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This Week in Anime - Fantasy Football




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Southkaio



Joined: 11 Jul 2012
Posts: 480
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2026 1:23 pm Reply with quote
Anybody from the United Kingdom remembering ''Antchester United''?
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Lactobacillus yogurti



Joined: 17 Aug 2011
Posts: 916
Location: Latin America
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2026 2:00 pm Reply with quote
Thank you, ANN, for remembering, and explaining, the influence of Captain Tsubasa. It was about time this series got the recognition it deserves in the USA.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 8229
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2026 5:53 pm Reply with quote
Lactobacillus yogurti wrote:
Thank you, ANN, for remembering, and explaining, the influence of Captain Tsubasa. It was about time this series got the recognition it deserves in the USA.


Remember, prior to Haikyuu anime/franchise, the sports genre in anime/manga never get the mainstream appeal in the US. After Haikyuu, it helped sports anime/manga find a wider audiences in the US. And the fact the MLB/Major League Baseball and teams like LA Dodgers, and Seattle Mariners are willing to use anime as a way to promote their brands. It does look promising that we could see more American/US sports team could use anime to promote their brand. I hope maybe Major League Soccer/MLS could use Captain Tsubasa or other soccer anime/manga in the same manner the MLB did for their brand promotion.

I'm not a soccer/football fan, but I'm a big baseball fan, but seeing MLB using anime titles like One Piece and Demon Slayers in their promo makes me wonder if we could see MLB may one day adopt/promote any baseball anime/manga in the US in the near future. I think it would be kind of cool to see MLB working with Mitsuru Adachi to do a commemorative anime/manga artwork for the MLB to show how far sports anime/manga have came from super-niche to having a big mainstream audiences.
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Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1766
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2026 11:56 am Reply with quote
mdo7 wrote:
Remember, prior to Haikyuu anime/franchise, the sports genre in anime/manga never get the mainstream appeal in the US. After Haikyuu, it helped sports anime/manga find a wider audiences in the US.

I thought The Prince of Tennis was the first sports anime that achieved success in the U.S., don't know if I would call it mainstream success, but I remember it being quite popular.
As for Captain Tsubasa, yes, as someone living in South America, I grew up watching the '90s Captain Tsubasa J anime, it was actually one of the first anime that I remember watching as a little kid, I think it was before elementary school, and the thing is that not a sports/football fan in general, but Captain Tsubasa made it feel more interesting. I also watched a lot of Captain Tsubasa: Road to 2002 on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 8229
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2026 1:59 pm Reply with quote
Silver Kirin wrote:
mdo7 wrote:
Remember, prior to Haikyuu anime/franchise, the sports genre in anime/manga never get the mainstream appeal in the US. After Haikyuu, it helped sports anime/manga find a wider audiences in the US.

I thought The Prince of Tennis was the first sports anime that achieved success in the U.S.,


Uh no, The Prince of Tennis was a niche title when first got released in the US back in I believed 2007, I don't think it reached the same type of mainstream success like Haikyuu got. I don't know who gave you that information, but that's incorrect. Haikyuu was the only sports anime/manga to achieve a mainstream success in the US probably due to proliferation of social media, and also anime/manga fandom crossover to a wider mainstream audiences something that Prince of Tennis didn't have back in 2007/late 2000's.

You can read this Answerman article about why sports anime bombed in US/North America. Nowhere the Answerman article doesn't mentioned about Prince of Tennis alleged success in the US like you claim (or whoever gave you that misinformation).

EDIT: I can also add this Reddit thread about sports anime before Haikyuu as 2nd evidence too.
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Romax



Joined: 14 Feb 2026
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Sat Feb 14, 2026 11:32 am Reply with quote
Quote:
While we're talking about titles about girls who prefer to play against the guys, it's the perfect time to bring up Sayonara, Football and its anime adaptation, Farewell, My Dear Cramer. Sylvia and Nicky chatted about the series' prequel film back in 2021, but the anime series itself is an interesting one. Cramer isn't exactly concerned with following the manga beat for beat, skipping past Nozomi's internal struggle with playing on a girl's team (material covered in the film) and getting straight into the larger plot.

When I first heard about this series back in 2021, I was so hyped that I requested one of my relatives to buy me the first four volumes of the manga as a birthday gift. The show ended up being a disappointment (especially from a production standpoint), but I have no regrets about getting the full manga collection.
Quote:
Though, now that we've evoked fujoshis, I'd like to talk about one of the shojo series we read for this column Uwasa no Midori-kun!! which is basically Hana-Kimi if it were about soccer and revenge; which is to say that I like it WAY more than any version of Hana-Kimi that I've experienced! The short of it is that a girl enrolls in her former crush's rival all boys school after he tried to hit it and quit it, and become the star of their soccer team to psychologically destroy him for breaking her heart. I love this story to bits already and see why it got so popular in France!

Damn, this is the first time I've heard about a girl-centric soccer manga made before Sayonara Football, and there seems to be a lot more of those.
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NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 3409
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2026 3:52 pm Reply with quote
Silver Kirin wrote:
I thought The Prince of Tennis was the first sports anime that achieved success in the U.S., don't know if I would call it mainstream success, but I remember it being quite popular.


The show failed here when Viz originally had it so it was in their list of shows that were incomplete on DVD.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 8229
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2026 4:19 pm Reply with quote
NJ_ wrote:
Silver Kirin wrote:
I thought The Prince of Tennis was the first sports anime that achieved success in the U.S., don't know if I would call it mainstream success, but I remember it being quite popular.


The show failed here when Viz originally had it so it was in their list of shows that were incomplete on DVD.


And thank you for that detail to add alongside my post.
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