Adidas, the shoes that pay homage to the Japanese cartoon Holly and Benji
ROME – The sportswear company "Adidas" has decided to pay tribute to the Japanese cartoon on football " Holly and Benji " with special shoes that will be called Capitan Tsubasa (original name of the Japanese manga spokesman on football). These shoes will be available for everyone shortly but so far they have been worn only by Lukas Podolski, a former German champion who is ending his career in Japan with the Vissel Kobe shirt.
As Wikipedia writes, the comic tells the story of a champion of Japanese football who, after growing up in the Nankatsu school, at 15 years of age leaves Japan to venture into Brazilian football and subsequently becomes a professional in Brazil first and then in Europe.
The manga consists of five series: Captain Tsubasa ( Captain Tsubasa in Italy), World Youth , Road to 2002 (born to celebrate the 2002 World Cup held in Japan and South Korea), Golden-23 and Rising Sun. The first three series of the manga have given life to as many series of a very successful anime, broadcast in Italy with the title Holly and Benji . There have also been 5 films about Captain Tsubasa and there are several special volumes on this series.
Captain Tsubasa has been very successful both in Japan and in the rest of the world. In Italy it is one of the most popular series . Captain Tsubasa helped spread football in Japan and many believe that it was one of the factors that contributed to the improvement of the performance of the Japanese national team which in 1998 qualified for the first time in the World Cup (even if it had already qualified in 1938 , but was forced to retire) and in 2002 she even managed to reach the round of 16.
Many famous footballers such as Hidetoshi Nakata, Alessandro Del Piero, Fernando Torres, Lukas Podolski, Thierry Henry, Gennaro Gattuso, Alexis Sánchez and Andrés Iniesta, were inspired by the series, which helped to bring the passion for the game to birth and grow in them of football. In Italy the manga is published by Star Comics (sources Adidas and Wikipedia).
Source: Blitz Quotidiano