“It bothers me how Blue Lock considers itself Japan’s football manga”

It’s World Cup season and, as I write this post, Japan is doing very well. And do you know who gets a lot of attention during this time? The Blue Lock manga, which ends up promoting many artworks of the characters in national team uniforms, and fans constantly bring up the manga.

The story of Blue Lock is about creating strong enough Japanese players to win the long-awaited World Cup title. But there are people who get irritated by this—Japanese readers who don’t like how Blue Lock presents itself as the “official” World Cup manga.

A tweet sparked a discussion when a Japanese user said the following:

“It bothers me how Blue Lock, every World Cup, acts like it’s Japan’s ‘national’ football manga.”

Honestly, I don’t follow football, so I don’t know how Japanese people react, but at least in the Western tweets I see, people ONLY make edits with Blue Lock. Other Japanese football manga are even forgotten, even Captain Tsubasa.

Every World Cup edit related to anime is filled with Blue Lock scenes and characters. Let’s look at the reactions, because just this tweet already started a big discussion.

• Honestly, this is only on social media where they share scenes of them with wide eyes and dramatic lines, so I have no idea if it’s actually a good football manga—I think only the characters are popular.
• The author of Ao Ashi is really passionate about football.
  I personally recommend Be Blues.
  The national football manga is Angel Voice.
• I avoided Blue Lock without even trying it, but after seeing the comments here I stopped planning to read it. The really good football manga… Fantasista was really fun! I’ll never forget that 100-meter goal scored by the rival who always looked down!
• A manga where a character says he will “get someone pregnant” after scoring a goal is definitely not something that can be considered a proper sports manga.

• If it sells, that’s all that matters. Money is justice.
• I also thought it would be bad just from that scene, but after reading it, it was okay. It’s not realistic at all, but there’s no point comparing it to reality—it’s meant to be enjoyed as fiction.
• Football manga is so weak that Blue Lock has become the second biggest in history.
• Does that “glasses” character actually do anything? If he were truly number one in another field, it would make more sense.
• Captain Tsubasa is already enough as the national football manga.
• I’ve never seen a football manga better than Be Blues.
• But even foreign adults really like Blue Lock. Well, they’re kind of childish anyway.
• Nowadays Blue Lock is more popular with women and children than the actual national team.
• In shonen, sales are everything.
  It sold, so it’s a victory. Content comes later.
• I don’t even read it, but the name is already really weird.
• Football manga used to be common in the early Heisei era, but then the genre seemed to disappear.
• But it also became strangely successful overseas. I guess it’s just because the theme is football?
• Even though it’s criticized so much, it sells like crazy, so for the author it probably doesn’t even matter.
• It’s basically impossible to have “egoists” in a team sport lol

What do you think?