. These boys dream of being professional soccer players. It’s intense.
And so Blue Lock is arguably more of an action series than a series about soccer, which could help explain how Blue Lock catapulted to unexpected heights of popularity. After the anime premiered in fall 2022, Blue Lock was the top-selling manga in the first half of 2023—of all manga. It’s a gripping series with incredibly high stakes, and thanks to Eight Bit, the anime has stunning animation to boot.
In short, the people love Blue Lock. They want more Blue Lock. And that wish is about to be granted.
Season 2 is coming!
We previously knew that Blue Lock’s second season was coming as part of the fall 2024 season, exactly two years after the premiere of its first season. But now we have a date, a time, and an episode count. Blue Lock’s second season will kick off on Saturday, October 5. New episodes will air Japan at 11:30PM, which is 9:30AM ET/6:30AM Pacific—at least until daylight saving time is over in November. Japan, enviously enough, does not do daylight saving time.
Crunchyroll has not yet announced whether or not they’ll be able to simulcast the series. Still, it’s safe to assume that the premiere will land on streaming sometime on the morning of October 5.
This season will be 14 episodes long. That’s two episodes longer than the typical season of anime, yet shorter than season one’s two-cour, 24-episode season.
Season two is not to be confused with the film Blue Lock: Episode Nagi, which is coming to theaters in North America on June 28. Episode Nagi is a retelling of parts of season one from Nagi’s perspective, and considering how much of a fan-favorite Nagi is, that’ll surely be excellent, too.
