Captain Tsubasa is a manga/anime that has been influential for soccer loving kids around the world for years. I was not aware of how big the title was until I came to Japan because soccer just isn't very big in Canada. You probably have or have not heard of the title depending on where you're from but such soccer greats as Zinedine Zidane, Francesco Totti and Fernando Torres credit Captain Tsubasa as an influence in their love of soccer.

It is the story of Aosora Tsubasa, a gifted young soccer player and follows the story of his rise to greatness through the assistance and rivalries with the characters around him. It first appeared in the early 80s in Shonen Jump, a weekly manga comic that has been around since the 70s and has featured such titles as Dragonball, One Piece and Death Note. There have been a number of Captain Tsubasa series and it quickly became a TV anime after it gained popularity in manga form.

Soccer was gaining popularity in Japan in the 1980's and Captain Tsubasa has been a part of that rise. It has been used as a vehicle in creating popular support for the Fifa World Cup in Japan and Korea during 2002 and has been in the news recently in Japan again. The image of Captain Tsubasa is presently emblazoned on the sides of water delivery trucks in soccer crazy Iraq. He is known as Captain Majed in the Arabic version of the anime and a series was also donated to the Iraq Media Network.

(Image: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)