The Japanese football manga ‘Captain Tsubasa’, whose successful adaptation into an animated series came to Spain as ‘Champions: Oliver and Benji’, ended its run last Thursday after 43 years of publication.
Last January, the Tokyo publisher Shueisha announced the end of Yoichi Takahashi’s manga, which, coinciding with the publication of the last issue, confirmed on its X account that it will continue to carry out creative activities related to Tsubasa (Oliver Atom), the prodigious footballer who stars in the series and gives it its name.
“Thank you very much for all the kind words about the end of the series. I am surprised by the overwhelming response and, once again, I feel grateful to everyone,” the author wrote on the aforementioned social network, where he recalled his first drawings in school primary school and gave more details about the future of its activities.
The web format will be responsible for continuing the stories related to Tsubasa’s life starting this summer with the new Captain Tsubasa World, which will have weekly releases. Takahashi noted that this new format will not require inking or adding screen toning and will allow him to “release stories at a faster pace.”
“When I was in the last grades of elementary school I started drawing original manga in pencil in a white notebook, simply imitating what I saw, and that was the beginning of my career as a manga artist (…) Now I’m going to do the same that I was doing at the time, a manga series with pencil drawings,” Takahashi said.
The author hopes to have “more freedom of expression” from now on, as he assures that he will not have to meet deadlines or minimum page or format size requirements.
The first episode of Captain Tsubasa was printed with the weekly Japanese manga magazine Shukan Shonen Jump in 1981 and the series was adapted for anime and games in more than fifty countries and regions. In Japan, this manga sold more than 90 million copies.
“Not only football players in Japan, but many around the world have been influenced by characters like the protagonist, Tsubasa,” said government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi, when asked about the end of serialization at a press conference. “Their vast recognition of it has played an important role in increasing tourists and empowering content,” he added.
