Captain Tsubasa’s Manga Journey, Ended because the Creator Retired – The Captain Tsubasa manga will end after the mangaka or creator, Yoichi Takahashi , decided to retire after working for 43 years. This was announced by the publisher, Shueisha Inc. on January 5, 2024.
The publisher stated that 63-year-old Yoichi Takahashi decided to retire because the digitalization process was changing the creative industry, plus his health was declining.
“Instead of continuing to draw manga to the limit of my physical strength, I decided to stop serializing it so that I could tell the story of Captain Tsubasa to the end,” he said, reported by The Asahi Shimbun (5/1/2024).
Yoichi Takahashi will finish his final series entitled “Captain Tsubasa Rising Sun” in early April 2024.
After retiring, he preferred making storyboards for the animated Captain Tsubasa rather than writing the manga.
Captain Tsubasa was first released through the Weekly Shonen Jump comic collection in 1981.
Captain Tsubasa tells the story of an 11 year old boy named Tsubasa Ozora who is good at playing football.
Quoted from The New Arab (17/11/2022), Tsubasa dreams of the Japanese football team qualifying for the World Cup.
He also joined a junior football team to make his
dream come true by becoming a professional footballer.
The idea for the Tsubasa story originated from the creator, Yoichi Takahashi’s, interest in football after watching the 1978 World Cup on television.
He created Tsubasa to help popularize the sport in Japan. At that time, Japan did not have a professional league.
“I didn’t expect people all over the world to see it,” he said, reported by The Star (5/1/2024).
Takahashi even served as managing director of the Nankatsu SC football club which plays in Japan’s fifth division. The name of this club comes from the name of Tsubasa’s school team from the comic.
This story was serialized into comics for 15 seasons of stories released over more than 40 years. Captain Tsubasa was also made into an anime for five seasons until 2019.
This comic series has sold more than 90 million copies worldwide and is believed to have been published in more than 100 countries.
The final story of this comic in ” Captain Tsubasa Rising Sun” tells of Tsubasa who is aiming for an Olympic gold medal as a member of the Japanese U-23 team.
Captain Tsubasa’s influence in Japan
The Captain Tsubasa comic inspired Japanese football in the ’80s, which did not have a professional league. At that time, Japan had just won a bronze medal at the 1968 Olympics.
The country only had a professional league in 1992. It could even host the 2002 World Cup.
This comic has also inspired a number of former Japanese footballers, such as Hidetoshi Nakata, who played in the Italian League.
He stated that Captain Tsubasa was the reason he chose to play soccer as a child rather than baseball.
Hidetoshi Nakata is an accomplished footballer. He played in the World Cup with the Japanese national team in 1998, 2002 and 2006. Hidetoshi is one of the best Asian players of all time.
Tsubasa also inspired many young people to enter the world of football. This inspiration resulted in achievements when the Japanese women’s soccer team won the 2011 World Cup.