Inazuma Eleven



"This is super-dimensional soccer!"

- Endou Mamoru, after the next episode preview.

Inazuma Eleven is the hit football/soccer RPG Video 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:
""ENDOU! ENDOU! ENDOU! CAPTAIN! ENDOU!! MAMORU!!"
 * A God Am I: All of the Zeus players, but most prominently Aphrodi.
 * Accidental Athlete: Tsunami
 * Accidental Marriage: Ichinose eats Rika's special lovey-dovey okonomiyaki and ends up getting into something like this.
 * Action Girl: Mainly Touko and Rika.
 * Adaptation Distillation / Adaptation Expansion: Both. Minor plot points are removed while major ones are elaborated upon.
 * Adorkable: Midorikawa. Though he also has his moments of Angst. Also, Kageno.
 * Adults Are Useless: Subverted, kinda.
 * 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  into the sunset.
 * Played straight near the end of the series,
 * Aliens Speaking Japanese
 * Subverted, as it seems that the aliens
 * All in A Row: Up to three party members can follow Endou (or in the plot developments in the third game: ) 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.
 * All Your Powers Combined: The Earth.
 * Always Someone Better
 * Ambiguously Brown: Lots of characters; most notable are Sakuma and Tsunami. Tsunami makes sense since he's Okinawan, but uh, Sakuma...
 * Ambition Is Evil: Kageyama, Fudou.
 * An Ice Person: Fubuki, and the Diamond Dust team.
 * 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.)
 * Anime Hair: Where do we even start!
 * Genda and Tsunami are probably the worst offenders.
 * Tobitaka.
 * Anime of the Game
 * 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.
 * Audible Gleam
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: The captains are usually the best players in their teams.
 * Back to Back Badasses: The initial pose of The Birth invokes this trope.
 * 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.
 * Badass Cape: Kidou,.
 * Badass Grandpa: Especially Coach Hibiki, heck, the entire Raimon OB team. Justified since they're actually
 * Badass Long Hair: Aphrodi.
 * 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.
 * Becoming the Mask:
 * Big Bad:
 * Ishido Shuuji in GO though he is actually
 * Big Brother Instinct: Gouenji and Kidou.
 * Big Eater: Kabeyama and Endou.
 * Osaka's okonimayaki shop's practice point turns anyone into this.
 * Bird Run
 * 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 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.
 * Blinding Bangs: Kageno.
 * Blond Guys Are Evil: Aphrodi,  Later, Mr.K
 * Blow You Away: Kazemaru.
 * 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, 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, and consequently gets Put On An Ambulance.
 * Break the Cutie:
 * Break the Haughty: Fudou becoming a benchwarmer.
 * Bruiser With a Soft Center: Someoka
 * Calling Your Attacks: Naturally, subtitles included.
 * Captain Obvious: (Episode 38).
 * 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 Boss has one.  They also operate like a game of chess.
 * Chick Magnet: Fubuki, and Nice from Big Waves.
 * Combat Commentator: Necessary due to the subject matter of the show. Megane is the earliest example and there have been many more after him.
 * Kakuma Keita is the fandom favorite. He reprises this role in the Wii game, Inazuma Eleven Strikers.
 * Combination Attack: DRAGOOOOOOOONNNNN!!!!!!!! TORNAAAAADOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 * WYVERRRRRRRNNNNN!!!!!!!!! BLIZAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRDDDD!!!!!
 * TIGERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!! STOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRMMMM!!!!
 * Conspicuous CG: On later episodes, they animate the team's van through 3D models.
 * Cool Old Guy: Coach Hibiki.
 * Creepy Twins
 * Cross Dressing Voices: A lot, seeing as most of the cast are cute kids.
 * Cry Cute: in the game.
 * Under different circumstances from the original, does it in the show.
 * Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Emperor Penguin no.1 and Beast Fang.
 * Darker and Edgier: The second game/second season of the anime.
 * The start of Inazuma Eleven GO. It gets better.
 * Death By Origin Story: Pops up often. We have Gouenji's and mothers,, coach Hitomiko's , Ichinose   and Endou Daisuke,
 * Delinquents: Tobitaka. He kinda gets better as the series progresses.
 * Demoted to Dragon:  when   got introduced.
 * Determinator: Endou, natch.
 * Defeat Means Friendship
 * Down to The Last Play
 * The Dragon:, who doubles as The Heavy.
 * Kidou, Aphrodi, Fudou, and Demonio to Kageyama, everyone but  made a Heel Face Turn.
 * Together with Kageyama, Henktacker to Garshield.
 * Dub Name Change: In the European translation. Because nothing says Japan like having every kid in town have an English name. See the character page for details.
 * Scunthorpe Problem: The latin american dub. Mamoru and Kageno were changed to Satoru and Sombra . The first one sounds similar to slang for oral sex and the second sounds along the lines of "shit, no"; thinking some people might get offended.
 * Duels Decide Everything: Is there anything that isn't solved with football?
 * 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)..
 * Elemental Powers: Each hissatsu is linked to an element, most likely for Rule of Cool
 * 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...
 * Everything Is Better With Penguins: Koutei Penguin 1gou, 2gou, 3gou and X.
 * Don't forget Space Penguins!
 * GO has added the multi-colored Koutei Penguin 7.
 * Everythings Better With Spinning: Death Zone, Spinning Shot, Fire Tornado, Flame Dance, etc.
 * Every Year They Fizzle Out: Toramaru
 * Evil Duo:
 * Hakuryuu and Shuu in GO.
 * Evil Old Folks: The council of El Dorado is made up of old men.
 * Eyepatch of Power: Sakuma.
 * 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:  It doesn't last very long.
 * in GO.
 * Fake Crossover: with Despicable Me, at least in this Eyecatch set seen here and a trailer for the JP release of the movie seen here.
 * Also with Happy Feet 2 in GO also as a promotion for the Japanese version of the movie.
 * He got better. And yet again with . 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 Basis except, Rika, Touko, Toramaru and Hiroto in the original and Shinsuke and Tenma in Go.
 * Also all of the managers, albeit inconsistently.
 * Five Man Band: The Inazuma All-Stars
 * The Hero - Endou, of course.
 * The Lancer - Kazemaru, the Number Two and the Only Sane Man.
 * The Smart Guy - Kidou, The Strategist
 * The Big Guy - Gouenji, the Ace Striker
 * The Chick (Magnet)- Fubuki, especially after he gets over his issues.
 * 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...
 * Get a Hold of Yourself Man: Goenji loves doing this with flaming soccer balls.
 * Goggles Do Nothing: Kidou, then later on  and Dylan.
 * It is later revealed about the reason Kidou using goggles.
 * Gollum Made Me Do It:
 * : At the end of the first series.
 * Gratuitous English: Mostly from Mark and Dylan.
 * Well, they are American, after all.
 * 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...
 * Hannibal Lecture: Ishido Shuuji gave one to Tenma in GO.
 * Hartman Hips: Endou's mom.
 * Heel Face Turn: Happens a lot, most prominently,  , and.
 * In GO,.
 * Heel Face Door Slam:
 * Heroic BSOD: Endou, of all people, at least twice. First is when he loses to Kidokawa's Traingle Z technique,
 * Heroic RROD: . The Avatars in GO can also cause this to their users.
 * Heroic Spirit: Mainly Endou, but the whole of Raimon Eleven could apply.
 * Homage: Freddy McQueen, goalkeeper for England representative Knights of Queen. Don't tell me it isn't obvious.
 * There's also Michael Jacks on the American team.
 * And "Diego Oro" in the Argentinan team.
 * Hot Blooded: Endou. Dear god, Endou.
 * Hot Dad: Kudou, Zaizen.
 * I Can Still Fight
 * An Ice Person: Most prominently Fubuki and Gazelle's Diamond Dust team.
 * Idiot Hero: Endou can be really thick sometimes. His successor, Tenma, isn't much better.
 * Improvised Training: TIRES
 * The whole point of Special Practice system; pushing a noodle cart, making snowmen, kicking trees, etc.
 * In Series Nickname: Matsuno "Max" Kuusuke, Shourinji "Shourin" Ayumu, Yamino "Shadow" Kageto.
 * 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.
 * Invocation: Hissatsu names are yelled before being performed.
 * Ironic Echo: "Earth has a saying that goes like this..."
 * Just for Pun: Aliens from Aliea. Alieans are aliens!
 * Near the end of Season 2 we discover that
 * Kids Are Cruel: The Teikoku kids like to aim at goalies instead of the goal.
 * Killed Off for Real: Though most of the deaths in the series were fake,  seems to have been the real deal.
 * Keet: Endou. And how.
 * La Résistance:
 * Large Ham: T-Pistonz+KMC, the group that does the opening themes, whenever they appear live in a music video or at a Level-5 event.
 * Also Ryou Sakaguchi, the actor who played Endou in the live-action stage show.
 * Last Name Basis: Most of the time. However, there are exceptions.
 * Lethal Chef: Natsumi. It Gets Worse
 * Tachimukai has a tendency to make food so spicy he's the only one able to eat it.
 * Light Is Not Good: Aphrodi.
 * 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.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters
 * Love Triangle: One involving . Later when   is Put On a Bus,   takes her place.
 * Quite confusing in GO: Strikers' bonus page (showing GO artwork, no less), the anime and Inazuma Eleven Go - Shine show, wherease Go - Dark has   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
 * Man Behind the Man: After Kageyama, the Big Bad of season one and most of season three, gets, is introduced as the man who he was working for and who was supporting his plans all this time.
 * Manly Tears:  after being released from the effects of the.
 * Meaningful Name: Most, if not all, characters.
 * Punny Name: Nearly every single name in the English translation. Shawn Frost and Axel Blaze anyone?
 * Mega Manning: The function of the Mixi Max gun in Chrono Stone.
 * The Messiah: Endou Mamoru.
 * Mood Whiplash: All of the trailers for the GO video games.
 * Morality Pet: Rushe can be seen as one for
 * for Tsurugi in GO.
 * Motor Mouth: Some of the opening raps.
 * My Future Self and Me: You can recruit Kogure in both his GO/Ten years later form and his original form in GO, thus causing this.
 * National Stereotypes: The Football Frontier International arc is dripping with these.
 * New Powers As the Plot Demands: Loads of them.
 * New Transfer Student: Gouenji, Domon, Ichinose and various others.
 * Nice Hat: Max and Touko.
 * 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 (there is already announcement for Strikers). North America, on the other hand, is still waiting.
 * Ominous Latin Chanting: Shinjinrui The Genesis, the theme when the  final team of Aliea Academy, The Genesis, was introduced.
 * The Ominous Latin Chanting was put to great effect when it was used during the scene where Demonio's  was depicted.
 * The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: El Dorado in Chrono Stone, who order Protocol Omega to erase soccer from existence.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Opposing Sports Team
 * Optional Party Member: Listing them all would probably take half a lifetime.
 * Order vs. Chaos: In GO between Fifth Sectors managed soccer against Raimons free soccer.
 * Otaku: Megane. At one point they fight a team of Otaku, and in the anime proves he is More Otaku Than Them.
 * Parental Abandonment:, and in GO.
 * Party in My Pocket: Three members show up on the map to follow the leader, but the other twelve are still available to swap in.
 * Patchwork Map: The Russian Roulette stadiums in GO.
 * Peek a Bangs: Kazemaru and Edgar. Many others.
 * Perpetual Frowner: Sugimori., and in Season 2 is seen practicing with another frowner, Yamino Kageto, who is nicknamed Shadow.
 * Pigeonholed Voice Actor: Junko Takeuchi as Endou.
 * The Plan: Kageyama makes one or two.
 * Playing With Fire: Mainly Gouenji, though other characters have fire-related techniques as well.
 * Pointless Band Aid: Kurimatsu and Kuramada in GO.
 * The Power of Friendship: An important theme in the show.
 * Power Gives You Wings: Aphrodi's hissatsu techniques.
 * You also got
 * Mark Kruger also has The Icarus.
 * Put On a Bus: Quite a few characters get injured and replaced, only to come back later (for a while).
 * Real Time With Pause
 * Red Eyes Take Warning: Kidou and Aphrodi.
 * Red Oni Blue Oni: Burn and Gazel. Kidou and, also Kidou and Fideo, and then there's Kidou and Fudou.
 * Goenji (fire) and Shiro Fubuki (ice.)
 * 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.
 * In GO, Kariya's bad naming of hissatsu techniques, and Tsurugi's dodging Tenma's (sometimes with Shinsuke) attempts to glomp him.
 * Replacement Goldfish: A minor example are the various antagonist teams that Kageyama creates over the seasons to fight Raimon.
 * Say My Name: The first season finale.


 * Scarf of Asskicking: Fubuki has one.
 * 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.
 * Science Is Useless: Most of them anyway.
 * 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 Naruto in 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(all Latin America), VivaSports (México) and ETC TV (Chile) are the only ones consistently airing the series with a decent schedule, also in Brazil where the series is a huge success. 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.
 * In Chrono Stone, after an international incident involving football, the game is banned in Japan. What takes the Serious Business to new levels is that the authority isn't content with just the ban. They order that all balls, uniforms and football equipments in general have to be burned.
 * 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  & lots with Endou and
 * Depending on whether one follows the games or the anime, Haruna get a lot of ship teasing with Kogure (video games) and Tachimukai (anime).
 * Sir Not Appearing in This Trailer: Rika doesn't show in the second anime opening, for whatever reason.
 * Minamisawa of GO took the fandom by surprise because he wasn't in any of the promotional work or even the website.
 * Slippy Slidey Ice World: Snowland Stadium in GO.
 * Smug Snake: Fudou
 * So Bad Its Good: In-universe in GO, this is what most of the other characters seem to think of Kariya's suggestions for hissatsu names.
 * So Last Season: Unstoppable ultimate techniques tend to become much less so as the series goes on.
 * Sprite Polygon Mix: The first three games.
 * Split Screen Reaction
 * 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.
 * Super Ringer: Gouenji is added to the team mid-match multiple times in the series. Awesome usually ensues.
 * 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.
 * Super Serum: Up to Mass Super Empowering Event with Aqua of the Gods.
 * Super Soldier:
 * Ogre, from the movie.
 * Talking Is a Free Action
 * Talking to Himself: Yuki Kaji plays both Ichinose and Fudou. They're wildly different people.
 * Megumi Tano plays both Kabeyama and Sakuma.
 * Ayahi Takagaki is both Kurama and Aoyama.
 * Hiroyuki Yoshino plays both Kidou and Hayami.
 * Talking to Themself:, usually with help from a mirror.
 * Team Spirit
 * Teen Genius: Kidou (academics/sports), Ichinose (sports), and Otomura (music). Interestingly enough, they all play as midfielders.
 * GO! has Shindou (music, like Otomura). He also plays as a midfielder.
 * Teens Are Short: Players you would have pictured pretty tall are probably still at least half a head shorter than any adult.
 * Theme Naming: Zeus' players, named after gods, with the exception of Aphrodi who's named after the goddess of beauty.
 * Don't forget the managers, named after seasons.
 * The managers in GO are named after colors.
 * Theme Tune Cameo: When this shows up, expect a Crowning Moment of Awesome to happen shortly after.
 * Of a different sort, Rika is introduced by her humming along and walking to the beat of Maji de Kansha.
 * There Are No Therapists
 * This Is a Drill: Desarm's Drill Smasher. Baddap's Death Spear also looks and sounds like one.
 * Time Police: What Protocol Omega of Chrono Stone essentially are.
 * The Thing That Goes Doink: First seen in episode 38.
 * Time Travel: The first movie and GO's second season involve this.
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Touko and Rika respectively.
 * 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.
 * The Final Boss Opposing Sports Team was trained by
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Unexpected Gameplay Change: The national round of Holy Road features unconventional stadiums. Naturally, Raimon are never informed about where they will play next.
 * Unrealistic Black Hole: Desarm's Worm Hole.
 * Verbal Tic
 * Villain Team Up: In the second season, after they're both defeated,
 * Walking Shirtless Scene: Tsunami does this a lot.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome: Inazuma Eleven beats pretty much every other sports anime/game that uses the trope. Yes, even Tezuka and his dinosaurs.
 * What the Hell Hero: Endou was reasonably displeased to discover 's involvement with Fifth Sector.
 * The Wiki Rule: Like you wouldn't believe.
 * The Worf Effect: Mainly The Wall and The Tower, which rarely work in the anime, despite being incredibly useful in the games. Also, if the bad guys of the week get serious, don't expect any waza to stop them until Endou gives another speech of soccer and friendship.
 * Ijigen the Hand. Quite ironic, it deflects many shots in the game until you get God Catch.
 * In GO Sidewinder and just about all of Sangoku's goalie techniques get this.
 * World of Ham
 * Yasunori Mitsuda
 * Not the composer for GO's first season, but word is he will be returning for the second.
 * You Have Failed Me: In Chrono Stone, any member of Protocol Omega that fails to meet El Dorado's expectations.
 * Younger Than They Look: A lot of characters, such as Someoka and Hijikata. This would be the case of Artistic Age.
 * X Meets Y: Captain Tsubasa meets Dragonball Z, or Captain Tsubasa meets Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
 * If we see the videogames, it's Captain Tsubasa meets Dragonball Z meets Pokémon meets Final Fantasy meets Disgaea. Yikes!
 * If we see the videogames, it's Captain Tsubasa meets Dragonball Z meets Pokémon meets Final Fantasy meets Disgaea. Yikes!