Unnecessarily In-Depth Review of Inazuma Eleven Orion (That, Somehow, Is Not In-Depth Enough)
I finished watching Orion a few days ago, so now I've watched every season of the show (that I'm aware of, anyway. I don't think there's more than eight). I really enjoyed reviewing Chrono Stone and Galaxy when I finished those series, so I figured I'd do one last write-up for the road.
TL;DR at the bottom, since I don't expect people to read this whole thing.
PART 1 - Story Breakdown
Chapter 1-- FFI Asia Preliminaries
Much like in GO Galaxy, we start Orion with the announcement of Japan's representative team for the FFI, and right off the bat, there's a lot to talk about here. For one, the team chosen by Mister Yi is quite large, clocking in at 18 members, two more than the usual max of sixteen, + Heath being announced to be on the team once he returns from getting his brain tumor removed. The team is made up of 8 players from the original trilogy, nine that originated in Ares, and one brand-new character--Mitsuru Ichihoshi. Counting it up just now, I was surprised that more than half of the players were Ares/Orion original characters, it really felt like the team was mostly original series characters, but I guess it only felt that way.
I definitely feel like there should have been at least two more new characters on Inazuma Japan, but after finishing the series, I don't feel as bad about it as I used to, as we still do get a decent number of important new characters from other teams. Still, only having 1 new player out of a total of 19 just seems wrong to me. Shows with large casts tend to receive a lot of flak for having too many characters, which is understandable, but I personally like big, even bloated, casts in shows, and was excited for the prospect of having so many characters on the protag's team.
In addition to Mister Yi, Percival Travis is also the assistant coach of the team, with Regina and Aurelia serving as managers. For some reason, Orion chose not to do much with the original trio of managers, pretty much dropping Silvia and Celia entirely. Nelly at least buys Mark some dango at one point.
Anyways, Inazuma Japan proceed to get schooled 1-on-18 by Clario Orvan from Spain's team (that's just embarrassing, seriously, I'd just give up at that point), and a few of their members get roughed up by some half-pint who's clearly a player for another country's team and who also kicks their butt 1-on-5, but he at least gives them some good training for their upcoming matches while he does.
Instead of three matches like the original series' FFI Asia preliminaries, Orion's prelims have five matches, once again matching with GO Galaxy. While extending the preliminaries does better serve what the writers were trying to do with Ichihoshi's whole character arc, I did like the way season 3 did it better, spending more time on the main tournament.
The series spend the first two matches establishing that there's a GO1 style conspiracy to rig the matches going on behind the scenes of the FFI, with Ichihoshi "secretly" being a traitor acting to get Japan to lose the matches, a la Victor Blade. The writers remind us all just how much of a power trio Mark, Jude, and Axel are, with Axel debuting Last Resort, a special shot so powerful that the opposing team immediately determines they have to injure Axel to prevent him from using it anymore, and of course Ichihoshi covertly helps them do so.
Ichihoshi tries to injure Mark but fails, which helps Jude figure out that Ichihoshi was the imposter, and convinces the bad boy trio of Elliot, Xavier, and Caleb to jump him and help oust him as the traitor so that everyone on Inazuma Japan votes him off, but Ichihoshi manages to make it look like Jude was venting, so the authorities suspend him from the tournament.
At this point, Inazuma Japan is down two of their best members, which causes them to struggle in their third match... wait, never mind, Heath is here. And he's carrying the whole team. Like, dude is putting up prime Arion Sherwind numbers while also being a much better tactician, it's crazy.
The next match, Heath continues his dominant stretch by mind-gaming Mitsuru into giving up being an imposter, despite the fact that he's doing it to pay for his injured brother's surgery, or something like that (a la Victor Blade again). But then it's revealed that Mitsuru is actually dead, and the player who we've known this whole time is Hikaru, who's the younger brother, and also has DID, a la Shawn Froste. Don't worry, that was all much more confusing watching the show in real time, but it doesn't matter 'cause he's over it now. So yeah, Inazuma Japan wins. We also see Heath talking to baby Sol Daystar while he's recovering, and it's adorable.
Lastly, Inazuma Japan faces China's team, and before the match, it's revealed that Mister Yi's disciple, who's been serving as Raimon and Inazuma Japan's helper with an oversized helmet, is actually the boy who beat up a bunch of their members before, and to Valentin's credit, he figured it out about thirty seconds after I did, so not bad. Wait, never mind, he just saw him put on the helmet. It's revealed that he is also the ace of China's representative team, Jimmy Wongfu. Or Lee Hao. Whichever you prefer, the guy has like five different names, anyway.
This raises an important question, though: If China's ace was in Japan this whole time, how did China make it so far in the tournament? I can't imagine they won all their matches without him, as he's shown to do pretty much all the scoring in the match against Inazuma Japan, and he couldn't have been traveling back and forth between Japan and the other matches' venues. I know they said the Asia prelims where being held in Japan, but was that for all the matches, not just Japan's? That seems majorly unfair for every other Asian country in the FFI.
Moving on from that, we spend an episode on his and Mister Yi's backstory in China, and learn about how they're opposing the Orion Foundation who are trying to control the FFI for profit. I actually enjoyed this episode a lot, even though it added to an already long gap between the previous match and this upcoming one. Inazuma Japan is able to beat China, proving once and for all that manga are superior to manhua that islands are better than walls? I don't know anymore, let's get on to the next chapter.
This move seriously weirds me out
Chapter 2-- FFI Group A
Having won the Asian preliminaries, Inazuma Japan goes to Russia for group play, where they'll play every other team in group A to determine which two teams make it to the final bracket, much like in the original FFI, but this time, there are more than two groups, and each group only has four teams instead of five.
To celebrate making it this far, Japan's soccer association holds a party, which conveniently, Spain's team, and a man representing the Orion Foundation are also invited to. Surely this isn't foreshadowing anything. Sunny also starts thinking about his dead mom and deadbeat dad again, and wondering if he'll ever meet the latter. Surely this isn't foreshadowing anything (clueless). Also, on the trip to Russia, the team meets baby Destin Billows (?), and Adriano proves once again why he is a gigachad when he talks to the kid.
Group play begins, and Japan's first match is against Spain (sometimes, foreshadowing is relatively obvious). Clario quickly scores twice on Mark, despite him unveiling his new, super-cool Super God Hand. But then Mark takes a page out of Clario's book and busts out the Diamond Hand, which is... Well, to each their own, but I found this move kind of lame, but it did at least stop Clario's Diamond Ray. That is, until he made it curve, which allowed him to score a third goal.
On the other side of the field, Sunny, Elliot, and Heath all work together to attempt Last Resort, but still don't manage to perform it successfully, and the shot is blocked. Despite this, Inazuma Japan is still able to force a tie. The other two teams in the tournament's match ends with America defeating Russia 2-1.
Speaking of Russia, I probably should have mentioned this sooner, but Russia's team is home of the Orion Foundation's big dogs, including their captain Froy Girikanan, Ichihoshi's best friend from Orion, who is also the little brother of the president of the Orion Foundation, but he says that there are no imposters on the team.
After the match with Spain, Sunny's dad finally comes home with the milk. Well, he's a couple thousand miles away from home, but he's got the spirit. Sunny is of course really mad at his dad for leaving he and his mother and never visiting even when she was sick and dying, and I really appreciated that this wasn't just a purely happy moment. In general, this whole arc with Sunny's father really helped give him some character outside of just football/soccer, which is something Inazuma Eleven protagonists in general struggle with. It also helped make Sunny feel more like the main character, after Mark kind of took that role in the first third of the season.
So obviously, Mark and the rest of the team are looking forward to playing against Erik, Bobby, and the American team, which, as far as I can tell, is mostly unchanged from season 3's. Speaking of reusing stuff from season 3, Orion decides to steal Mr. Kay's whole flow, word for word, bar for bar, and a military dude, eleven kids trained as soldiers, and at least two actual soldiers, come by and tell America's coach that he's under arrest. He of course protests that he's innocent, and the military dude says that if he is it'll be proven in court, in a couple months, and the two actual soldiers drag him away in a helicopter.
Mr. military man says that he's taking over as coach of America's team, and that his team will play against the original Amercian team, Team Star Unicorn, to decide who will represent the U S of A. While this is, like I said, a rehashed plot point from season 3, I was really excited to see a match that didn't involve the main character's team, as that was one thing that I really liked from Ares, but then, in true American fashion, the military team just blew their problems up, and won by default since the other team was too injured to play. I thought this was really lame, but it at least set up how far the new antagonist was willing to go.
Before they can play against the Amercian team, Inazuma Japan is joined by a new member, Byron Love/Aphrodite, who was sent by Jude and Travis, who decided that Russia was too cold, choosing to stay in Japan to select additional members to join the squad (they had also sent Aiden Frost for the previous match). The most important thing from this whole sequence of events is this moment:
I swear, the animators were just having fun with this season
Mark and Aiden honestly look fine, but man, they gave Hunter a schnoz. Also, I like how Aurelia's super impressed, but then Regina just looks like she's mildly surprised. Anyways, the match against America begins, and I've got to say, the fact that America, land of the free(dom to own firearms), has a team that's basically just a militia has to be some sort of dig.
Byron starts the match off by using Heaven's Time to solo the entire American team before scoring with God Knows - Impact. You know, my favorite part of Byron returning was hearing the Zeus theme and his own theme again (well, that, and imagining all of his lines in his English voice from the original series). I never really realized how much I liked those themes until now. They really build the moment.
Regardless, America's new coach no-sells Heaven's Time for the rest of the match, but at least this time, we get an explanation as to how that's possible, unlike in season 2, where it just kind of happened. America set up the minefield tactic, which is how they blew up Star Unicorn, and it injures three of Japan's players before Byron and Heath figure out the secret, including Caleb Stonewall, which is about as relevant as he gets this season. Apparently, America's team created miniature, stationary tornados... which explode on contact. Okay, goofy kids' cartoon is goofy kids' cartoon, but you have to draw the line at some point, because I'm sorry--what? How? I'm not going to linger on this, but suffice it to say, that makes no sense. Like, even less sense than usual for this series.
Japan gains the upper hand after figuring out America's trick, and this whole match, Sunny's dealing with the fact that his dad wants him to understand that there's a good side to Orion, but all he sees is them rigging both a sport and explosives. America's former coach shows up and the new one is now placed under arrest, with the former coach taking over, and Erik, Mark (Krueger), and Bobby all sub in. Sadly, Dylan was too injured to play.
What happens next is actually very interesting in my opinion. Erik tells the other American players to try and kill him with the soccer ball on their pride as soldiers, and by doing that, he is able to get the other players to pass him the ball, allowing him to work his magic as the Midfield Magician. Certainly a bit contrived, but I thought this was a really cool moment, and a neat way to give Erik a moment to shine.
After the crowd starts cheering for America's entertaining play, we get the tragic backstory for the American military kids, 'cause everyone's poor in this season, they make their heel-face turn, and then Japan wins. Byron Love scored all four goals this game by the way; crud's crazy. On the other hand, Russia crushes Spain, 6-0.
And man, I feel like America got robbed in this tournament. Spain was crazy powerful, and a favorite to win the whole thing, and they got blown out by Russia, who in turn were beaten by America. Sure, sports aren't transitive, and Russia was implied to have thrown the match against America, but I don't think they did, as there was no logical reason for them to so, not to mention, if they had, then I don't think Froy would've been so surprised by his team turning on him in the match against Inazuma Japan, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Basically, what I'm saying is, America had a real shot of winning the FFI if it weren't for Orion's meddling.
Before the match against Russia, Sunny's dad, who works for Orion, takes him to see Orion's training facility and learn the other side of things. Here we meet Malik, who I love, but more on that later. Even after playing alongside Malik and hearing his story and why he plays for Orion, Sunny still can't accept what Orion's doing (and rightfully so, they've almost killed and/or maimed dozens of children at this point).
So of course, what does Sunny's dad do upon hearing that his son still hasn't changed his mind? Oh, well of course he has someone gag his son, knock him unconscious, and kidnap him. Okay, so gaslighting a child into thinking they've finally met their long-lost parent before breaking their trust is seriously messed up (although the potential psychological damage was probably mitigated by the fact that Sunny seemed to realize all along that it probably wasn't actually his father). Like, we're approaching Ray Dark territory.
"Vladimir" has my vote for second-worst adult in this series up to this point, that is, unless you believe Garshield Bayhan is real, then you might say it's him. But we all know that Garshield was just a psyop created by copers who want to pretend that Ray Dark wasn't Satan incarnate. (In case it's not clear, I'm playing up my dislike of Ray Dark for comedic effect)
Basile Hardy and Sandra Fischer join the team for the next match. Really, Travis? You haven't put Dave Quagmire in goal one time, and you think another goalkeeper is what this team needs? Also, Basile is just Axel now? Like, voice and everything. That being said, if these two characters were introduced at the same time, I have to say it, we'd be calling Basile the cooler Axel. But that's a truth y'all ain't ready to hear.
In the match against Russia, a few things of note happen. When Russia starts actually struggling against Japan, the elder Girikanan brother tells them to start playing dirty, and Froy of course feels betrayed when the rest of the team agrees. I was surprised when someone else actually joined Froy in walking off the field in protest, but the two of them are replaced by Malik, and... Sunny? Wow. I mean, he's wearing a bandana over his eyes, but that's clearly Sunny. I guess Orion must've brainwashed him or something. Not at all surprising that they can do that.
All the former Raimon players are super thrown off by the appearance of Sunny on the other team, especially once busts out the Flash Dash and Golden Gull. Basile gets annoyed at his teammates being so distracted and eventually decides to deal with it by taking out Sunny and... ouch.
That looks brutal. I literally said out loud "ref, red card this man" when this crud happened, and hey, they did give Basile a red card, so I guess I can't complain. This was how I learned that you can't substitute anyone in for a player who gets a red card (even though I had it happen to me in Victory Road and also used to play this sport--not that anyone ever got a red card when I played).
Sunny is taken off the field, and Malik asks him by name if he's okay, and "Sunny" takes off the bandana, revealing it to not have been Sunny at all, but actually some other boy, who's part of the revolution against the Orion Foundation, and he says that Basile actually held back. My brother in Christ, there is a beam of light going through your head. That is not holding back.
Anyways, Malik is shocked to find that it wasn't Sunny this whole time, and honestly, so was I. I really liked this twist, it felt well-done and actually surprising, and it put an original spin on things. At first, it kind of bothered me that Basile could figure out the truth when no one else could (other than Mister Yi, probably), but to be fair to them, when the copycat started reacting as if he was in pain in response to the others calling Sunny's name, I was convinced too. And he never spoke either, which makes it more reasonable.
With Fake Sunny out of the game, Russia's team starts using Aurora Wave, a new Special Tactic that is actually camouflage so they can throw tear gas in their opponent's faces. Huh?! Tear gas?! That stuff was used in wars! And then they stopped because it was too cruel. This show tries a lot at different points to establish that there is some sort of gray morality to be found, since the Orion Foundation does take in and give money to poor kids across the world, but at this point, this is so far beyond just trying to control the results of a youth sports tournament. Orion doesn't "save" kids as much as turn them into child soldiers, although this is acknowledged somewhat in the Brazil match, but I'm getting ahead of myself again.
As the match goes on Malik starts feeling guilty about everything Orion is doing, which was good news for me, since I liked him, but he still scores the game-winning goal for Russia's team, meaning that Inazuma Japan leaves group play with a record of 1 win, 1 loss, and 1 draw. As bad as that sounds, they still advance because the other teams sucked more, lol. That 6-0 loss to Russia really screwed over Spain. Honestly, the whole thing is kind of reminiscent of Orpheus vs Little Gigantes, but at least Little Gigantes gave us one of the best matches in the series, if not the best.
Chapter 3-- FFI Finals Tournament
Well, it's taken forever to get here, but hopefully we can breeze through this final part, just like Orion did.
Japan's first match in the finals tournament is against France. Wow, we never got to see France in the original FFI, I wonder what they're going to do with this new country in Orion. What's that? The whole team got food poisoning? Japan wins by default? Aw, come on! Like I said with America, this is just lame. It's said that this whole thing was supposed to be a "warning" from Orion, like the all the aggravated assault wasn't warning enough. All the France match did was waste an episode. They could've just had there be fewer teams in the final tournament. Just having three rounds already suggested that there were 16 different teams in group play, which is pretty crazy when all of Asia got 1.
Well, that disappointment aside, Japan plays Brazil in the next match. Man, Brazil's teams in Inazuma Eleven are always fun. Polestar's captain is here, and when Brazil starts being forced to play rough, he gets the really funny idea of having Inazuma Japan pretend to cheat by making legal plays, and then brandishing random objects like they used them, with the captain himself pretending to have used string to trip an opponent.
This entire thing is so freaking stupid, but it's also so freaking funny. I was losing my mind for two entirely different reasons. Why does the ref just allow them to bring props in? At least the Orion teams were being "subtle" about sneaking in items, Inazuma Japan just openly boasted about it, and still got away with it. Brazil eventually sees the error of their ways and decides to play fair and square, and then they lose, so maybe not the right move there, guys.
Carnival Shake is so cool, genuinely one of my favorite moves in the series
The match ends, and then we see the elder Girikanan, the big bad boss of the season, get slapped by his mom, triggering his PTSD and causing him to curl up on the floor. And then Froy walks in and sees this... Yikes. And if you were wondering earlier, yes, Froy's mom is worse than Vladimir in my opinion. At least he didn't abuse his actual children.
Anyway, it turns out the one really forcing Orion to go down the wrong road is Momma Girikanan. I actually did think that this twist, the final match against Orion ultimate team, and Yurika as a character were all interesting concepts, but it all felt really rushed coming so late in the season and not really having time to breathe. Also, I want to mention that Momma Girikanan was just casually hacking into government databases because that's a thing she can do, I guess. Man, the governments of the world need to invest in better cybersecurity.
The semi-finals are against Italy, and I'm going to breeze past this match, because while I did enjoy it quite a bit, it's basically just the Brazil match again, except this time, instead of dirty plays, they're using muscle-enhancing "supporters" that threaten to their bodies apart, and they're revolting against Momma Girikanan instead of elder Girikanan. I want to point out two things, however: One, I was honestly ready for them to be revealed to be androids like Perfect Cascade with the way they ran when using the supporters. Second, while it's pretty rare for me to see a character and think "that looks like a girl", and then it's a boy, or vice-versa, it did happen with Italy's goalkeeper. Not that I was disappointed, every season of this show could use more female players.
IDK, 19/20 times this is a dude in IE
The last match is a rematch against Russia, and it's pretty similar to the GO1 finale. The first half is played straight up, with the Russian team having decided that they actually don't like playing dirty anymore, but when it looks like Japan has a chance to actually win, Orion's final team takes over the match, led by Yurika, and quickly gets off to a 3-0 lead against the unified World All-Stars Team, but the good guys manage to win in the end.
Unfortunately, while there's some really cool moves used to win the match, and I personally thought the match was pretty hype, it's similar to the Zeus vs Raimon finale, where there's a couple of really great moments, but everything else kind of gets ruined by happening way too fast and coming out of nowhere, although "ruined" is too strong a word in both cases--it's more like it gets dragged down.
But, since I brought up Basile's red card earlier, how in the word is this not a red card? Or at least a yellow card.
Seriously, she's literally stepping on him. Not even on the ball or anything, she deliberately stepped right on him (also, I swear to God if I see one "I wish that was me" on either side of this interaction...). But yeah, the whole finale is pretty rushed, which makes it hard to enjoy either match to the fullest, and the epilogue/wrap-up section also feels a bit strange, as it shows that Inazuma Japan ended up defeating Russia in their rescheduled rematch. I will say though, Raimon vs Backwater Raimon was peak. Amazing way to end the series, imo.
PART 2 - Pros and Cons
Plot: Wow, this is the third straight season of Inazuma Eleven whose plot I've ranked as a con (the prior two being Chrono Stone and Galaxy). I wonder if there's some sort of pattern there. But yeah, the writers try to at least come up with a less flimsy explanation of why and how the Orion Foundation exists than GO1, which basically didn't bother explaining Fifth Sector at all beyond "football/soccer became too important", but it's still kind of a mess, and it gets even messier when Momma Girikanan is introduced. You basically have to spend this season believing the refs either don't have eyes or have been paid off.
Aesthetics: While they're not as good as GO1 or Chrono Stone in my opinion, I really like the new character designs in this season, and I'd say this is probably my third favorite season in that regard, definitely better than Galaxy and Ares. The visual quality of Ares/Orion is a lot higher than the rest of the series, or at least, the quality of video itself is, but there are some individual frames you can spot that look pretty jarring, and it sort of lacks the signature style of the first six seasons. I miss my short, stocky Inazuma Eleven characters (that's probably not the right way to describe it, but I genuinely don't know how to put it into words).
Going into Ares/Orion, I expected to really hate the way original series characters looked--in particular, I saw some screenshots of Aphrodite and Shawn that made me wince, but watching the show, it was pretty rare that I even bothered to think about it. Characters like Mark and Jude being long and lanky sometimes bothered me a little, but most of the time it was fine, and Axel honestly works pretty well in this style. Byron Love was pretty much the only character who consistently bothered me, and even then, it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. My boy Gazelle looks absolutely awful, though (not that he ever looked great). I really enjoyed the visuals of special moves in this season too, although there were a few that felt like duds due to poor animation or choreography. Overall, I'd say that Orion's aesthetic is a pro.
Music: This one's really hard to judge for me, because for the most part, I mostly found the music to not be very noticeable. There's an argument that that's what BGM is for, but at the same time, it's certainly great to have memorable tracks in a show. With so many prior seasons to take soundtracks from, there was a good amount of diversity, but there were still a handful that were used way more than the rest. I liked the first opening (Daibutai.mp3) and the second ending was pretty funny, Zombie Lonely, but other than that, the OPs and EDs didn't really stand out to me. I also caught two different Victory Road OSTs being used, including the main theme/title theme, so that was surprising to me to learn that they were from Orion. It was pretty cool hearing those. All in all, I'd say that the music in this series was neutral. I did like that they played the Ares theme for the climax though.
Matches: This one's another weird one to judge, because while there was a good amount of the strategy involved in the matches, which is one of the things I value most in IE, the majority of the strategy revolved around all the antics that the Disciples of Orion got up to, rather than how to overcome the obstacles presented by the other team's ability. It also felt like Mister Yi was a lot less involved as a coach, but at least we didn't have to deal with the standard fare nonsense of "I'm going to chastise you for doing things wrong, but I'm not going to tell you what to do, and if you don't figure it out on your own, you're cooked". I'm looking at you, Travis. All in all, I enjoyed most of the matches a lot, and I can point to a lot of them as ones I'd want to watch again, like Japan vs China, or vs Italy and Brazil. I'll say it's a pro.
Story: There's some neat stuff here, like Sunny's arc with his father, although I do think it would have been more interesting if Vladimir actually was his father, instead of the literal most predictable outcome, but for the most part, the story kind of drags this season down. I'd have to call it a con.
Characters: While Ichihoshi is obviously the big one the writers were trying to push, and I'm not too fond of him, I liked a lot of the new characters this season introduced, and it also made me like a lot of the Ares original characters more than I already did. On the flip side, I felt like there was a missed opportunity to do more here with the Backwater Raimon players that felt more underdeveloped in Ares. All the same, I'd still say that this is definitely a pro.
PART 3 - Characters
I really like all three members of Ares/Orion's "big three". Even though Elliot isn't the type of character I usually like, and there's plenty of reasons for me not to like Heath (he's kind of too perfect, and also has questionable ethics at time, especially in Ares), I still ended up liking them both a lot, and Heath is honestly one of my favorite characters in the series. I also like Sunny a lot, too. As far as who the best IE protagonist is, I think it pretty easily goes Arion >> Sunny >> Mark, but in terms of who I like more, it's tough between Arion and Sunny. I'd say Sunny right now, but I think there's a lot of recency bias involved with that. It's probably Arion.
I somewhat liked how the original series characters were used in this season. I felt like Shawn was used really weirdly after feeling out of character last season, and Mark, Jude, and Axel I felt like got built up too much. In Ares, Mark had the same problem, but Axel and Jude I thought were pretty good, but in this season, it's kind of the opposite, where Mark was built up a lot, but we also saw him fail a bunch, so it felt more balanced, whereas Axel was so powerful he had to immediately be removed for most of the season, and even when he came back, he couldn't use his most powerful move. Jude just kind of didn't do anything, but the moment with him and Heath controlling the game against the final Orion team was cool.
Those were the characters that I had a problem with, and Dave Quagmire got absolutely shafted, but all the others I actually liked how they were handled (seriously, what was that? How are you going to not only never play Dave in goal, but then put him in midfield and not give him Gungnir, and then have Mister Yi basically say he's worthless? Disrespectful).
I liked a lot of new characters introduced in this season, like Froy, Malik, and Li Hao (you can argue he's not a new character, I guess, but I would say he counts). I wish we got to see the Lee siblings play together, I don't think we've ever had a brother-sister player duo in Inazuma Eleven.
The biggest new character in this season was obviously supposed to be Ichihoshi. I've gotta be honest, I didn't really like him. At first, he just felt like a Victor Blade rip-off, then he felt like he was also a rip-off of Shawn Frost, who is literally also in the same show, and then he just got really confusing. Like, the reveal that he was actually the little brother Hikaru the whole time was such a mind-screw, I basically decided to stop thinking about it after that. And after that point, he kind of felt like he was just there. Like, he got a lot of moments that made it clear how important he was, but I found him boring, and it also felt like he might as well have just been a different character after episode 13, but there's at least some sort of reasoning behind that, what with all the different personalities and whatnot.
I mentioned that I like Malik a lot. I just think he's cute. Double Head Eagle is cool, but it's not his move alone. I liked his character development. Honestly, as soon as I heard his voice, I was a lost cause. Maybe that means I was already a lost cause. Regardless, here's a cute picture.
Look at how smol he is, sandwiched between them
PART 5 - Final Talking Points
I really liked the episode where Sunny took Ichihoshi out hiking. I thought it was a really good moment for Sunny's character and also gave him a chance to really get involved with the season's primary plot up until that point. Before, Mark had pretty much usurped the role of main character, as he's just so protagonist-y in nature. I also liked how when they started talking about Kappa being real, Hunter had an unpleasant reaction; it's a nice call back to the filler episode in season 3.
One thing that disappointed me in Ares was that Elliot only got the teddy bears for Faith (or Faythe or however it's spelled this time). I thought it'd be cool if someone of his character archetype just had a huge obsession with stuffed bears. Then here comes Orion with an episode largely devoted to that very premise.
Speaking of things I didn't like in Ares. Two of them were Heath and Regina's dynamic, and Elliot's "friend" Faith. The latter didn't return at all in Orion, and I'm pretty sure Heath and Regina literally only spoke to each other once in this season, so that made me happy.
Aside from the funny gag with Xavier Schiller being cut off when he tried to declare himself the "God of Goals", the god thing didn't really inform his character in Ares, but in Orion, it's a lot more prominent for some reason, even forming a basis for his dynamic with Aphrodite.
I didn't mention him at all, but the five star trainer/data analyst/cyber security guy/whatever else is such a cheat code. With three Gary Sues in the form of him, Mister Yi, and Heath, it's a wonder Inazuma Japan were ever in any trouble at all. Speaking of which, the shot that Axel used at the beginning of the season, Last Resort, took the entire power trio of Ares + Ichihoshi to perform. The glazing of Axel this season was wild, and yet, still not as out of hand as the glazing he gets on this sub, lol.
Ares and Orion have this weird thing with the morals being kind of inconsistent. It's most clearly seen with special tactics like Grid Omega and Minefield, which are clearly regarded as being "dirty plays" at best, and downright atrocious at worst, and yet, Inazuma Japan uses both of them, and Sunny barely says anything about the former, and nobody raises a single objection to the use of Minefield when Inazuma Japan does it.
One thing that I really appreciated about Orion was that it did a good job of avoiding power creep, but still eventually creeped out moves so that they wouldn't become overused and stale. Penguin the God and Devil is used for pretty much the entire Asia prelims to great effect, but gets phased out during the China match before it can feel overused. Moves like Polar Bear #2 and Cosmic Blaster from Ares get brought back and are effective. Outside of shots, moves like Flash Dash and Zone of Pentagram, which were there from pretty much the beginning of Ares, are still effective, but are used sparingly to avoid getting tired of them.
I thought this was a really great way to end the match, even if it was a bit silly
Look, I've never shipped characters together before, and I don't intend on starting now. But I'm just saying, these two had a really cute dynamic together. I liked how Sunny was able to break through to Yurika, and I really think there could've been a powerful moment there if Yurika and the Shadow of Orion team as a whole weren't so last-minute. Also, in any anime where a romantic relationship is even a remote possibility, this is a confession of love, or at least will be taken as such by the receiver and any random bystanders.
But of course, this is Inazuma Eleven, so that was never even in consideration.
PART 6 - Verdict
Honestly, it's just another season of Inazuma Eleven. And don't get me wrong, that's a great thing. I really like this series, and I've enjoyed every season so far, but while Orion has its own strong and weak points compared to the rest, I couldn't really rate it any higher or lower than them. If I were to rank Inazuma Eleven seasons, it'd be:
Ares
Everything else
I'd have to spend hours deliberating to try and rank 2-8, and even then, I wouldn't feel very confident, especially since it's been seven months since I watched the first season, and about six and half since I finished season 2.
My verdict is: Inazuma Eleven Orion, despite its issues, is great, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the series.
TL;DR
What am I doing with my life? I spent 7 and a half hours writing this. This really got away from me. If this goes through, I'll be surprised that I didn't exceed the character limit on a post. I feel like I really should've cut out the story breakdown part.
Sorry, here's the actual
TL;DR: Man, this post is so long I don't even know what to put here. Character designs and special moves are spot-on, but there are so many that there are bound to be some stinkers. The plot is a mess, and the story tries to portray itself as if there's any sort of moral quandary when things are honestly pretty black and white, but the characters, especially the new ones, are really enjoyable, and the matches are fun if you can stomach large quantities of blatant cheating. I'd highly recommend Orion to any fans of the series.
Also: Garshield was just a psyop created by copers who want to pretend that Ray Dark wasn't Satan incarnate.