The anime series Eyeshield 21 is based on the manga series of the same name written by Riichiro Inagaki and illustrated by Yusuke Murata. The series is directed by Masayoshi Nishida and produced by TV Tokyo, NAS and Gallop. The plot of the episodes follows Sena Kobayakawa, a student who becomes an American football player against his desire but eventually becomes the star of the team, wearing an eyeshield to protect his identity.
Before the anime series was aired, Production I.G announced on August 2003 the production of an original video animation (OVA) that was released on Jump Festa Anime Tour 2003. The production of anime Eyeshield 21 was announced by Weekly Shōnen Jump at the end of 2004.Eyeshield 21 aired between April 6, 2005 and March 19, 2008 on TV Tokyo. The episodes were later released in thirty-six DVD compilations between July 22, 2005 and June 25, 2008 by Bandai Visual.
Viz Media and Cartoon Network released a dubbed version of Eyeshield 21 on the internet video streaming service Toonami Jetstream; the video was available on December 17, 2007. However, it was not completed due to Toonami Jetstream's defunct. The video streaming service Crunchyroll streamed Eyeshield 21 subtitled on its site beginning on January 2, 2009; the last episode was available on November 1, 2009 for premium users, and on March 7, 2010 for free users.Section23 Films through Sentai Filmworks released the first fifty-two episodes on four subtitled-only DVDs between May 18, 2010 and February 8, 2011.
The series use twelve pieces of theme music: five opening and seven ending themes. The opening themes are "Breakthrough" by Coming Century, "Innocence" by 20th Century, "Dang Dang" by ZZ, "Blaze Line" by Back-On, and "Honoo no Running back" (炎のランニングバック, lit. Flaming Running back) by Short Leg Summer. The ending themes are "Be Free" by Ricken's, "Blaze Away" by The Trax, "Goal" by Beni Arashiro, "Run to Win" by Aya Hirano, Miyu Irino, Koichi Nagano and Kappei Yamaguchi, "A day dreaming..." by Back-On, "Flower" by Back-On, and "Song of Power" by Short Leg Summer. Singles have been released of the individual songs, an original soundtrack and other four CDs were also released by Avex.