Update 2025 : this series is changing my life. The author is wise wise. I can't recall the last time I've read fiction this in-touch with the process maturing and becoming intentional in everything you do. I'm in awe. 10 billions stars.
147 Chapters in (about halfway through what's out) and this might have bumped up to one of my favorite pieces of fiction, period. The research into the world of football (soccer for the American) is detailed and thoughtful. The cast is huge but the characters all stand out. It is slow and incremental in its storytelling but every little step of growth for the characters feels naturally satisfying and always building to something greater.
This manga also does something I don't think I've seen anywhere else which is to inspire in a practical way. Not general, feel good, vague, "fist pump in the air" inspiring. That stuff is great and i love it but it's fleeting and has caused me to be frustrated because I think: "why can't I reach those heights". No, this is a down to earth, explanatory, real exploration of the victories and especially the failures that it takes to grow into a more capable person.
There is very technical growth happening here on the micro level which the characters don't always get right all the time. I've actually pulled from some of the lessons and techniques in this series to inspire me to be a better bartender, leader, and teacher.
This series has literally coached me. It is inspiration with substance where I don't just "feel like" I can go and improve whatever craft I'm doing but that i "can" do these things with thoughtfulness, hard work and plenty of failure. Not "you can follow your dreams!", but "this is how you can follow your dreams". And i don't even play football!
There is much more to read so hopefully Ao Ashi stays this way all the way through. So far though, i am thoroughly impressed! (This NEEDS an official English print release).
Comecei a fazer um pequeno curso de extensão nas segundas, terças e quartas (e algumas quintas rs) e por causa disso meu tempo de leitura acabou ficando bem limitado :p
Devido a isso, decidi aproveitar que o mangá de Ao Ashi foi finalizado recentemente e iniciar uma releitura dos volumes que já li e emendar com as continuações.
Dito isso, amo esse mangá e nessa TERCEIRA releitura percebi como esse primeiro volume cresceu dentro de mim. É extremamente emocionante ver onde o Ashito chegou e voltar pra esse momento da história e perceber a evolução do personagem.
Sou completamente apaixonado por essa história e mesmo que esteja no volume 1 de 40 eu meio que já estou com saudade desses personagens :(
Obs1: Recentemente comecei a colecionar as edições físicas desse mangá então estou feliz demais por isso.
Obs2: Aprendi a colocar mangá no Kindle então também estou feliz com isso, mas preciso me acostumar a essa nova dinâmica de leitura, pois acabei migrando pra uma tela menor :p
Pour se faire une bonne idée de cette série, je recommande de lire les tomes 1 et 2, car ils forment un arc. Les tomes 3 et 4 d'ailleurs suivent la même structure.
Je ne suis pas une fan de la lecture de mangas de sport, mais j'adore les voir en animé. Toutefois, je fais une exception pour ce manga car les dessins sont d'un niveau nettement supérieur à tout ce que j'ai vu auparavant. Les couvertures ne furent pas des coups de coeur, mais les ombrages de noir et de gris, les détails des personnages, l'expressivité des visages sont bien dessinés.
Du côté de l'histoire, c'est très riche aussi! Si Haikyû raconte l'aventure d'un passionné de volleyball trop petit pour son sport; si Kuroko celui d'un basketteur qui veut jouer différemment, exploiter la force d'une équipe plutôt que celle d'un individu; dans Ao Ashi c'est l'histoire d'un amoureux de soccer/foot qui n'a jamais pensé en faire une carrière, et qui comprend ce que ce chemin lui permettrait d'expérimenter. J'apprécie particulièrement qu'on souligne qu'il ne vient pas d'une famille très riche (ce qui augmente les barrières vers la réussite), mais sa mère et son frère sont des personnages présents, aimants et importants. Ce manga me semble donc plus réaliste, plus ancré dans la vraie vie des jeunes athlètes, des différentes difficultés qu'ils croiseront.
Avec les dessins, c'est un autre point fort de ce manga prometteur. (La série animée est prévue au printemps 2022, j'ai bien hâte!)
The way the mangaka realistically represented soccer is the reason I really like ao ashi. Every page felt like I'm watching real-life football match, switching from player to audience's pov. Ren and Aoi in esperion vs aomori match is everything. This is football at its purest form.
Aoashi is a manga by Yuugo Kobayashi. It is his first serialisted/ manga of note. In 2020 it won the Shogakukan Manga Award for the general category. The manga has been ongoing since January 2015. There are over 250 chapters published and 27 volumes. The manga will be adopted into an anime by Production I. G. and will premiere in April of 2022.
The manga follows the life of young Ashito Aoi, a very gifted young soccer player who lives in a small rural town. Aoi is a supremely talented technical player, with great first touch, passing as well as off ball movement and flair. But the knock on him is that he is a very selfish player who never passes to others and tries to do everything by himself. That is also the reason why he was kicked out of his middle school soccer club. Nobody liked playing with him, because all he wants to do is be like Ronaldo, and shoot all the time.
His new rural team is in a big match that will help them qualify for a national tournament. They are a couple of goals down, but Ashito manages to score the equalizer, drawing the game 3 to 3. A former teammate tries to provoke him and mightily succeeds. Ashito pulls a Zidane on Matterazzi and headbutts him. He gets a red card and the team loses the game 5 to 3.
What Ashito doesn’t know is that a current youth coach for Esperion FC, a Tokyo based club is at the game. The reason of his visit was just nostalgia. The coach is from this area, and his is also a former international player, who’s promising career got cut short because of a serious injury (in classic anime troupe, they never really tell you what it was, but lets say he has some chronic/degenerative knee issues). He dreams of creating a mighty club with immense youth products. He wants a Japanese La Masia, to create one of the best soccer youth academies in the world. The club itself is already youth oriented, has impressive facilities (to Ashito at least) and features a lot of youth graduates already in the team. Each youth graduate playing a important role in the first team.
During one long night, the coach challenges Ashito to a drill, and Ashito stays up all night trying to accomplish it to the last detail. The coach is also impressed by his tactical acumen. It turns out the kid isn’t selfish, he just knows how good he is and how good everyone else is as well. Their best option was him making plays in transition and he was right. The coach is impressed by all of this, and gives young Aoi an invitation to a trail day for his youth team.
The first volume ends in the middle of the first tests at the Esperion Football Club, but we find out that chances are slim for those who are looking to make the team.
This manga is very realistic in its art style. Some of the side characters really look like they edge to Naoki Urusawa territory. Every character is very distinct, not just the way their hair looks (what lazy artists aspire to) but their whole getup is uniquely and well designed. Its nice to see that not everything has to be bishonen or bishojo. The kid who provokes Ashito and his parents really look like normal, everyday people and its refreshing to see something like that.
I like how the mangaka clearly knows a lot about soccer. He is familiar or is a fan of the sport to a high degree. There are tactical discussions that aren’t just gibberish but actually make sense. The club is well thought out. The way they explained youth development and the various processes involved with it ring true. It touches the stone heart of this Football Manager gaming fan greatly. And what I like most of all, its not shonen in the same way something like Kuroko’s Basketball is shonen. There are no special moves or outlandishly dumb stuff that bastardize the sport. Soccer as well as basketball are globally super popular, no need to invent finishing moves, just show the passion and the skill. Aoashi does that brilliantly.
Will continue reading and hopefully review the whole thing once its all wrapped up.
I'm a big lover of sports manga and anime, so it's not hard to make me enjoy a sports manga. All you need to do is give me a cast of likable characters and some hype matches. Doesn't matter if you chuck in every overused trope, or follow the typical sports manga formula, my monkey brain will still probably be entertained. Ao Ashi did exactly that for me. Yes, there were some differences, like how teamwork was not the focus, and instead, the manga more focused on the individual level of the players. Kind of like a blue lock, though Blue Lock does it much better. Ao Ashi didn't do anything new for me, it's another sports manga that does everything that a sports manga should do.
I haven't written a review since I was like 12. But I'm gonna start writing some. Not for all the books, Just the ones I might feel like talking about. Also not really reviews, just me blabbering to absolutely no one when I feel like it.
Depuis sa sortie, j’ai eu envie de lire ce manga. Par contre, vu qu’il est sorti en même temps que Blue Lock et a le même thème, je ne peux m’empêcher de les comparer un petit peu.
On suit donc Aoi, un collégien qui adore jouer au football même si les gens ont souvent l’impression qu’il se la joue perso. Un jour il est repéré par le directeur des U18 de Tokyo et va donc participer à ces sélections très sélectives. Ce tome nous montre donc le talent d’Aoi ainsi que le début des sélections J’ai bien aimé. Les dessins sont très beaux et le personnage d’Aoi est bien développé. Je l’aime bien. Comparé à Blue Lock, j’ai l’impression qu’ici il faut s’y connaitre un peu plus en foot. De plus, on est moins jeu de survie je pense. J’ai hâte de lire la suite en tout cas
Je recommande aux personnes qui aiment un minimum le foot et l’action
Volume one might be over but the series is barely getting started. We're still in the middle of try-outs (well, in the final examination), with no sign of stopping soon. Which makes the volume difficult to judge! But there's something special here. Our protagonist looks like a selfish ball hog, but his real strength is paying attention to his team and making use of everyone's talents. He'll score goals himself, but credit them to the whole team because he understands how they play. He's a loud-mouth overly confident brat with a big ego, but he cares more about the sport than any big name or popularity. It's fascinating seeing this as a starting point, wondering how he's going to excel (or flounder) as the series goes on while this volume slowly introduces other players, with their own strengths and weaknesses, falling into his sway as they react to him.
Ao Ashi es uno de mis spokones favoritos. Me gusta mucho como Aoi tiene que enfrentar varios obstáculos para lograr convertirse en un jugador profesional.
No obstante, a pesar de ser bueno en los equipos donde ha jugado, carece de técnica y solo se basa en lo que su intuición le dicta. Por lo que en varias ocasiones posee ese toque de "estilo egoísta" que muchos de sus compañeros de equipo no toleran.
Hasta que Tatsuya Fukuda, el entrenador de Tokyo City Esperion, se presenta ante él y descubre cualidades que muchos no han podido ver en el chico.
Así que lo invita a realizar las pruebas de FC Juvenil, dónde el entrenador busca crear un equipo desde cero y vencer así a las grandes ligas como el Barca o el Machenster.
Así que esa será la primera oportunidad de Ashito de poder sobresalir, si claro, su madre se lo permite.
Pour ce manga j'ai donc lu les 3 premiers volumes et je recommande de lire ces 3 premiers volumes pour se faire un vrai avis car comme l'explique le résumé le premier volume présente le personnage jusqu'à l'arrivée au tournoi, le volume 2 présente les sélections pour le U18 et pour finir le volume 3 nous parle donc de l'après. Le manga a d'abord été classé comme Seinen puis re classer shonenen France par mangetsu après quelques recherches et après avoir lu le manga c'est tout simple que les pages de foot sont plus shonen et hors match le scénario tire plus vers le seinen et je pense que c'est ce qui fera sur la longueur sa force et sa différence. Bref j'ai adoré ses 3 premiers volumes on se retrouve dans 1 an pour un avis sur tous les volumes qui seront sorti d'ici là
le rythme est particulièrement lent mais pas désagréable : l'auteur prend le temps de décomposer le football, de ses éléments les plus simples aux plus techniques tout en restant accessible. le cast est sympa, divers, mais on s'y retrouve, et il gère bien les moments un peu plus émotionnels / slice of life qui pour ma part ne sont pas pour me déplaire mais je comprendrais que ça pose peut-être des pb de rythme pour certains.
le main charac est hyper attachant, trop cool, et bref j'aime trop mes manga de sport qu'est-ce que j'ai à ajouter de + que ça rien je crois
Ce premier tome plante le décor. On y découvre Ao Ashi, un jeune doué au football. Après un match compliqué, il rencontre l’entraîneur de l’équipe U18 de Tokyo qui va lui donner des conseils et lui proposer de passer les détections pour tenter de rejoindre son équipe.
Une série de mangas à lire pour tous les passionnés de football !
অবশেষে আমার Kindle টাকে মাঙ্গা পড়ার জন্য যোগ্য করে তুলছি। এটা পড়তে খারাপ লাগেনাই। যদিও খুব বেশি ভালো ও লাগেনাই। এনিমেটা দেখতে বেশি ভালো লাগছে। আর্ট সুন্দর আছে। একটু জুম করে নিলে পড়ে ফেলা যায় ছোট ছোট অক্ষর। গল্প এখনো এনিমে পর্যন্ত এসে পৌছায়নাই। কেবল ভলিউম ২ পড়া শুরু করছি। ১৫ চ্যাপ্টারে আছি আপাতত
Hoes be like "Blue Lock is peak". NAAAAAAAAH BRO WHAT'S PEAK IS AO ASHI!
Seriously stop debating what the best football manga is, hell this one is a contender for best Sports Manga overall, the story is hella goated, the moments hit hard, and the narrative of the tale is amazing! Give it a read yall!
You can feel the love 4 football on every page. Kobayashi senshuu built a beautiful dream for the manga. I love the coach, but mostly Ashito! He is a cinnamon roll, I also love that the family, even if they are struggling the find a way to support him.
Un bon début avec de la tension et des personnages qui ont l'air intéressants. J'ai bien aimé les premières ébauches d'alliance entre les jeunes joueurs et ce premier tome m'a donné envie d'enchainer avec la suite. Les dessins sont assez bien maitrisés même si c'est parfois un peu brouillon.
Une histoire riche, des personnages variés et nuancés ainsi que des dessins sublimes et détaillés. Ce manga mérite qu’on s’y intéresse, même s’il ne conviendra pas forcément à tout le monde.