Blue Lock’s Top 6, Explained

Key Takeaways

• Jinpachi Ego selects the Top 6 players from Blue Lock based on talent, team performance, and goal-scoring ability.
• The Top 6 showcase unique skills and playstyles – Rin Itoshi’s accuracy, Ryusei Shido’s physical dominance, Tabito Karasu’s tactics.
• Eita Otoya’s agility, Kenyu Yukimiya’s one-on-one skills, and Nagi Seishiro’s control make them standout players in Blue Lock.

Blue Lock revolves around the journey of some of the most talented footballers in Japan as they compete against one another to become the best strikers in the country. Under the watchful eyes of Jinpachi Ego, the players compete and undergo a ruthless training regimen to rise through the ranks. Following a series of eliminations, only 35 players are left in Blue Lock, determined to become Japan’s next superstar. Among these talented players, Ego notices six players who thrive under pressure and regularly showcase the dramatic evolution of their game. In this article, we look at the circumstances that led to the selection of Blue Lock’s Top 6, their purpose, and understand the skills that set them apart.

The Origin and the Purpose of the Top 6

Blue Lock’s Most Prized Prodigies

Following Blue Lock’s match with Team World Five, the Japan Football Union organized a meeting in which the members grilled Jinpachi Ego. He had spent 100 million yen on each football star for the match and squandered a 1 million yen bonus per goal. The committee was angered by Ego’s waste of resources and thought that he had failed to produce any results for the investment.

Chairman Hirotoshi Buratsuta told Jinpachi that the union had given him the chance he wanted but had decided to cancel the Blue Lock project. In haste to prove that he has not been wasting time and money, Ego decided to set up a match between Blue Lock 11 and Japan’s U20. If the latter wins, Jinpachi’s project will come to an end, but if his team wins, he gets to hijack the country’s U20 national side.

With the odds stacked heavily against Blue Lock, Jinpachi immediately organized a meeting with the footballers at his facility. That’s when he declared that they would be playing against the U20 team in a few weeks. While 29 out of 35 players will have to fight it out to make their place in the team, Jinpachi Ego revealed that he has already picked the core of the team comprising the best players, officially known as the Top 6.

The Top 6 was selected by Jinpachi Ego based on a number of factors, including his subjective judgments about a player’s talent, personal evaluations from the Team World Five, and the number of goals scored since the First Selection and against Team World Five. This elite group of super-skilled players provided the benchmark for other footballers at the facility to emulate leading up to the match against Japan’s U20.

The Top 6 were further divided into three teams based on rankings. The rest of the players from Blue Lock then joined one of the teams in groups of three to make a team that played against each other. Their performance in the matches became the basis for the selection for the game against Japan’s U20. As mentioned earlier, the Top 6 comprises some of the most talented players from Japan. Here’s why each of them is special.

Rin Itoshi

A Consummate Perfectionist

Regarded as one of the most skilled players in Blue Lock, Rin Itoshi is the younger brother of Japan’s best footballer, Sae Itoshi. Despite playing alongside the most talented strikers from all over the country, Rin barely appears to push himself too hard, easily outmaneuvering almost everyone he encounters. His dribbling and spatial awareness make him a nightmare for midfielders and defenders.

Rin also has an unusually high kick accuracy, which, coupled with his self-developed playstyle named puppet-controlling soccer, allows him to manipulate the game as he desires. With his varied skill set, Rin Itoshi has successfully turned himself into a goal-scoring machine that seems almost impossible to stop.

Ryusei Shido

An Egotistical Striker Who Wants to Dominate His Opponents

While most footballers at Blue Lock are preoccupied with the idea of being the best, Ryusei Shido stands as an enigma who plays driven by his insatiable thrill for chaos and the love of the sport. Eccentric and violent, Shido thrives when playing against high-level players who bring out the best in him. Whenever Ryusei is on the field, he takes advantage of his strong physicality to dominate others and demonstrates absurdly high acceleration for someone as big as him. He is arguably the best goal-poacher in Japan because of his extraordinary ability to turn every opportunity into a goal in the six-yard box.

Tabito Karasu

A Ruthless Tactician Desperate To Make a Mark

Tabito Karasu is in a class of his own when it comes to ball control. With his unique spatial awareness and smart maneuvering, he keeps possession of the ball and tricks everyone he comes across into making mistakes. Karasu beautifully utilizes feints along with his ability to control space to dribble past several players, leaving them in the dust. While Tabito is undoubtedly a skilled footballer, he outshines most players when it comes to strategic thinking. Tabito deconstructs the opponent team’s tactics, exploiting even marginal strategic oversights to create chances and score goals.

Eita Otoya

The Stoic Striker Who Moves Like a Ninja

Ranked 4th among the Top 6, Eita Otoya is a calm and composed footballer who is rated highly for his ability to work through narrow spaces on the field with incredible agility. His off-the-ball movements are incredibly precise and allow him to place himself at the right place at the right time. Eita is one of the best players in Blue Lock when it comes to slipping past defenders and scoring crucial goals.

Kenyu Yukimiya

The King of Individual Duels

Kenyu Yukimiya is a charismatic and confident footballer who thrives on the field despite suffering from Optic Neuropathy. As a One-on-One Emperor, he can pretty much go up against the best footballers and easily get past them. Kenyu primarily relies on the La Boba feint and Drag Scissor technique to break his opponent’s defense and leave them scratching their heads. He is also an expert at high shots that have incredible spin, which creates an illusion in the opposing team’s mind that he has missed, only for the ball to swing drastically in the final seconds and land perfectly in the net.

Nagi Seishiro

Nagi is an unmotivated and indolent player who undergoes a remarkable transformation following his arrival in Blue Lock. Probably one of the most gifted footballers in the facility, Seishiro displays almost perfect control of the ball. His first-touch passes are incomprehensibly beautiful and often leave players on the field in awe. In his flow state, Nagi almost turns into a goal-scoring machine with little to no technical flaws in his game, making it extremely tough for opponents to stop him.