Captain Tsubasa - Season 2 (2024)

The second season of Captain Tsubasa adapts the Junior Youth Arc into 39 episodes. It takes place soon after the last season, where the next goal for Tsubasa, as well as for all the other players, is going international. It’s explained that there is an International Journal Youth Competition taking place in Europe, and a selection of characters we already know, has been selected to become the national team representing Japan. It’s a good way to select more unique characters from the first season and put them into one team, so that it can keep them in focus.

The season starts off weird in that Tsubasa is recovering from injury. The national team was picked after a short training camp, and Tsubasa, being clearly the one with the most skills, you would naturally think has a guaranteed slot. Instead, there is some friction between various players of the team in including him, which is a bit of a filler as we know Tsubasa will be in there anyway. It’s an odd choice and something that feels against his character, since Tsubasa already knows the other players well and is well regarded.

Anyway, while they may be handpicked from the best that Japan has to offer at their age group, the team gets a reality check when playing some friendly matches against the European teams. Simply put, they are thrashed given their opponents are on a whole other level. This serves to further idolize and glorify Tsubasa, so the point that he’s a one-man team and that the Japanese team cannot win without him. While that may be true, it’s a bit rich and overdoes it.

The anime naturally exaggerates the sport of soccer, sometimes to its detriment. While its target audience is one of younger ages, the constant naming of shots (basically the soccer equivalent and naming your attacks) is cringey and cheesy. You fully expect at least five to ten “nani?!” (“what?!”) being shouted by the characters each episode, but it still gets you at how often that happens. Characters are surprised or impressed too easily, and while it is supposed to showcase how impressive some of their opponents are, again, it is a bit rich and overdone.

The first season didn’t have amazing animation, but it was passable and did enough to keep the momentum going. This second season significantly drops the animation quality. For a sport with frequent fluid motions and movement, there is limited animation. It tries to compensate by adding commentary and streaking lines, but it cannot hide the fact that viewers are being told something has happened, rather than showing that it happened. It makes for some boring scenes.

The first part of the season sets up matches and it takes almost one third of the season before we finally have the tournament starting. Whie this provides crucial background information and gives us a better understanding of the characters; you can’t help but be a bit impatient. Given that you’re here to watch the matches and see Tsubasa overcomes the odds and outplay all his opponents, this wait can be excruciating.

Once the tournament starts, the fun begins. Understandably, the anime focuses a lot on Tsubasa to the detriment of the rest of the team. Sometimes, despite the lessons learned by Tsubasa, he can still make mistakes. The scenes where the crowds cheer for Tsubasa, or when he is unashamedly praised as being the “savior of Japanese soccer” can be cheesy and cringeworthy.

Similarly to the first season, most of the opposite teams have one or two really good players that makes them a tough opponent. This contrasts with the Tsubasa’s team where there are several other characters that are focused on and are shown to be formidable. The main one being Hyuga, but Misaki and Wakabayashi make frequent appearances too. This causes all of Tsubasa’s opponents to seem like one trick ponies. You can’t blame the anime too much on this given that there is not enough time to make you care about all 11 players of the opposing team in every match.

Given that this is an anime, and there needs to be excitement, there are a lot of contrived situations. These can include one where the other team may hold a three-point lead but Tsubasa and team Japan will be able to find a way to overcome it and win. Or when the match is down to penalty kicks and the two teams are tied down to their last kicks. Characters also manage to randomly show up when they are most needed to take control of the ball and shoot. To be fair, this is a wholesome series and one that shows the right message of sportsmanship, grit, determination and belief. When the characters work together as a team and then score a goal, it is a great feeling.

The earlier games in the season are faster, whereas the semi-finals and finals take longer, spanning multiple episodes to the point where it can drag out. The surprise is not Japan winning, but more so how they win and how they grow as a team. After the finals, the final few episodes focus on Tsubasa and his future, as he moves onto the next goal of becoming a professional player.

Overall, the second season of Captain Tsubasa may not be the most realistic, but it provides plenty of thrills and excitement. It’s a wholesome series, even though there are way too many contrived situations, and the skill difference between Tsubasa and everyone else can be too big a gap to be believable. The development during each match is interesting enough to even overcome the drop in animation quality.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy United Tidal Wave (Titan)

Review:  #882

Name:  Tidal Wave

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Decepticon

Line:  Generations - Legacy: United

Year of Release:  2024

Size Class:  Titan

Mold Status:  new

PACKAGING:

The 2024's flagship Titan class figure was Armada Tidal Wave, which is an interesting choice given that he is not the most popular or in demand character to get such a large figure.

Nevertheless, this is what we get and he is in the usual impressively large box with a fantastic piece of artwork at the front.

DARK FLEET:

Tidal Wave was always an interesting figure, as he has various alternate modes, being the Dark Fleet, a combined ship mode, a robot mode, armor parts for Megatron, and in this release, a base mode as well.

In Dark Fleet mode, he splits into three smaller individual ships.  The first is a double bowed battleship.

The dark purple used is very nice, and despite having some obvious robot parts around him (those hip ratchets in particular...) this is a relatively decent mode.

"Smaller" is a relative term, because he is still massive.  It's so much bigger than a Voyager or Leader, he's approaching Commander class levels of size.

Thankfully, despite the large size and shrinking budgets, he still has some decent paint applications.  The windows are painted, and there are some nicer neon purple highlights.

Interestingly, the guns are all on 5mm pegs, which you would have had to attach yourself when you first opened the figure anyway.

As a result, all those guns can swivel and raise up and down.

This is still a very big and blocky alternate mode, but it works okay as an aquatic vehicle.

The double bowed was always weird, but it manages to pull it off in person.

Next in the Dark Fleet is an aircraft carrier.

This is an easier alt mode to deal with since you just need a block with a flat top, which is what we have here.

It's not quite as big as the double-bowed battleship but still decently sized.

Once again, there are some nice sculpted details, such as the control tower on the side (which is sadly an unpainted block of purple plastic), and all the markings at the landing strip.

The front also has dual cannons, these are his hands in robot mode.

One thing to mention is that all of the Dark Fleet has small plastic wheels underneath that allows them to roll on flat surfaces, which is a nice touch.

While maybe a bit too squared off and blocky, again, it manages to pull it off in person.

The third and last component of the Dark Fleet is a troop landing craft.

Thanks to the wings, it looks more like a flying spaceship instead.

This is also one big vehicle, dwarfing Voyager class figures.

Given that this component forms the legs, it needed to be mostly symmetrical but only one side has details for the bridge.

There are sculpted thrusters as the back.

This mode doesn't quite like to stay attached with its two halves, the clips are not long enough, given how big and heavy each halves are.

An okay mode, no better and no worse than the others.

TRANSFORMATION (TO COMBINED SHIP MODE):

Split the troop carrier craft into two, and then attach each half to the battleship.  Fold each of the bow of the battleship back to create a gap for the aircraft carrier to attach.  It's not an involved transformation at all.

COMBINED SHIP MODE:

While this is supposed to be the big ultimate alternate mode, it's always been kind of an afterthought.

Even more so when viewed from behind and there being a big gap at the back, which is even more pronounced in this version.

Given each of the Dark Fleet was already big, the combined ship mode is absolutely massively and befitting of the Titan class.

That said, it's long rather than tall, as it is relatively low in height.

Most of the individual gimmicks remain... which is basically just rolling wheels, and the swivelling guns.

Given it doesn't compromise the figure at all, this is a neat alternate mode, and one that is impressive for its size alone.

TRANSFORMATION (TO BASE MODE):

Unless you're coming from robot mode, you'll need to partsform into this form.  It's easier to rattle of the robot pieces placement, which are that his legs from the front (troop carrier), the torso the middle (battleship), and the arms at the back (aircraft carrier).  The mini-Dark Fleet (which we'll cover later) are also taken out and attached to various places, to give some sort of asymmetry to the design.

BASE MODE:

This is a new addition to the figure and... it goes as well as the base modes of other Titan class figures, which are that it is mostly an afterthought.

It's too sparse, "skinny", and way too much like a spread out robot to actually pass off as a proper city or base.

Naturally, this mode is huge, and it's scaled more for figures even smaller than Core and Legends, maybe Mini-Cons would work (although they'll still be too big for the command modules).

It's more of a mode that's supposed to stay on the ground, given the weight distribution isn't geared towards picking him up.

It's as good a mode as you'd expect, and given that it's not the main focus and he has other better alternate modes, it's easy to forgive and forget about this one.

TRANSFORMATION (TO ROBOT MODE):

You cannot go from the combined ship mode to robot mode without partsforming, but you can go from base mode to robot mode without partsforming.  Nevertheless, each of the Dark Fleet forms a different component:  the battleship forms the torso (the head folds out when you fold both bows over to form the shoulders), the aircraft carrier the arms (split it into two and extend the arms), and the troop landing craft forms the legs (split it in half and fold out the thighs).  Attach all the pieces together to them form the robot mode.  It's a simple one, but it cannot be too complicated given the size.

ROBOT MODE:

As with all Titan class figure, robot mode is where it is at, and Tidal Wave doesn't disappoint here.

He looks really good, and is a nice update to the original.  He's become a lot more athletic looking too.

The head sculpt is brilliant, and the silver paint used really highlights the detailing.

Obviously, he is massive in this mode, easily towering over Leaders and Voyagers.

However, he is not quite as tall as previous Titans.  Shrinkflation continues to strike.  Above are comparisons with Legacy Metroplex and Earthrise Scorponok.

Articulation is great, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, hands, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

Whether he can use that articulation is another story, given that he is very big and heavy, he's liable to just keel over from the weight.

Another issue with the figure are his knees.  There is a defect present in nearly all samples, where the springs for the ratchets are too strong, and will just destroy the ratchet over time thanks to the pressure alone.

And given that most of his joints are ratchets, it can be scary when they require a lot more force than you'd expect just to utilize them.  Other than that, this is an impressive looking robot mode.

WEAPON MODE:

And finally, given that Tidal Wave is too big to combine with Legacy Evolution Megatron as is, there are various smaller pieces stored within Tidal Wave that forms a miniature Dark Fleet, and these are used to combine with Megatron.

There are seven pieces in total stored around his body.  The battleship is stored behind his chest.

The aircraft carrier is stored underneath his arms, and this includes taking out part of his hands.

Despite that, you can rotate what was Tidal Wave's thumb around, to give him a smaller hand so that at least he's not handless.

And finally, the main part of the troop landing craft is stored on the sides of his lower legs.

While the two smaller pieces that attach on top of the craft are stored within his shins.

And once you get all the pieces out, you can form the Dark Fleet.  Sadly, you cannot form a mini Tidal wave, though that would have required just a little bit more sculpting and engineering as the pieces are already 80% of the way there (given how simple a transformation Tidal Wave has).  It feels like a massive missed opportunity.

Interestingly, while each piece is much smaller than Tidal Wave himself, they are actually around Deluxe size!!

That's the ironic thing, previous Titan classes managed to add in a Deluxe-ish figure that transforms, this would have been perfect to create a mini Tidal Wave as an equilavent.

However, it's better than nothing, as being able to combine with Megatron was one of the features that was utilized a fair bit in the cartoon.

You'll need Legacy Evolution Megatron (or the Galvatron repaint) to combine with Tidal Wave.

The battleship and aircraft carrier attaches on both arms.  Megatron's tank turret moves to the front, so that the troop landing craft can attach as a jetpack.

And finally Megatron gets some leg extensions with the footpads attached to the bottom.

It's not a bad looking mode, but it is still basically just pieces of Tidal Wave randomly attached to Megatron's arms (you can barely see the jetpack from most angles).  What's worse is that they're attached to his upper arms, and not his lower arms, so it looks weird when you bend the arms to pose him.

OVERALL:

Despite his flaws, Tidal Wave is a fun Titan class that packs a lot of play value.  In fact, he probably packs in the most play value out of all the Titans so far, as the Dark Fleet alone gives him a lot of flexibility.  The miniature Dark Fleet is clever in the way it stores on the main body, but you could tell that it sucked up a lot the budget.  While he may not be as big or impressive as previous Titans, he's still well worth getting.

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