After Uzumaki’s production issues, a second controversy has erupted over another big anime downgrade – and it’s being compared to a PowerPoint slide

Blue Lock season 2 is the subject of anime’s second big animation controversy in a week – and the evidence is pretty damning.

The soccer series, which is currently adapting the manga’s U-20 arc, has been the subject of much online discussion after multiple sequences in its most recent episode looked rushed, incomplete or – worse – resembling a PowerPoint slide. See for yourself below.

Of course, it’s easy to be a backseat critic: any sort of animation – especially with lots of fluid movement, as in sports anime – is tricky. Despite that, this is undoubtedly a clear downgrade from both Blue Lock season 2’s premiere and its previous season.

While it’s easy to point fingers, there’s a strong chance that Blue Lock is saving its animation budget for the full U-20 match as Isagi takes on some of Japan’s greatest young footballers. Even Haikyu, one of the best anime of its kind, had a handful of so-so episodes owing to time and money constraints. Then there’s a small chance some work was outsourced to another animation studio. In short, it happens – and shouldn’t be a deal breaker for the season moving forward.

Still, it’s been a rocky week for new anime, as Uzumaki’s wonky episode 2 animation proved. It even led to executive producer (and Toonami co-creator) Jason DeMarco to speak out in a now-deleted series of posts on social media site 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 wrote, “After waiting so long, it makes sense people would be mad. Unfortunately I can’t tell them who to blame it on…but someone is definitely at fault here, and we all just had to do our best when things imploded.”

Blue Lock season 2 is currently ongoing. For more, check out the Blue Lock season 2 release schedule. Then dive into the latest news on My Hero Academia season 8 and Jujutsu Kaisen season 3.