Captain Tsubasa - Yoichi Takahashi Interview (1/2)

It was a lot of trial and error in the beginning, but as I continued to write, Tsubasa and the other characters began to take on lives of their own—it became natural to imagine what they would do in a given situation. It was almost like they started reacting all by themselves.
When they were still in elementary school, there was a certain pressure to create characters that acted like elementary school students, but once they graduated to middle school, and especially once they became international professional athletes, I was able to rely on the natural flow of events. With Tsubasa, for instance, I would think, "He'd probably be this kind of player at this age," or, "He'd probably play for this kind of team."
When it comes to the characters who appeared in the series from the start in particular, they've now grown up, and I've been able to entrust the story to them. So rather than say that I struggled to develop the series over a long period of time, I would say that the series has progressed naturally thanks to the actions of the characters themselves.

From the beginning, Tsubasa has always dreamed of both becoming the world’s best and bringing Japan to a World Cup victory. And so the themes included both working hard to achieve your dreams and, because football is a team sport, working together with teammates.

Would you believe I hadn't really thought about it, even though the main character in the one-shot before the series was also team captain? (laughs) But the best player on the team is often chosen to be captain, so I did have some inkling that he might become captain one day.

The sport of football is incredibly popular all around the world, and there's the international championship known as the World Cup as well. In addition, football has taken root in different countries in ways unique to those countries. I wanted to portray all those varied aspects of football, and I wanted to portray Tsubasa playing in bigger and bigger matches.
When I started writing the "Elementary School" arc, there was no professional league in Japan, and many said it would be difficult for Japan to even qualify for the World Cup. Since then, football in Japan has progressed rapidly. We're regulars at the World Cup, and I now think it's possible for us to win. Actually, when it first became possible for Japan to try and qualify for the World Cup, I thought to myself, "I need to cheer on Japanese football through manga!"

I've always loved Shinji Mizushima's baseball manga (such as "Dokaben"), so I think I was influenced by his paneling and structuring. I asked myself, "What would it look like to apply some of the elements of Mizushima's baseball manga to football?" But baseball and football are different sports, so it ended up being quite difficult in practice.
For example, in a baseball manga, you only need to show the characters' upper bodies to portray them throwing and hitting balls. But since football is a sport played with your feet, you have to show the characters' entire bodies. And unlike baseball, the eleven players on the field don't stay in a single location. Even forwards have to fall back depending on the state of the match.
That's why I need constant perspective on the entire field when I'm writing. Even when drawing someone shooting the ball, I need to consider the positioning and movement of every player. That way, if the shot misses, I can imagine which players will move in to take the rebound. That's one of the difficult aspects in which football manga differs from baseball manga.

That's right. football also provides more artistic freedom compared to baseball. In baseball, batting stances are fairly standardized, but in football, even a single shot can be made from a variety of different poses. It can be made with the right foot, the left foot, the ball still on the pitch, the ball flying through the air... and so on and so forth. Being free to create whatever poses I want and whatever layout I want is part of the merit of writing a football manga. And part of the fun.

That pose lets me both give shots an even more dynamic appearance, as well as utilize all kinds of different layouts.