Red Blue: A fun live-action adaptation with solid MMA.

 

Red Blue was an adaptation that seemed to come out of nowhere. When the drama was announced, the manga was still ongoing and as such, I was rather intrigued as to just how it was going to be handled. Atushi Nakajiri's manga might just be one of the best depictions of mixed martial arts in the medium and the drama had a lot to live up to in that regard. Starting at the very tail end of 2024, December 18th to be specific, it was a very bold move. I think it worked out well as Red Blue became one of my very favourite dramas produced in 2024. 

Aoba Suzuki is for all intents and purposes an outcast. He lives a bleak, depressing life and is asthmatic on top of it. Day by day he gets bullied by a guy named Sannosuke Iwase under the pretence of "play fighting". Aoba sees this situation as an opportunity to forge a friendship with Iwase, taking notes about Iwase's fight movements. After the U-18 MMA champion, Kenshin Akasawa intervenes one of the "play fighting" sessions, he tells Aoba that he is empty due to the latter being devoid of dreams. This prompts Aoba to want to punch Kenshin, just once. To that end, Iwase introduces Aoba to the Shark Gym and more importantly, former professional MMA fighter Kanenari Tokiwa. With the Shark Gym on the verge of going bankrupt, Tokiwa accepts Aoba as a student. Under Tokiwa's guidance, Aoba prepares to enter the MMA Koshien, a tournament that determines the very best high school fighter. 

As a fan of MMA, the fight scenes were a joy to watch. Despite having prior knowledge of the techniques being shown, I found the MMA technique explanations to be excellent. They were nicely detailed without going overboard and being too much. I loved the first scene in Shark Gym as it's a classic underdog with no real skill being humbled by the professional fighter. Tokiwa moves well, reads Aoba like an open book and yet still sees the spark of potential within the guy. In the episode following that (Episode 2) we get a really nice sparring session that features some nice usage of pov shots, from the perspective of Iwase. In fact, that's one of the most impressive things about the fight scenes within the drama in general, the fact that dynamic camera shot types and techniques enhance the viewing experience whilst simultaneously disguising the budget constraints. 

The production values are pretty good, but you can tell that the drama did not have the biggest budget. Despite this, the vast array of dynamic camera movements and shot types used, help give it life in such a way that you can forget about the lack of budget. The camera moves around a lot, but not to the point of detriment. One of my favourite shots is a moving shot, a shot that pans around Kenshin as he finishes a conversation with Tokiwa and reveals Aoba standing off to the side. I love this shot because it highlights just how much Aoba thinks he's an afterthought in Kenshin's mind at that particular moment in time. 

What I really enjoyed about the drama is how despite only having 8 episodes, each of which were only around 25 minutes long, every fighter that we see gets some sort of backstory. Episode 6 in particular actually goes a step further as we see the mind games of two fighters who are extremely calculating, strategizing their fight. In it's essence, Red Blue shows just how much a drama can do with so little. 

Keito Kimura was immense in the role of Aoba Suzuki. If I didn't know it was Kimura who played Aoba, I wouldn't have recognised him. The intensity of his gaze, the sheer focus and tenacity he brought to the fight scenes was astounding. Kimura did a lot of heavy lifting with his facial expression, especially with his eyes. Aoba Suzuki is an extremely scary character not due to his physicality, but the way he adapts his mind to each opponent and their techniques. A man whom can write down skills and learn them within a very swift timeframe is terrifying. 

Show Kasamatsu was brilliant with the screen time he had to work with. As salaryman and grappling expert, Wataru Amachi, he turns out to be a key figure in Aoba's development in terms of his mma skills. In fact, there's some neat parallels between the two characters that works in their favour. His presence towards the very end of the last episode lends some great humour to the drama. 

Overall, I loved the drama. It's one of those ones which had me on the edge of my seat during the fights and that means it had me hooked. Between the fight scenes, the acting and the clever production making great usage of the limited budget, this is one of the easiest recommendations I could give.