With a phenomenal success, one of the most popular manga of the moment will be declined in a version that is surprising to say the least.
Many years after the best-known football manga and anime, Captain Tsubasa (Olive et Tom in French), two works have taken up the torch today, in very different styles. With Ao Ashi by Yūgo Kobayashi, we stay in a “pure juice” shōnen formula, quite joyful and based on the adventures of a young sportsman in a very realistic universe. Quite the opposite of Blue Lockby Muneyuki Kaneshiro, which is more like a version Squid Game soccer. The title is also the name of a program described in the script as having been launched by Japan after their elimination from the 2018 World Cup, to train the best possible players from a selection of 300 athletes.
Squid soccer
Contrary to the very principle of this collective sport, here each young footballer sees his partners, at least initially, as potential competitors. The eliminations of some of them inevitably remind Squid Game, with tests that are certainly not deadly, but very trying.
Benefiting from a very significant success, the manga and the anime did not fail to make people talk about them during the last World Cup, thanks to the matches of the Japanese national team, having made a very good start. On social networks, everyone spoke with amusement of the deployment of the project in reality and the author had even produced drawings for the occasion, in honor of the victories of the “Samurai Blue”. Appropriate conditions, which will have made it possible to sell more than 2 million copies of the manga during the competition.
The theater of dreams
After the huge success of the manga, the anime adaptation, currently streaming on Crunchyroll, was anything but a surprise. But we would never have imagined that Blue Lock could be adapted into a play. A very surprising project, of which it is difficult to imagine the scenes, ball at the foot, in such a setting. To be sure, we will have to wait until next year, during which the play will be performed from May 4 to 7 in Osaka. Following the adaptation of The attack of the Titans en show musicalwe end up not being surprised by anything in the world of manga.
