Niko Ikki is one of the characters from the anime and manga series called Blue Lock. Blue Lock is written by the manga author Muneyaki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Yusuke Nomura. The anime adaptation was produced by Eight Bit and was released in October 2022. A second season and a movie have been announced and are in the process of making.
Blue Lock begins with Japan’s elimination from the 2019 FIFA World Cup at the 16th position, because of which the Japanese Football Association hires Jinpachi Ego, who is a football enigma in his own right, to start a program to make Japanese Football better. Ego is determined to destroy Japanese Loser Football and lead Japan to victory through Blue Lock.
Blue Lock is a training program that scouts high school players and is designed to create the World’s Greatest Egoist Striker among the chosen ones. Invitations are sent to three hundred forward players across the entirety of Japan, and they are isolated and locked in the Blue Lock Institute. They are put through various kinds of training, and their aim is set to become the World’s Best. There is going to be only one of the selected few who gets to stand at the top.
The training program comes with a catch, though. If you lose and are going to have to leave Blue Lock, then you will never be allowed to represent and play for any of the Japanese teams ever again. With the stakes so high, a group of high school players comes together to prove themselves and their egos. Niko Ikki is one of them.
Facts about Niko Ikki :
1. Niko Ikki’s Blue Lock Ranking
Blue Lock’s first segregation of players put Niko in Team Y at rank 255, based on the rank given on their blue lock uniforms. All the players were quantified and ranked by Jinpachi Ego on the basis of their abilities.
During the final selection trials, Niko and his team are the fifth ones to enter, with his new Blue Lock ranking being 63. After this, when Niko becomes a starter in Ubers, his rank shoots up to 14, and he becomes worth twenty-three million and five hundred thousand.
2. Niko Is Blue Lock’s Watch Tower
Niko comes to be known as Blue Lock’s Watch Tower. His technique of focusing not on the ball and the player who has the ball but on everything around them is his weapon. It is termed Watchtower Soccer.
With his vision and spatial awareness, Niko analyses both his teammates and his opponents. He makes a note of the weapons and position of every player on the field.
Niko acts like a watchtower and is able to predict any threat his team might have to face and moves to erase it accordingly. With this, he is able to make optimal use of all his abilities as a defender.
3. Niko Was The Heart Of Team Y
Kumamoto Prefecture’s top scorer and the number 9 of Team Y, Okawa Hibiki, was put in the spotlight as the best shooter on the team. However, in reality, it was Niko pulling the strings and orchestrating the whole team’s play.
Niko managed to see through all of Team Z’s plays and countered it immediately in the first half without getting noticed. He studied every player carefully and devised a plan to counter their weapons. Had Isagi not noticed, team Y would have easily won the game.
4. Isagi And Niko Parallels
Isagi’s weapon is revealed to be his spatial awareness in the first match with Team Y. Niko, alongside his skill to observe the players around the player in possession of the ball, he also has spatial awareness as a weapon.
Niko outright acknowledges Isagi and him being similar. He mentions how both of them have the same eyes. At the beginning of the series, both Isagi and Niko’s field analysis is centered around space. Space in the field to dribble past, space around the players to steal the ball, space to shoot a proper goal, all of it.
5. The Reason Why Niko Lost
Team Y loses to Team Z, which in reality is Niko losing to Isagi, as Isagi saw through Niko’s whole plan. One of the main reasons why Niko lost is because, towards the end of the match, when he gets the ball, instead of shooting it himself, he passes it to Okawa.
Everybody lost hope the moment Niko passed the ball because they expected him to shoot and score a goal since he had a very clear path to the goal. Everybody, except Isagi, predicted how Niko’s brain would work and intercepted the pass. Passing the ball means Niko’s not cut out to be a striker yet.
6. Niko And Isagi Differences
Niko, first and foremost, even if he does have the same eyes and ability to read the field as Isagi, does not have the ability to adapt to any situation. Niko also cannot predict what is going to happen.
Niko has been used to using his eyes in the game for way longer than Isagi has. So much so that he built his entire playstyle around that. Niko himself mentioned that he does not have a really good physique, so instead of his weak sides, he decided to train his eyes and mind to orchestrate the entire game and the players. Isagi, on the other hand, worked on his physique too.
Isagi also has his direct shot as a weapon. Niko does not have a weapon of his own that would make him stand out as a striker.
7. Niko’s Origin
Niko’s journey to be a striker starts after he loses the match against Isagi and realizes that even when he thinks he and Isagi have the same eyes, they are not on the same level because Isagi is constantly evolving.
Niko is one of the players that think before they move, and usually, because of this, even though he can figure out the play and knows where the ball is going to be, his physical capabilities are not enough to keep up.
Niko became the scoring king for Team Y when he cleared the second selection. He trains his already strong eyes and mind, but alongside that, he also practices and trains his body more to keep up with his mind and eyes. That is how Niko’s journey to be an egoist striker begins.
8. Niko’s Awakening Is Made Apparent
During the U-20 match, Niko is constantly analyzing every player in the match, but he focuses specifically on Shidou, who is a wild card in general. Shidou’s plays are purely based on instincts. Niko playing the role of the defender, was determined to stop Shidou.
He realizes reading Shidou is impossible and focusing on him entirely would be pointless, and Itoshi Sae’s ability to read the field is on another level. Niko’s perception of Shidou is that he is unpredictable, so he focuses on where the ball is coming from and where it will be going, which helps him predict the most dangerous spot accurately.
Niko’s predictions are all right, but he’s not fast enough to stop the plays at first. But right after this, Niko’s ego awakens, and he stops and manages to reach the most optimal point at the same time as Shidou.
9. Niko Isagi Rivalry
Niko, at the beginning of the Team Z vs. Team Y match, announces to Isagi that they are similar, and because of this, Isagi cannot beat him. But Isagi evolves during that match and manages to beat Niko. This moment marks the awakening of Isagi’s ego and starts off a rivalry between Niko and Isagi.
After the second selection, Niko comes to meet Isagi and lets him know that he survived and tells Isagi how his goal helped him change his perspective and make it through the second selection. He declares that he is not going to lose next time and that he will crush Isagi. Even after the final selection, Niko reminds Isagi of how he’ll defeat him.
10. Positions Niko Played
Niko played as a forward for Team Y when they had just started. After going through multiple rounds of selections, when they cleared the final selections, Niko was one of the top thirty-five players that got chosen.
The players were assigned positions on the basis of their skills and abilities by Jinpachi Ego. He started as a center-back for the Blue Lock Eleven during their match against Japan’s U-20. After that, he is playing as a defensive midfielder for Ubers in the current Neo Egoist League.
Read More: Blue Lock Movie: Episode Nagi, the Nagi spin-off is coming!
