Captain Tsubasa (キャプテン翼) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yōichi Takahashi. The series mainly revolves around the sport of association football focusing on Tsubasa Oozora and his relationship with his friends, rivalries with his opponents, training, competition, and the action and outcome of each football match. Across the multiple Captain Tsubasa series, the plot shows Tsubasa's and his friends' growth as they face new rivals.
The Captain Tsubasa manga series was originally serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump between 1981 and 1988, with the chapters collected in 37 volumes. It was followed by various manga sequels. The original manga series was adapted into an anime television series by Tsuchida Production and broadcast on TV Tokyo from 1983 to 1986. Numerous movies and television series have followed with the latest one airing between 2018 and 2019; a second season premiered in 2023.
By 2023, the overall manga had over 90 million copies in circulation worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. Captain Tsubasa became one of the most popular manga and anime series worldwide, most notably in Japan due to how it popularized association football. Multiple real life players have been inspired to become professionals after seeing the series. In a poll conducted by TV Asahi in 2005, the Captain Tsubasa anime series ranked 41st in a list of top 100 anime series.
Plot
Captain Tsubasa
Tsubasa Oozora is an 11-year-old elementary school student who is deeply in love with football and dreams of one day winning the FIFA World Cup for Japan. He lives together with his mother in Japan, while his father is a seafaring captain who travels around the world. Tsubasa is known as the Soccer no Moshigo which translates as "heaven-sent child of football". When he was almost a year old, he was almost run over by a rushing bus while playing with a ball. However, Tsubasa held the ball in front of him which served as a cushion for most of the impact. The force of the bump blew him away, but he was able to right himself with the ball. Hence, Tsubasa's motto of "The ball is my friend". Ever since he was little, he always went out with a ball. His mother concludes that he was indeed born to only play football. At a very young age, Tsubasa already had amazing speed, stamina, dribbling skills and shooting power – he astounded anyone who saw him play.
At the beginning of the story, Tsubasa and his mom both move to the city of Nankatsu, a fictional town in Shizuoka Prefecture well known for their talented elementary school football teams and where Tsubasa meets Ryo Ishizaki, a football-loving young student who often sneaks out from his mother's public bath houses and chores to play football. He meets Sanae Nakazawa (also known as Anego) an enthusiastic girl who also loves football and helps cheer the Nankatsu high school team on and Genzo Wakabayashi, a highly talented young goalkeeper whom he soon challenges to a game in Nankatsu's annual sports festival. He also meets Roberto Hongo, one of the best Brazilian footballers in the world who is a friend of Tsubasa's father and who starts living with Tsubasa and his mother in order to train Tsubasa. Roberto becomes a mentor to Tsubasa and helps him to harness his football skills, convincing him to join Nankatsu Elementary School and its fledgling elementary school football team, which Roberto later coaches as he passes his techniques onto Tsubasa.
Production
Yoichi Takahashi was delighted by association football after seeing the 1978 FIFA World Cup. The matches, players, and fans' love towards the sport inspired him to write a manga about football. Another relevant aspect on this decision was the fact that Takahashi liked football more than baseball because he considered the players to have more freedom during matches.[6] Despite football not being popular in Japan, Takahashi aimed to depict it through his manga and to reach the general public. Because of the non-popularity of the subject, getting the approval to write the manga by its publisher, Shueisha, took between 2 and 3 years, which was also difficult since it was his first manga.[6] Rather than using professional players, the manga author instead used children as protagonists, hoping readers would identify themselves with the cast. Nevertheless, Takahashi already had in mind that through the series the main characters would grow up and become professionals.[7]
In the making of the cast, Takahashi designed multiple characters with different traits in order to deliver multiple traits that would serve as obstacles for Tsubasa to surpass. The large number of characters made Takahashi careful with their designs and he wanted to give each of them recognizable features. One of Tsubasa's early rivals, Jun Misugi, was given skills that surpassed the protagonist's. As a result, he gave Misugi a heart condition that would balance the match between their teams.
Media
Manga
Written and illustrated by Yōichi Takahashi, the first Captain Tsubasa started in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump on March 31, 1981, and finished in the May 9, 1988, issue,[16] with its chapters collected in 37 volumes, released from January 9, 1982,[17] to March 10, 1989.[18] The series has spawned various one-shots and sequels. In January 2024, Takahashi announced that he would retire from serializing manga, and the series' final part, Captain Tsubasa: Rising Sun – The Final, ended on April 4, 2024.[19] In April 2024, it was announced that Captain Tsubasa: Rising Sun would continue with a new story arc in the form of storyboards on the Captain Tsubasa World website under the title Captain Tsubasa: Rising Sun Finals;
Reception and legacy
The manga series had a circulation of 70 million volumes within Japan by 2008, 82 million copies worldwide by 2018,[94] and had over 90 million copies in circulation worldwide by 2023.[95] In 2001, the anime series was ranked 49th in Animage's "Top 100" anime productions list.[96] The anime adaptation has also been very popular in Japan. In 2005, Japanese television network TV Asahi conducted a "Top 100" online web poll and nationwide survey: Captain Tsubasa placed 41st in the online poll and thirtieth in the survey.[97][98] In 2006, TV Asahi conducted another online poll for the top one hundred anime and Captain Tsubasa placed 16th on "The Celebrity List".[99]
Further reading
External links
References
- Captain Tsubasa ~ World youth volume 2 Star Comics^
- Captain Tsubasa ~ Road to Dream anime synopsis Enoki Films, retrieved October 30, 2005^
- Flash Kicker Animax India, June 30, 2007, retrieved July 23, 2009^