Yoichi Takahashi's "Soccer Boy" inspired Stephen Chow's film? 丨 Night asked

Answer: Shaolin Soccer.

This year is 40 years after the comic strip Soccer Boy came out. Soccer Boy is a Japanese manga based on football created by Japanese manga artist Yoichi Takahashi. The manga tells the story of the protagonist "Big Air Wing", who loves football, in order to realize his dreams, he has participated in the national elementary and junior high school competitions, led the all-Japanese junior team to Europe to participate in the international junior competition, and finally traveled to Brazil to meet with his life mentor "Robert Hongo". In the sequels that followed, the protagonist continued to grow, rushing out of Japan and going to the world.

This manga is listed as the pinnacle of Japanese sports manga alongside Slam Dunk Master and Baseball Hero. On October 13, 1983, TV Tokyo broadcast the anime of the same name, with a maximum rating of 21.2%. After the animation was exported overseas, it affected many post-70s and post-80s, and even many famous players have said that they have been influenced by "Football Junior", such as Japan's Nori Kawaguchi, Hidetoshi Nakata, Shinji Ono and other players, as well as trezeguet, Ronaldinho, Aguero and other stars.

This work also deeply influenced the creators of Chinese films. Stephen Chow once said in an interview that he had always wanted to make football anime into a movie. After combining football and kung fu, the effect is as amazing as the surreal performance method in the anime, and we can see some of the shadows of "Football Boy" from "Shaolin Soccer".

Edited by Wu Longzhen

Proofreading Li Lijun