Captain Tsubasa

***Captain Tsubasa*** is a Japanese manga series, originally created by Yōichi Takahashi in 1981. The series mainly revolves around the sport of association football focusing on Tsubasa Oozora. The series is characterized by dynamic and exciting football moves, often stylish and implausible. The plot focuses on Tsubasa's relationship with his friends, rivalry with his opponents, training, competition and the action and outcome of each football match. Across the multiple *Captain Tsubasa* mangas, the plot shows Tsubasa's and his friends' growth as they face new rivals. Takahashi decided to create *Captain Tsubasa* inspired by 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina.

The *Captain Tsubasa* manga series was originally serialized in Shueisha's *Weekly Shōnen Jump* comic book magazine between 1981 and 1988, spanning a total of 37 *tankōbon* volumes. This was followed by numerous sequels. *Captain Tsubasa* and its sequels have sold over 80 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series. The original *Captain Tsubasa* manga series was adapted into a TV animation series, produced by Tsuchida Production, whose first season premiered in Japan on the TV Tokyo network between October 1983 and March 1986. Numerous movies and television series have followed with the latest one airing between April 2018 and April 2019.

*Captain Tsubasa* became one of the most memorable manga and anime 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 41 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 only barely 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 shotpower – 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.

Tsubasa meets Taro Misaki, who has travelled around Japan due to his father's job and soon joins Nankatsu. The two become the best of friends on the pitch and real life, forming a partnership soon to be renowned as the "Golden Duo" or "dynamic duo" of Nankatsu. Soon Tsubasa and his Nankatsu team start taking on the best of elementary school football, meeting such talented players as Kojiro Hyuga, Ken Wakashimazu, Jun Misugi, Hikaru Matsuyama and many others. Tsubasa's Nankatsu squad wins numerous youth national championships and he wins the U-17 World Championships for Japan, before leaving the country to play in Brazil.

### *World Youth*

Tsubasa leaves Japan for Brazil and starts playing, with his mentor Roberto as the manager, for São Paulo (F.C. Brancos in the anime), in Brazil's premier professional league, Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, winning the final against Flamengo (F.C. Domingos in the anime) 4–3. While in Brazil, Tsubasa gets to meet several talented Brazilian players, such as his teammate and roommate Pepe, who comes from a humble background, as well Flamengo star striker Carlos Santana, a prodigious yet emotionless talent.

Enthusiastic football-loving youngster Shingo Aoi, whom Tsubasa once played against while in the high school national championships, leaves Japan to play football in Italy, where he hopes to play for a major Italian professional team. After arriving in Italy, however, Shingo gets tricked by a man who gives him fraudulent promises of getting him selected for an Italian team. After Shingo is taken to a badly furnished field, the man runs away, stealing all his money. Shingo realizes that he is swindled and tries hard to get his money back, doing such jobs as shoe-shining, until his enthusiastic attitude catches the eye of one of the coaches of Inter Milan (Intina in the anime), who sign him to play for their squad as an attacking midfielder.

The Japan's youth side plays the first phase of AFC Youth Championship without Taro Misaki, Makoto Soda, Hiroshi Jito, Shun Nitta, the Tachibana brothers Masao and Kazuo and Kojiro Hyuga. After Tsubasa, Wakabayashi and Shingo join the team, it defeats Thailand 5–4 after being 4–1 down at one stage. In the second phase, Japan beats Uzbekistan 8–1, China 6–3 and Saudi Arabia 4–1. In the semifinals, Japan beats Iraq 3–0. The Japanese win the Asia Youth title beating South Korea 2–0 and qualifying for the FIFA World Youth Championship.

In the first phase, Japan defeats Mexico 2–1, Uruguay 6–5 and Italy 4–0. In the quarterfinals, they beat Sweden 1–0 and Netherlands 1–0 in the semifinal. The Japanese win in the "Great Final" the World Youth Championship, defeating Brazil 3–2 after extra time with Tsubasa scoring a hat-trick and the golden goal despite the fact that Brazil used a new player at the extra time called Natureza, who became the third person to score a goal on Wakabayashi from outside the goal area – the first being Karl Heinz Schneider of Germany and second being Sho Shunko of China.

Tsubasa moves from São Paulo to FC Barcelona (FC Catalunya in the anime), in the Spanish Liga, after the end of the FIFA World Youth Championship final, taking his childhood friend and now wife, Sanae. He asked her out before moving to Brazil and the couple maintained a long-distance relationship before he proposed to her after the World Youth Championship.

## Anime

The original *Captain Tsubasa* manga series was quickly adapted into a TV animation series, produced by Tsuchida Production, whose first season premiered in Japan on Tokyo Network between October 10, 1983 and March 27, 1986. This first series adapts the first 25 volumes. Four animated movies followed soon after, between 1985 and 1986, continuing the storyline. In 1989 a new animation series, *Shin Captain Tsubasa*, was produced by Shueisha and CBS Sony Group, Inc. and spanned 13 original video animations (OVAs). *Shin Captain Tsubasa* adapts the manga from volume 25 to volume 36.

The animation series was followed soon after into a second sequel, entitled *Captain Tsubasa J*, which was produced by NAS and Fuji Television and animated by Studio Comet. It aired between October 21, 1994 and December 22, 1995 in Japan on the Fuji TV network and spanned 47 episodes, as well an original video animation, *Captain Tsubasa: Holland Youth*, which was published in 1994.

The animated series was continued on further into a third sequel, *Captain Tsubasa: Road to Dream*, also known as *Captain Tsubasa ~ Road to 2002*, animated by Group TAC, which aired in Japan by TV Tokyo between October 7, 2001 and October 6, 2002, with music published by Avex Mode. All of the versions of the *Captain Tsubasa* animated series have been broadcast by the animation satellite television network Animax across its original network in Japan and later across its respective networks worldwide, including East Asia, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, South Asia and other regions. English dubs of all series have aired on Animax Asia and some episodes of the English dub were released on VCDs by Speedy Video Malaysia. It has been broadcast across several other regions around the world, including Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

In 2018, *Captain Tsubasa* had a new anime also broadcast in TV Tokyo. It is directed by Toshiyuki Kato and produced by David Production. Viz Media have licensed the new anime series. The series aired from April 2, 2018 to April 1, 2019. An English dub began airing on Primo TV in the United States beginning August 4, 2018. An Viet dub began airing on HTV3 in Vietnamese beginning October 20, 2018. An Indonesian and Thai dub began airing on RCTI in Indonesia and PPTV in Thailand, respectively, on February 3, 2019. An Arabic dub began airing on MBC 3 in the MENA region beginning December 1, 2019.