February 1 this year is the first day of the Lunar New Year, and it is reasonable to say that every family is celebrating the holiday happily.
But...... Some people have to add to the blockage of everyone during the New Year, yes, I am talking about the men's football team.
In contrast, the women's football team won the Asian Cup on February 6, which was simply exciting, and also slapped the men's football team in the face.
The operation of the men's football team to refresh the lower limit is also to make the Netizens of the New Year angry, want to scold people on the Internet, but think carefully, the past men's football has always been like this, including this time is no exception, otherwise "national football" will not become synonymous with bad.
Even the underperforming domestic animation industry has been described as "national football" by some people...
01. Blame domestic anime?
This statement was circulated from Tieba in the early years, and a landlord posted that the national football team could not do it to blame the country for not being powerful.
The reason given by the landlord for this is this, next door Japan will not be able to draw anything, for example, the football player will immediately improve as soon as he comes out, indicating that the popularity of a sports anime has a positive effect on the corresponding sports.
Nearly ten years later, on February 2, 2022, another landlord on Tieba expressed a similar point of view, but the content became because no children like football, so no one liked football from an early age, resulting in no successor.
If you ask me what I think of their statements, it is natural to feel very one-sided, very subjective, and difficult to convince.
However, whether it is the speech of the former landlord or the speech of the latter landlord, they are all taking the example of the future of football, and they all claim that Japanese football can become stronger, which is closely related to this anime.
Since they can say such a reason, it is natural to study it carefully to see if it is true.
In the past, when everyone watched the animation or sat on the TV set to watch, "Football Boy" has already appeared in front of everyone's eyes, especially the image of the protagonist of the work is impressive.
"Soccer Boy" is a football-themed youth-blooded manga created by manga artist Yoichi Takahashi, also translated as "Captain Winglet", which tells the story of the juvenile big wing with superb football skills from the sixth grade of elementary school to the entry into professional football.
The manga began serialization in 1981's Weekly Shonen JUMP, with a total of 114 episodes and a 37-volume one-shot edition divided into three parts.
The first part tells the story of the duel between the Big Air Wing and Wakabayashi after moving to Nankaku City and ending until winning the National Junior Football Championship;
The second part tells the story of Ōku wing after attending Nankatsu Junior High School and competing with Hyuga for the national junior high school football championship, and finally Wing successfully won the triple championship, and Toho Gakuen also won the championship for the first time;
The third part tells the story of the big air wing leading the Jr. youth team from all over Japan to win the world championship in France.
The main theme of the comic is to convey the fun and charm of football, so as to stimulate the reader's interest in football, perhaps because of this, the author always likes to add a variety of unscientific "must kill shots" in the drawing of the kicking plot.
For example, the signature technique "Upside Down Golden Hook", or the almost metaphysical "curve shot", or the domineering "Tiger Shooting Ball", although the second sense is full, but for many teenagers who are already in the second stage, such a setting is too blood-boiling.
In addition, the manga also focuses on the story of the protagonist and friends' passionate youth, such as the pure love of football embodied in the place where the big air wing is injured, the tenacious fighting spirit of Hyuga Kojiro who never accepts defeat, and his relationship with the little wing.
Through these psychological portrayals of personal growth, the author has created many charismatic characters, making the work more humane while the plot is wonderful.
It is precisely because of these points of view that the "Soccer Boy" manga has been welcomed by everyone as soon as it was serialized, and it has also accumulated a popular foundation for the later animation.
In 1983, the manga was first adapted into a television anime broadcast, which set off a football boom in Japan in the 1980s, and it is said that in the six years of the manga series, the registered football population of elementary school students reached 240,000 from 110,000, and the football supplies in sporting goods stores were sold out, and the school youth football clubs were crowded.
Even in the streets and alleys, you can see hordes of children playing football everywhere, imitating the big empty wing killer skills in the comics--- hanging golden hooks upside down, and shooting with both feet.
The huge number of participants can provide a high-quality supply and reserve of strength for Japanese professional football, because every child has the possibility of becoming a future star, but whether he has this talent or not can only be screened through tests.
If more people apply, then the chance of screening out outstanding talents will be greater, which will add a stronger force to the motherland.
02. When the manga shines into reality
At the beginning of the manga series, Japan's football strength was also very bad, in the 1980 World Cup qualifiers, Japan lost 0-1 to the national football team, missed the qualification for the 1982 Spanish World Cup.
After the anime aired, commentators who had been in charge of the live broadcast of Italy's victory at the 1982 World Cup in Spain also asked this question--- "I don't know how long it will take for Japan to win the World Cup." ”
Fast forward to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Japan's final match was against the world's top five Belgium team, even as the only Asian team to reach the top sixteen of the World Cup at that time, the Japanese team was still a huge disparity in strength against Belgium.
In the FIFA rankings, Belgium is ranked 5th and Japan is 55th, and most of the Belgian players are playing in the Premier League, with a clear advantage in high-intensity physical confrontation.
In terms of strength, the winner or loser of this match has undoubtedly been decided, but even so, the Japanese team still played the process of the game excitingly.
After the first half of the first half when neither side scored, the Japanese team scored two goals in a row in four minutes, once opening up the point difference, making the audience feel boiling, and even once making the Japanese fans feel hopeful of defeating the strong team to reach the world's quarter-finals.
The leading Japanese team also controlled the first half perfectly, not allowing the powerful Belgian team to score, until the Belgian team finally chose to make a desperate bet in the second half, and under the opponent's superior physical and technical advantages, they were scored three goals in a row at the last moment, especially the last goal was the last moment of the stoppage time.
The Members of the Japanese team who passed by the victory cried one by one, and the unwilling emotions filled everyone, and although the defeat was painful, they were proud of their defeat, because they won another precious thing--- the respect of their opponents and the admiration of the audience.
FIFA World Official posted on Twitter, thanking Japan for everything it has brought to the audience at this World Cup.
At that time, the audience held aloft the large poster of "Football Boy", cheering for the blue figure running on the green field, and the scene in the comic seemed to reflect reality at that moment.
There is no doubt that Japanese football has been able to have such a significant growth in strength in these more than 30 years, and indeed it can be attributed to "Soccer Boy" and its creator Yoichi Takahashi.
Because of its influence, "Soccer Boy" has been listed as the pinnacle of Japanese sports manga by the industry along with manga such as "Slam Dunk Master" and "Baseball Hero", and it is worth mentioning that the mainstream sport in Japan before the "Soccer Boy" manga series was baseball.
Japanese football has become stronger because of "Soccer Boy", but it is not only Japan that is influenced by "Soccer Boy", it is deeply affected in Asia, Europe and other places.
Famous stars like Zidane, Henry, Messi, Kaka and others are hardcore fans of Football Junior.
Of course, in our country, it is also the football enlightenment of most people after the 80s and 90s.
Looking at Japanese football that has embarked on the road to becoming stronger because of an anime, as anime fans, such a story is really too two-dimensional romance, but unfortunately it did not happen to the national football team, and there is no similar phenomenon-level sports anime in China so far.
But regret is regrettable, if someone transfers the failure of the national football team to the national comic because of this, it must be wrong.
If you want to analyze the problem of Chinese men's football in depth, you will find that this is not a "Football Boy" level animation at all, and it can even involve more ambitious and complex issues, but because the factors involved are too deep, I am not going to discuss it here.
Moreover, if you leave aside "Football Boy", in fact, the miracle of this anime changing football is really just a miracle.
The same famous "Slam Dunk Master" next door did not make the strength of the Japanese basketball team significantly stronger, they are still in the middle and lower levels, and the same "Chess Soul" did not make Japan's Go stronger and stronger, but it fell halfway because of the talent break after the boom.
Therefore, the reasons for these two Tieba brothers are not completely valid.
03. Finally
However, there is a fact that I have to admit that "Slam Dunk Master" and "Chess Soul" have indeed played a positive role in the Chinese and Japanese basketball and Go industries.
It is said that many of the domestic post-80s and post-90s people liked to play basketball when they first liked to watch "Slam Dunk Master" on TV and were deeply affected, at that time the Internet was not very developed, and it was impossible to carry out transnational network live broadcasting, so that everyone did not know the NBA, so the initial impression of basketball games was learned on this classic anime.
It can be said that "Slam Dunk Master" carries the youth of these two generations, and the "basketball genius" Sakuragi Hanamichi in the film does not know how many people have changed their jersey number to the same as his 10.
When the manga series became popular at that time, "Chess Soul" also made great contributions to the development of the Japanese Go industry, and the population of Go quickly rose from more than three million to more than four million, the vast majority of which were teenagers.
In China's authoritative Go magazine "Go Heaven and Earth", the media has also carried out a large-scale special report on "Chess Soul", indicating that the influence of "Chess Soul" can be seen.
These are the positive significance of well-known animations for sports, but their role is obviously very limited, and it is good to popularize and disseminate them to the civilian public, but if it is really in the professional field, the shortcomings of them will be exposed.
And "Football Boy" is just one of the "survivors".
It's just that for some geniuses who will eventually shine, if they can plant seeds in their hearts because of a domestic anime in the early days of their lives, then in the future arduous and lonely dream-chasing journey, they should also be able to walk more tenaciously, right?
In short, whether it is a national football team, a national comic, or even a domestic game, if you want to really change the current predicament, if you do not completely pull out the root of the disease and remove it, it will only be a salted fish that cannot be turned over.