Inazuma Eleven is the hit football/soccerRPGVideo Game then Anime then Manga series from Level-5. It follows the story of Endou Mamoru (or Mark Evans, if you don't like Japanese names), the spirited goalkeeper of Raimon Junior High's nearly-disbanded football team consisting of only seven members. Although Endou inherits his deceased grandfather's goalkeeping skills and love for soccer, his teammates are somewhat less motivated. Things take a drastic turn when legendary ace striker Gouenji Shuuya moves to Inazuma town. Desperate to recruit more members before the school shuts down the soccer club and also hoping to participate in the celebrated national Football Frontier tournament, Endou tries to convince Gouenji to join his team. However, Gouenji's arrival has also caught the attention of Teikoku Academy, the champion of Football Frontier for 40 consecutive years, who then proceed to arrange a "friendly match" with Raimon.As of now, there are a total of three games/seasons, with two future games to be released:
The first focuses on the Raimon team's quest to become the best in Japan, facing off against several other schools in the country including Teikoku and the mysterious Zeus Junior High.
The second takes place soon after the first, when three black footballs appear from the sky and destroy all the main schools in the region. The Raimon team must battle against the superior soccer players of Aliea Academy to save Japan from destruction.
The third game/season follows Endou and his friends as they strive to become the best junior team in the world by playing in Football Frontier International, a World Cup-like tournament set on the fictional Liocott Island.
The fourth game is the first in the series to be released on the Nintendo 3DS. It occurs 10 years after the events of the first three, with new characters and returning ones, with Matsukaze Tenma as the main character. The enemy is soccer itself. The anime for this game has already started, titled Inazuma Eleven GO.
The second season of GO anime, titled Chrono Stone, will start on April 18th 2012.
Inazuma Future is a mobile phone game co-developed by Roid about Endou's great-grandson Kanon.
Inazuma Eleven Strikers is a multi-player spin-off on the Wii, trading off the RPG experience to become purely a sports game; additional elements such as training through mini-games and Relationship Values between each player were also included. It has Earlybird Cameos of characters from GO, and recently an Updated Rerelease has been released, still for the Wii.
There is also a movie set for release in December, which seems to deal with events occurring in the future after Endou's story.
This series features examples of:
A God Am I: All of the Zeus players, but most prominently Aphrodi. He gets better.
Agent Peacock: Aphrodi, what with the long hair and eyelashes, effeminate movements, fashion sense, hell, his name. He can also stop hissatsu techniques with one hand without using any hissatsu of his own, and he isn't even a goalkeeper.
Air Voyance: Beautifully subverted as Endou shouts to the plane carrying Ichinose into the sunset. He replies immediately, having been right behind him.
Played straight near the end of the series, when Endou sees off the plane carrying his fellow FFI competitors.
Subverted, as it seems that the aliens were actually kids given the power of the Aelia meteorite to be physically superior.
All in a Row: Up to three party members can follow Endou (or in the plot developments in the third game: Kidou or Kazemaru) in this way, and sometimes an NPC also tags along at the back. The three can be swapped out with the other twelve field members at any time, unless the story requires certain members to accompany Endou.
Animal Battle Aura: Many Hissatsu shoots have animal-themed auras e.g. "Dragon Crash", "Beast Fang"
Anime Accent Absence: Mostly during the FFI arc were the entire world seems to speak flawless Japanese(with the exception of Mark and Dylan who occasionally slip in Gratuitous English.)
Ascended Extra: Ichinose Kazuya, he joins as a secret character where there's no plot left for him to take. He doesn't even have any dialogue with his old friend Kino Aki. Then comes the second game, where he must be recruited to continue to story, the third game where his rivaly with Endou develops a whole arc of the game, and finally, the anime has him one of the key members of Raimon and has outright shown his relationship development with Aki.
Ascended Fanboy: Tachimukai, being Endou Mamoru's fan and developing simillar skills he has, becomes a part of the heroes who fight Aliea Academy and play for Japan's national team.
Winners of the official Inazuma Eleven 2's tournaments became secret character in Inazuma Eleven 3, too. The bands who composed the intro and outro themes for both games and animes were also featured as secret players.
Badass: Practically all the characters in some way.
Badass Adorable: Toramaru, Fubuki, Tachimukai, Kogure - heck, any character who's adorable probably gets at least one badass moment that qualifies them.
Bag of Spilling: Stuff that carries over each game seems to be some of the characters' specials, nothing else.
Granted, everyone (or at least, the main characters) get higher stat averages with every sequel. As if to say it's not really starting from scratch, but rather having a new criteria for how strong you are. Aliea Academy in Kyoui no Shinryakusha, and the rest of the world in Sekai no Chousen.
If you ditch someone in your team, they lose all experience and equipment, and have to be trained again if you're going to re-recruit them.
BLAM Episode: The Movie, which starts out as a recap of the first season then things start swerving off of continuity; and the events of The Movie never seem to be mentioned again.
Understandably so. An Alternate Continuity where Endou could easily point at certain people he just met and exclaim they came from the future to help him win the Football Frontier sounds pretty confusing.
Also, Episode 100 when Hiroto and Kogure get lost in the woods, and are challenged to a match by a pair of Kappas, no character development happens, no new techniques are learned, and it's only mentioned in a blink and you miss it scene during a flashback.
Bowdlerize: In the game, the Otaku Junior High arc dealt with Otaku hacking into the Football Frontier computers to make it look like Raimon lost as well as giving your team (sans Endou who refused to eat and Gouenji who refused to go in at all) food poisoning at a Maid Cafe. The anime changed their dastardly plan to pushing a goal out of the way of the ball.
In the second season, Kazemaru undergoes self-confidence issues and leaves the team. In-game? He is specifically targeted for being the only one who could keep up, and is hurt to a point of being seriously injured from the match with Genesis, and consequently gets Put On An Ambulance.
Cast of Snowflakes: 1000+ characters in the first game, with another 1000+ added across the two sequels, every last one of them unique.
Character Development: What makes the series really enjoyable, asides from the soccer matches.
Chess Motifs: GO's Final BossDragonlink has one. All of the members of the team have avatars that are based off of chess pieces, with their captain Senguji having The King. They also operate like a game of chess.
Justified in GO, where soccer is an actual symbol of power as a consequence of the first series.
Dummied Out: The EU version of the first game has been upgraded with the 3D models and other enhancements of the second japanese game, including techniques obtainable only via Action Replay (the x99 All items code), normally from the second game. Fully translated and functional, no less. One can be optimist about an eventual release of Inazuma 2...
Playable Professor Layton characters. They could be challenged only in the JAP version of the first game; but their data is present on the cartridge in the first two games, even the EU version (albeit buggy, but playable after hacking)..
Engrish: Mostly averted, but a couple spelling errors have slipped through the cracks:
One example of "Itarian": one scene in the anime has a giant sign reading "ITARIA" instead of "ITALIA".
Episode 85's Liocott International Airport sign is spelled as "Raiocotto". This one was corrected in time for the third game's release a couple weeks after this episode aired.
Then again the games aren't completely safe either. There is a "Rocker Room" in Liocott's main stadium...
Face Fault: Used both straight... and rather in an unorthodox way. The technique Aikido sweeps the victim on the legs, turns him upside down, and you probably know what happens next.
Face Heel Turn: Kazemaru, Someoka and multiple other Raimon Eleven players. It doesn't last very long.
Also with Happy Feet 2 in GO also as a promotion for the Japanese version of the movie.
Faking the Dead: Ichinose He got better. And yet again with Daisuke. He gets better too.
Fan Nickname: Enbro, Broenji, Kibro, Ichibrose... you get the point.
One by the seiyuu themselves is Zenda (Fidio). Since he's like a complete Handa.
Another unfortunate one invented by the seiyuu is Sakuma as Kidou's "goldfish poop".
Finishing Move: All the flashier shoots can fall under this, but the one that really takes the cake is The Earth in season 2.
First Name Basis: Most characters are referred to by Last Name Basisexcept, Rika, Touko, Toramaru and Hiroto in the original and Shinsuke and Tenma in Go.
For Great Justice: The plot of the first season of GO! with Raimon fighting so that people can freely compete in football.
Gang of Hats: Most of the rival teams, especially in season 1. Let's see, we have the occult team, the sci-fi team, the otaku team, the ninja team, the god team...
It is later revealed about the reason Kidou using goggles which is because it makes him being able to concentrate just on the vital parts on the field, as stated by Kageyama. The other reason is because it's been his trademark.
Endou likes to say "Don't mind, don't mind!" and "Thank you!"
"Pinch" and some English football terms like "playmaking" or "dribbling" are often used as well.
Chrono Stone's Alpha's "Yes"/"No" is quickly becoming memetic.
Hand Blast: The Ganymede Proton Hissatsu technique uses a Hand Blast for soccer of all things; the user stands behind the ball, facing the opposing team's goal, and directs the beam at the ball to send it flying at the goal. Apparently it's technically not a handball if you don't directly touch the ball with either hand, or maybe Rule Of Cool just takes precedence over the other rules.
And now we have Tsurugi's Death Sword in GO. At least there's some kicking involved...
Heroic BSOD: Endou, of all people, at least twice. First is when he loses to Kidokawa's Traingle Z technique, and other is when Kazemaru ditches the team during the second season of the anime.
Naturally for a sports genre, notably skillful characters get titles. Ichinose "The Magician Of The Field", Fubuki the "Bear Killer", Gouenji the "Flame Striker", Mac Roniejo "King of Fantasista" of Brazil, and Fidio "The White Meteor" of Italy.
Tachimukai has a tendency to make food so spicy he's the only one able to eat it.
Light is Not Good: Aphrodi. At first, anyway. He does help Raimon out in a couple of episodes, but is generally portrayed as something of a Friendly Enemy. That being said, he's utterly fabulous.
The bad guys in GO, Fifth Sector, consider themselves a holy order.
One of the teams showcased in the movie is called Unlimited Shining, led by Hakuryuu.
Love Triangle: One involving Endou, Aki and Natsumi. Later when Natsumi is put on a bus, Fuyuka takes her place.
Quite confusing in GO: Strikers' bonus page (showing GO artwork, no less), the anime and Inazuma Eleven Go - Shine show Endou married with Natsumi, wherease Go - Dark has Fuyuka instead.
Made of Iron: The goal nets. They were first broken by Reize in the second season, then Fubuki's Eternal Blizzard sliced through them, and then Edgar from England got to them. Three moves in over a hundred episodes.
The balls. They rarely break even they take direct impact from special moves.
Magikarp Power: In the games, almost everyone starts out at level 5 with no or default techniques included. Training their levels up will have them access powerful moves, such as Handa getting Odin Sword at level 66
Man Behind the Man: After Kageyama, the Big Bad of season one and most of season three, gets Killed Off for Real, Garshield is introduced as the man who he was working for and who was supporting his plans all this time.
Manly Tears: Kazemaru after being released from the effects of the Aliea Meteorite.
No Communities Were Harmed: Inazuma Town bears a striking resemblance to the Tokyo metropolitan area. The area around Raimon and the riverbank plaza is reminiscent of Asakusa and its surrounding area, and the place where Endou does his tire training seems be based on Shiba Park.
No Export for You: Europe already received the anime series and the first two games. It's been so succesful that the rest of the package seems to be on its way. North America, on the other hand, is still waiting.
The Ominous Latin Chanting was put to great effect when it was used during the scene where Demonio's fall to his greed and ambition thanks to Kageyama was depicted.
One Game for the Price of Two: Since the second game (Fire/Blizzard). The third has Spark and Bomber, plus an Updated Rerelease named The Ogre, and Go has Shine and Dark, both with many changes between each other.
One Letter Name: Mr. K, who is later revealed to be Kageyama.
One Steve Limit: Subverted in regards to scout characters. There are some repeated names: those with the same given name, some having one name as their given name and another having it as a family name, etc.
For plot significant characters, there's Mark Kruger, the captain of the American team Unicorn. Whose name... never got changed at the dub. Then he meets Mark Evans.
Perpetual Frowner: Sugimori. He gets over it after learning soccer can be fun, and in Season 2 is seen practicing with another frowner, Yamino Kageto, who is nicknamed Shadow.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Burn and Gazel. Kidou and Demonio Strada, also Kidou and Fideo, and then there's Kidou and Fudou.
Goenji (fire) and Shiro Fubuki (ice.) Shiro and his brother are also this.
Running Gag: Kogure putting chili sauce in people's food.
Also Endou getting distracted while training with a tire tied to a tree and consequentially getting hit by it.
Rika regularly lies in the show's third season.
Kariya's bad naming of hissatsu techniques in GO.
Replacement Goldfish: Hiroto is a replacement for the dead son of Kira Seijirou, the leader of Aliea Academy. A minor example are the various antagonist teams that Kageyama creates over the seasons to fight Raimon. However he plays it straight with the introduction of Demonio, a Kidou Expy, in season 3.
Scary Shiny Glasses: Most of the glasses wearing BigBads get them, with the most prominent example being Kageyama. Megane has this also, but it's subverted, being used for comic relief and hamming it up.
Scenery Porn: Like everything else Level 5 does, backgrounds are intricately detailed and quite colorful.
Screwed by the Network: It's bad enough Nintendo put an embargo on Inazuma Eleven's UK release (Never mind the fact it was LOCALISED THERE) such that the game was unavailable in the UK until the anime aired. But Disney XD really didn't give a rats ass about the series, punting it on at 8:30am in the morning (albeit in the summer but still) and then pulling it off air 26 episodes in. If not for how they treated Narutoin a past life this would be considered one of the most egregious examples of screwing a show over by any UK Television company.
Even more Egregious in Latin America. ZAZ, SportsTV and ETC TV are the only ones consistently airing the series with a decent schedule. But what about other countries's networks in the region? Every one of them screwed the series, airing it at 5:30 A.M in Ecuador and Perú, eventually pulling it off air; inconsistent airings and schedules in CityTV in Colombia, also pulling it off air in favor of a block with only Nickelodeon shows*
Serial Escalation soccer teams that seems to have spent their whole live in a jungle, players that summon penguins, hands and gods out of nowhere, and abilities to get away from intently injury other players without triggering a foul or a red card, etc...
Serious Business: Plotting the murder of the opposing team just to get an easy win. A bit much don't you think, Kageyama?
How ten years later as a result of the first series, soccer became the determinate factor of a school's worth; resulting in Fifth Sector's controlled soccer.
In the first movie and Chrono Stone, what is essentially time police is ordered to erase the existence of football from the universe or at least undermine its importance, and the heroes have to protect it.
Set Right What Once Went Wrong: A substantial part of Chrono Stone. The protagonists have to restore the "true" timeline from all the tamperings of Protocol Omega.
She-Fu: The CCC Osaka Girls. The third game has Touko and Rika lead what is essentially an all-female version of Inazuma Japan during a practice round. And Strikers has even the managers become playable.
She's a Man in Japan: Miyasaka is changed into a girl named Miles (which oddly enough, is a boy's name) in the dub.
GAZELLE, of all people, is a girl in the dub.
The Latin-American dub subverts this. Gazelle's voice is still that of a girl, but Rebeca Gomez sounds and speak so tough that audience can tell that Gazelle is a guy, and the other characters properly refers to him as a man. You can hear him (or her) here.
Ship Tease: A little bit with Tsunami and Touko, but it doesn't get anywhere. Perhaps some with Ichinose and Aki too.
Season 3 gives us Natsumi and Rococo & lots with Endou and Fuyuka.
Depending on whether one follows the games or the anime, Haruna get a lot of ship teasing with Kogure (video games) and Tachimukai*
In fact the anime seems to inserst scenes that diverge from the video games just to do this.
Stock Footage: Of any hissatsu that has its own background. They don't even try to hide it.
Justified in that the techniques look like they have to be pulled off in a certain way to work.
Played with by hissatsu which don't have their own background. The foreground is reused each time, but the background is reanimated. God Hand in particular has the camera swivel around the user, which tends to really show off the Scenery Porn.
Stuffed Into A Locker: Subverted, Kabeyama tries to hide in a locker and gets himself stuck.
Subverted slightly with Nishiki in GO. During the Hakuren match he's set up to be the key forward that'll complete Double Wing, only to reveal that his skills are a bit rusty due to playing in a completely different position overseas.
Tournament Arc: Makes up most of season 1, all of season three, and first season of GO.
Training from Hell : Endou practices by punching a tire tied to a tree. Really. Also, in the game it is implied that he performs 100 push ups every day to keep his God Hand strong enough.
Coach Hitomiko's training of Neo Japan also counts.
Kidou as coach in GO, to the point that three (... or two with one dragged along) rebelled and didn't come to practice the next day. Turns out Kidou did it so he could run diagnostics on their limitations, then adjusted their individual training menus to their maximum capabilities.
True Companions: Of course. The former name for this trope: nakama, pops up in just about every other Inazuma Eleven theme song.
Underdogs Never Lose : Played straight with the main team, but completely subverted with Tachimukai's team.
Actually Inazuma Japan loses the match against The Empire. But it plays a role in their development, so it all works out in the end.
Unexpected Gameplay Change: The national round of Holy Road features unconventional stadiums. Naturally, Raimon are never informed about where they will play next.
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