History Recap / BlueLockTagEntranceGame

Determined not to go back to the temple, Igarashi goes forward with trying to kick the soccer ball at the others of Team Z. Igarashi struggles to hit anyone, end even gets kicked in the head by one of Team Z's players who was sleeping the whole time, which kicking people isn't against the rules. A member of Team Z, Rensuke Kunigami, confronts the sleeping striker not liking that the latter kicked a teammate, which Igarashi ends up striking Kunigami in the head with the ball since he was distracted. Thus, making Kunigami the new "It". Not liking the dirty play, Kunigami kicks the ball back at Igarashi with a really powerful kick since Kunigami appears to have a well-built body. However, the kick ends up striking Isagi instead, which makes Isagi the new "It." Isagi ends up struggling to hit anyone as time winds down, which the sleeping Team Z player is seen toying with Kunigami. The result is Kunigami throwing the sleeping player into Igarashi, which Igarashi ends up injuring his ankle, and allows for Isagi to get a free shot at him.

After signing their consent forms, the 300 young strikers are seen on buses traveling through the mountains of Japan to what will be their new lodging. Eventually, the buses arrive at the massive pentagon structure known as the Blue Lock where they will be working themselves up to become the best striker. At the entrance, Anri confiscates their phones and wallets while providing them all their Blue Lock uniforms. Isagi's uniform being labled as 299-Z. Anri orders the 300 strikers to go to the room that matches the letter on the uniform they've been given, which means that Isagi has been assigned to Room Z. He makes his way through the Blue Lock labyrinth until locating Room Z, which Isagi enters into a large rectangular room that has 11 other strikers changing into their Blue Lock uniforms. Kira is relieved to see a familiar face amongst his group, which Isagi also meets a large muscular striker along with an odd striker currently sleeping on the floor.

Hyped to see that he's been grouped up with a player as a famous as Kira, a 2nd-year striker named Gurimu Igarashi introduces himself. As a boy who rejected his future of working at a temple monk in order to pursue a life of playing football, Igarashi explains that Ego's speech convinced him to change his fate. Isagi greets him in return, and sees that Igarashi's been labeled as 300-Z. Suddenly, Ego appears on the television in their room, and explains that the strikers that are currently grouped together are now each other's roommates and rivals. He further explains that the numbers they've been given on their uniforms are their current rankings based on his own judgements of each of his striker's skills, which Isagi realizes that he's considered to be just the 299th best player out of 300. Only Igarashi being worse than him. However, Ego assures them that they can increase their rankings based on how they perform in training and the upcoming match-ups with other striker groups. In addition, the Top-5 players will become the selected strikers to play for Japan's U-20 National Team for the World Cup (a tournament for players under the age of 20).

Ego provides his strikers a final warning that those who fail in Blue Lock will be permanently barred from playing for Japan's National Team. He also reminds them all that the crucial component he's measuring for is one's "ego." A hole then opens up in the ceiling of Room Z, and a soccer ball drops in and lands on the floor. Implied to be the same case going on in the other striker rooms, Ego states that the game of Tag will now begin. The time limit is 136 seconds, use of hands is disallowed, and the player with ball possession is deemed "it." The one who is still "it" by the end of the time limit will be thrown out of Blue Lock, which shocks everyone in Room Z, and as the room's lowest ranked player, Igarashi ends up being selected as Room Z's starting "it." Ego gives a final explanation that Tag is one of many exercises that pro players warm up with, and that this will serve as a good "egoism test" that will provide him good insight into the selfishness of his 300 strikers. He advises them to prepare and attack as the game of Tag officially begins.

The door into Room Z locks up; leaving Isagi and the 11 other strikers he's with trapped in the room to play out the Tag game. Having no interest in returning to his life as a temple monk, Igarashi is set to kick the soccer ball, and hopes the person who ends up getting expelled doesn't hold it against him. Not wanting to be eliminated, Isagi and the other strikers all start running around the room to avoid Igarashi's shot, which he winds up struggling to hit anyone. Hanging around Isagi, Kira explains that he's only taking part in Blue Lock because he finds Ego's rotten ideology completely screwed up, and that he won't let such a guy staking their football careers on a game of Tag ruin his future. Igarashi suddenly decides to aim for the striker that's been sleeping, but is caught off-guard when the sleeper wakes up, and kicks Igarashi in the head. Igarashi calls for a foul, but the sleeper striker reminds him that the only actual rule is to not use hands. The muscle striker from earlier calls the sleeper out for dirty play. However, Igarashi uses the opening to hit the off-guard muscle striker in the head with the soccer ball; making him the new "it."

The muscle striker turns out to be named Rensuke Kunigami (ranked 291-Z) as he aims to smash the ball back at Igarashi out of anger. Igarashi winds up taking shelter behind Isagi, which results in Isagi taking Kunigami's powerful kick to the chest, and becomes the new "it." With only 60 seconds remaining, Isagi struggles to hit anyone with the ball due to everyone being in top-notch condition. Thus, he chooses to go after the one deemed the weakest, Igarashi. Isagi continues to struggle due to exhaustion starting to kick in, which he notices the sleeping striker using his arms to hold up Kunigami until the latter manages to throw the sleeper off him. The sleeper ends up landing on Igarashi, which results in the latter spraining his ankle. The scared Igarashi is left a sitting duck unable to move due to the injury as Isagi stands before him with the ball. The time drops below 30 seconds, and Igarashi is begging Isagi not to hit him. Isagi remains lost in thought realizing that he has to go through with ending someone else's career in order to push foward with his own. His "ego" kicks in and is about to strike the ball at the injured Igarashi. However, Isagi stops at the last moment with 15 seconds remaining on the clock.

Isagi thinks things over again remembering the mistakes he's made up to this point, and realizes that nothing will change if he keeps going down the same path he's been on. Thus, his "ego" kicks in again claiming that he came here to become the best in the world, and instead chooses to aim for the stronger strikers. The sleeper striker, who turns out to be named Meguru Bachira (ranked 290-Z) catches on to what Isagi's going for, and agrees with such logic. Thus, at 10 seconds remaining, Bachira purposefully steals the ball from Isagi in order to become the new "it," and take out the strongest striker himself. Aiming for Kira, Bachira hits the ball at him. Kira manages to dodge, which Bachira then tries to kick him in the head. Kira once again manages to dodge and tries to run away, but Bachira manages to rebound his previous ball kick, and instead of going for Kira again decides to pass it to Isagi. With 3 seconds remaining, Isagi's "ego" kicks in knowing he must go for the strongest, and smashes the ball into Kira's face. The last second drains off the clock, and Kira is deemed the loser being the "it" as time expired.

The Tag game is over, and Kira is left stunned in disbelief that Isagi decided to go for him. Isagi tries to explain himself that he was just caught up in the moment as Ego appears on the television to announce that Kira, Room Z's best striker, is hereby expelled from Blue Lock. The announcement enrages Kira for the first time being unable to believe that Ego would choose to erase a talent such as him that's been deemed Japan's national treasure, and questions why the lesser skilled players, Igarashi or Isagi, get to stay. He also calls out the Tag game as being nothing like football, but Ego assures him that everything they're doing at Blue Lock is related to football. He calls for the strikers to look at the room they're in, and points out that it's the exact same size as a football field's penalty area, 16.5 x 40.32 meters. Ego further explains that this area is the important domain of all strikers as 75% of all goals are scored within the penalty area as one's positioning skills within a small area means everything. Thus, he states to Kira that those unable to survive the conditions of the penalty area means they're not qualified to be talented strikers.

Still raging, Kira is unable to accept it as the room's size has nothing to do with Tag. However, Ego counters by explaining how the fleeing and pursuing concepts of Tag play into being optimal training for football. That Kira failed at tactical awareness positioning when it comes to being the one fleeing while the ones pursuing him displayed accurate dribbling and percision shooting. Kira continues to shout finding it unbelievable that Ego expected him to figure all this out within a game that lasted just 2 minutes when a normal football game lasts for 90 minutes, but Ego counters again that the 136 seconds they were given is the average time that a player would normally have holding the soccer ball to have an opportunity to make plays over the course of the 90 minutes. Kira still refuses to accept it since he was only part of the actual Tag play for about 10 seconds, but Ego calls him out on that line of thinking if this was an actual game. He reminds Kira that after Isagi smashed him in the face, he still had 1 final second to hit the ball at the injured Igarashi. However, Kira wasted the chance by not going for it.

Ego brings up a scenario where on the last play of the game, a teammate's shot in the penalty area doesn't reach the goal because it instead hit Kira's body. He also points out that given what Kira failed to do in the Tag game, Kira would instead just look at the ball bouncing off him already believing that his team has lost, and wouldn't go after the soccer ball that's just sitting there in front of him ready to be kicked towards the goal. Overall, Ego states that the reason for Kira's loss is because the latter didn't notice the sheer luck that the ball had fallen right in front of him, and had the opportunity to save himself from his mistake. Ego then switches to talking about how the "it" in Tag is the one who decides who wins and loses; a striker who carries all responsibility on their back fighting to the very last second. He explains how the "egoism" he's searching for where one has the tenacity and courage to put their own will over the team was displayed by Isagi and Bachira. Isagi because he chose to go for the strongest over the injured Igarashi, and Bachira because he went after the strongest player. Feeling that everything's been said, Ego tells the loser, Kira, one last time to piss off.

Kira struggles to say anything blaming Bachira that he ended up in an embarrassing QBK-type scenario that resulted in his defeat. He gives one last enraged glare at Isagi as he's forced to vacate Blue Lock finding everything about this completely wrong. Isagi is unable to say anything thinking over why he chose to kick it at Kira and put an end to the latter's football career. He also remains confused unable to understand why he feels so pumped that he pulled off what he did. Isagi then catches on that the reason this all happened was because of Bachira. He questions Bachira why he passed it since he would have remained the "it" and gotten himself expelled if Isagi didn't choose to kick it at Kira. In return, Bachira claims that he just believed that Isagi looked like someone who would kick it, which the confused Isagi finds to be complete nonsense. Hearing the conversation, Ego agrees that it's nonsense, but they're now in a world where it's win or lose. That when it comes to being a true striker, they have to tread the path of winning or losing everything in order to keep surviving. He asks how the game of Tag was if this was the first time they've ever felt true danger. That the feeling of being shocked and scared is the true essence of Blue Lock.

Ego next asks if they're feeling shivers at the fact that they're now experiencing a type of football not designed for weaklings. He points out that they must be having the "Nice! I survived!" moment in their heads at the moment after achieving victory, and orders them all to shove it in their brains since their "ego" will grow the more they rejoice in that feeling as they climb to become the best striker in the world. With all that said, Ego congratulates the 11 strikers remaining in Room Z for passing the entrance test. He asks for them all to cohabitate together as their room was designed to accommodate up to 11 people. Along with Isagi, Bachira, Kunigami and Igarashi, the other 7 strikers of Room Z include Jingo Raichi, Wataru Kuon, Okuhito Iemon, Yudai Imamura, Asahi Naruhaya, Gin Gagamaru and Hyoma Chigiri. Ego explains that this will be Blue Lock's Team Z, and that they will have to trample over each other as rivals, or by cooperating and betraying one another, in order to become the best striker.